by Will Harker
He sauntered over and held out a sunburned hand. Against that reddened skin, the swastika tattoo shone like a brand. A foolish mistake of youth, he’d told us in his first interview. That lie had been accompanied by his trademark smirk, a sideways tilt of the lips which, within twelve hours, would earn him the most vicious beating he’d ever taken. He’d whimpered then, trembling in the corner of the interview room, pissing his station-issue trousers while half a dozen officers hauled me into the corridor.
Lenny Kerrigan showed no fear now, simply sighed and dropped his unshaken hand into his pocket.
“Ah, but you’re a bad loser, Scott. It took me ages to track you down and now I’m here, you can’t even play nice. Maybe I oughta get my lads together and give you a lesson in…”
He stopped. He had made a serious miscalculation. In the world into which he had stepped, family is family, and even the blackest sheep will be protected. It’s the Traveller’s way, their code almost. There are tales told here, an omertà whisper of paedophiles and women killers who dared to enter this world, of high buildings and hidden foundations that would make a mafioso’s hair curl. My people are, by and large, what they seem—generous purveyors of entertainment—just don’t presume too much on their smile.
While Lenny had been playing the joker, reinforcements had swarmed in behind me. Thirty or more circled the carousel, men with limbs toughened by labour unknown to the scum that made up the Knights of St George, Lenny’s hate group. Leader Lenny shared the same cartoonish physicality as his followers, trapezius muscles hunched up to his ears, biceps ribboned with veins, a head so disproportionate to his inflated body my ancestors might have exhibited him in a pinhead sideshow.
“Brought an army along?” He swallowed. “Same as always, eh? First, you had the filth to back you up and now you’ve gone and rolled out the whole carnival.” His bravado was as airy as the drifts of candy floss that wafted on the breeze.
“What’re you doing here?” I asked.
“Free country, innit? Thought I’d scout the place out, might bring me lad along at the weekend. Loves his rides, my boy.”
He had a son roughly the same age as the Malanowski girl, Sonia. We’d tried that angle in the second interview, a gambit of Garris’ that hadn’t paid off. Usually, the sly old fox was good at reading people, finding chinks in the most psychopathic armour, but he’d misjudged Kerrigan. No appeal to common fatherly feeling had shaken that shit-eating grin.
“I’m not a fan of pikies as a rule,” he continued. “But I can make an exception for an old mate. You’re looking well, DC Jericho.”
I nodded. “Wish I could say the same.”
He’d had the best reconstructive surgery money could buy: the fact I’d had to sell my house after the civil case he’d brought against me was a testament to that. Still, I’d jumbled his deck pretty nicely and there’s only so much a surgeon can do when some of the cards are missing.
“Fair play,” he shrugged. “Honestly though, I weren’t expecting you to lose it like that over a couple of deep-fried Poles. It’s funny though, looking back. That old scarecrow Garris just sitting there while you lost your fucking mind. Thought he knew you, I bet. His golden boy. I wonder if he’s still proud, even though you fucked his case and made him look like a proper cunt. But I got you both, didn’t I?” Lost in his victory, he dared to come within striking distance of those twitching fists that had done him so much damage. “You winding up inside and him brought low.”
“That?” I sketched a smile. “That had nothing to do with you. I lost it, I failed. Garris is still working, still putting little psychos like you away. All you did was push a lit rag through a letterbox, then scream and cry and piss yourself when I smacked you about.”
Spittle flew. “Careful what you say. Call me a murderer and I’ll see you back in court.”
Sal laughed and pressed her small body between us. “Get out of here,” she said, looking Kerrigan up and down. “You’re a no-mark coward and that’s all you are.”
The smirk reappeared. “I’m not the one hiding behind two dozen dirty pikies.”
“No,” I nodded, “you hide behind a balaclava and a greedy lawyer.”
“Do you know what he did when he was inside?” Kerrigan whirled on the spot, arms outstretched. “This pissy little faggot? Know how he made friends up at Hazelhurst? I’ve got all the stories if you want to hear ’em. What’ll happen when I tell your friends, Jericho? Think they’ll still stick up for you after I paint ’em a picture of you on your knees–?”
“Tell them.”
There was a stirring in the ranks, although whether it was anger at Kerrigan or disgust at what they were hearing, I couldn’t say. Finally, he dropped his arms.
“They probably won’t care, whatever they hear. All half-breeds anyway.”
He moved to step out of the circle, then lunged in as if to nut me. I inclined my head, like a priest keen to hear a penitent’s confession.
“You know it was nothing personal, right?” he hushed in my ear. “Them kids didn’t have to go that way. If only their old man had stayed in his Third World shithole. But they won’t listen, Jericho. None of ’em.”
“Get out,” I whispered back. “One minute more on this ground and I will murder you. Do you understand, Kerrigan? I will murder you.”
He pushed past me, and just like that, it was over. Hands clasped my shoulder and I listened to the catcalls that accompanied Kerrigan off the ground. A few would probably tail him to his car, but there’d be no violence. They knew my position, and more importantly that of my dad. Old man Jericho was the boss of the firm, the one who negotiated with the authorities for our licences to trade, permissions that can be revoked at the first hint of disorder.
“All right, son?” Sam Urnshaw approached. “Little Sam says your dad’s gone back to the yard to pick up a lorry. I can’t get him on his phone.”
I wasn’t listening. My blood was up. Kerrigan’s arrival at almost the same moment as a flashback of the Malanowski case wasn’t a huge coincidence. He might have turned up at virtually any point over the past two months and caught me mid-nightmare, but why come at all? Had he tracked me down just to taunt me? That wasn’t his style. Oh sure, he’d lay in an insult or two but they’d almost certainly be doled out in some lonely alley where he and twenty of his goons had gathered in advance. So why wander into the fair alone and unguarded? Once I might have been able to guess but my brain was an idle, lumbering thing. It needed exercise.
I scanned the crowd. Noise everywhere—music, laughter, the clack of barley in the neighbouring field, the tattle of tokens. I took a breath, tasted oil, sweat, axel grease, aerated sugar, the dull smack of a chap’s cheap aftershave…
There. At the corner of the helter-skelter, I saw him, watching as intently as he himself was watched. My heart pounded and, for the first time in a long time, my mind craved a puzzle. A small one, just to get the juices flowing.
“Where are you going?” Sal asked as I made to step away. “Look, why don’t you come back to the trailer? Jodie’d love to see you.”
“Can’t,” I shot back. “Something I need to do.”
I lurched off, away from Big Sam and Sal Myers, in pursuit now of a second monster who had come to the fair.
CHAPTER THREE
THE SKILLS OF A SHOWMAN are born of his trade.
First, he must hone the ability to speak the spiel, to chat the chat, to gain the confidence of every kind of punter. Second, his business is observation. A fair might run a week but there’ll only be a few golden hours each night in which his living must be earned. In that time, he’ll assess tiny gestures: the flutter of a finger over a pocket; the evidence of cash already spent in the form of sugared lips and torn ticket stubs; the firm or carefree steerage of a child. Third, and most importantly, he’ll know human nature. The fair is the last great leveller. All human life passes through our turnstiles and, over centuries, we’ve learned their ways, the
ir quirks and commonalities, the patterns that perhaps only priests and showmen can read.
Some of these gifts I acquired in my first eighteen years living the life, others seem hardwired into me. Strange thing is, it wasn’t until Pete Garris pointed it out that I realised these were also the skills of a gifted detective.
I put them to use now.
For obvious reasons, paedophiles are attracted to fairgrounds. Not that showpeople ever give them much of a chance. A strongly-worded warning usually sends them on their way, and so I followed this specimen to the northbound exit. He wasn’t your typical nonce. He walked with a twitchy gait, his appearance stark among the crowd: a Mohican with flame-dyed side-panels, chin piercing, retro Stones T-shirt hanging off his toothpick torso, pinstriped trousers and neon green trainers. Almost as if he wanted to be noticed.
The fairground fell away and we entered the churned-up field that served as a temporary car park. Families clustered around their saloons, mums and dads distracted by the complexity of infant seats, toddlers galore, ripe for the picking. The human exclamation point I was tailing didn’t spare them a glance. He was focused only on escape, and yet…
Why did he slow when a four-by-four trundled across my path? There were seconds now, ample moments in which to disappear, but the car passed and I located him in exactly the same position. I frowned. I’d seen a lot during my time in uniform, things that ought to have inured me to the sight of the Malanowski kids in their wardrobe coffin, yet nothing of the typical predator profile fitted this guy.
He kept looking back, nervous as hell yet somehow tethered to me. The fair was no more than a throbbing thumbprint in the sky by the time we reached the main road and took our odd little game into the commercial heart of the town. It was here, amid spruced up canals and repurposed warehouses, that a possibility occurred.
Was this a trap? A strategy of Kerrigan’s to pull me out of the safety of the ground? He comes to the fair and puts on a display, all mock menace, then introduces bait he knows will catch my eye. The nonce is the sacrificial lamb, coerced by Kerrigan into playing the lure, and if he takes a punch or two before the Knights of St George arrive on the scene? Well, the fascists claim they have no love for kiddie fiddlers.
But all this presupposed a cunning that was alien to Kerrigan, a man who only got away with murder because the lead interviewer on his case had beaten the ever-living shit out of him. And anyway, he knew I needed no inducement—if he’d invited me to a meeting, I would have gladly attended.
We passed down a brightly painted quayside at an almost companionable saunter. The guy’s shoulders relaxed a little. We were on home turf. Through a narrow alley we came into a Disneyland version of a Dickens’ dockyard, its once polluted face scraped back to the bone. From old customs houses, international coffee shops doled out their wares to chattering pricks in business suits.
Out of the dockyard, into another alley. There could be no question about my having followed him now. He even shot me a gutsy little smile, the kind that would’ve made Jesus climb down from the cross and flip the human race the bird. At the door to a warehouse conversion he stopped, his hand hovering over an entry keypad.
“Please come upstairs. We can talk properly in the flat.” He glanced down at my fists and, for the first time since hearing Kerrigan’s name, I flexed my fingers. “I’ll tell you what you need to know, you won’t have to hurt me.”
He punched in a code and the door clicked. Stepping inside, he wedged it open, then moved across the vestibule and summoned the lift. I accepted his invitation without question and was soon riding the elevator to the fourth floor and accompanying him into his studio apartment. We didn’t exchange a word until his knees came unhinged and he dropped lightly onto a cream-coloured sofa.
The flat reeked of anonymity. I doubted it belonged to the very individual character who sat before me. A space that might once have housed a single gigantic loom had been compartmentalized with waist-level walls, the kind that could allow you to watch TV in bed while freely conversing with the love of your life as he took a shit next door. There was the usual exposed brickwork and cathedral-sized windows giving a stunning view of the blank wall opposite.
“Can I get you something to drink, Mr Jericho?” He was sweating, his powdered face giving way in minuscule avalanches. “I think there might be mineral water in the fridge or I could look for some wine, perhaps?”
I crossed the room and took him by the throat. Police are used to playing games. To play them with a reluctant witness used to be my forte—the gentle art of persuasion being one of those showman specialities. It was only when dealing with a particularly hostile suspect I knew to be guilty that my patience would wear thin. In those situations, Garris would usually take charge. Now I was alone, faced with a puzzle that for the first time in two years piqued my interest and a man who, if not yet a criminal, needed a good scare to stop him in his tracks.
Carrying him to one of those big windows, I used my free hand to unsnib the latch and push open the pane. I popped him onto the lead-framed sill and, grasping his shirtfront, tipped him gently backwards.
“I t-told you,” he blurted. “You don’t need to h-hurt me. I’ll te-ell…”
“Speak slowly,” I advised, “no stammering. I have a headache and Porky Pig was my least favourite Looney Tunes.”
“I wuh…” He closed his eyes, made a supreme effort. “Will. Just pull me back.”
“Let’s see what you have to say first.” I had my sleeve rolled up and he glanced at my straining bicep. He seemed repelled by the sight. I let him drop six inches and his bellow echoed in the canyon below. “I know what you are,” I told him. “And believe me, I won’t lose any sleep if your brains end up strawberrying the pavement. So take a breath and try not to shit yourself. Now, why did you come to the fair this afternoon? It wasn’t to scope out the kids, was it? Least, that wasn’t the main reason. You knew I was on to you, you wanted me to follow, so what the fuck is this all about? D’you think I’m like you, is that it? Thought we could have a nice little sit-down and trade fantasies?”
A curl of disgust rippled his lip, as if the very idea of sharing his daydreams was mortally offensive. “You don’t understand, d-do you?”
“There’s that stammer again.” I clucked. “You wanna mess with me? I wouldn’t advise it. Did you see the man I was talking with at the fair? The guy with the face that looks like it’s had a serious disagreement with several staircases? Who’d you think gave his skull a makeover?”
Tears welled. His chin piercing quivered. “I kn-know. The professor told me.”
“Professor?” I laughed. “Are they handing out degrees in kiddie fiddling now?” He gaped at me, as if I’d guessed some impossible truth. I shook him and the window rattled. If I wasn’t careful the whole thing could come loose from the mouldered brickwork and I’d make good on my empty threats. “Why did you wait for me? Who sent you?”
A hundred possibilities. It wasn’t just Kerrigan I’d crossed in my years on the force—my arrest record was so formidable some in CID had taken to calling me the ‘Fortune Teller’, a funfair psychic who mystically foresaw the incriminating details of all his major take-downs. It was a joke laced with resentment. Garris aside, I hadn’t made many friends on the job, and even my mentor had kept a certain distance.
Then there were my thug-for-hire years, after I’d left the fair but before Garris had drawn me over that thin blue line. In those best-forgotten days, I’d earned the undying enmity of a host of underworld maniacs. Had one of these finally tracked me down and set up the nonce as a lure? Again, it seemed an overly elaborate scheme.
“Who is this ‘professor?’” I reeled him out another inch. “What does he want?”
“I don’t know, I swear! His name’s Campbell, OK? Professor Ralph Campbell. He contacted me through a friend, someone like me. Campbell rented this flat, told me I could stay here a few days if I gave you a message.”
�
�What message? And why didn’t you just pass it on to me at the fair?”
“It was a test,” he panted. “If you noticed me, s-saw me for what I was, then he’d be satisfied and matters could proceed. Those were his words. I’ve been hanging around for a week or so, but only saw you today. He’d sent you letters, he said, tried getting your attention that way at f-first, but it didn’t work.”
Of course not. Like Garris’ case files, every scrap of mail I received was binned unread. Even those dreary letters from the inspector’s wife, pestering me about my health and recommending nourishing recipes were discarded.
“So,” I shook him again, “what’s he after? You make him sound like a nonce. If he’s in need of a beating, I’ll RSVP right away and happily kick his teeth down his throat. Tell me the message and get it over with.”
He shut his eyes, like a character in a movie trying to recall a sequence of digits that’ll defuse the bomb and save the city. In the end, it amounted to two simple words. When I heard them I almost dropped him.
“The professor said to tell you that it’s happening again. He said…” The man looked at me, his expression puzzled, as if he too would dearly like to know the meaning behind his words. “He said that they are dying again. All of them. That only you would be able to see the pattern and put things right. ‘Tell Jericho,’ he said, ‘that they’re calling out to him: the dead of Travellers Bridge.’”
CHAPTER FOUR
EVERY SHOWMAN KNOWS THE LEGEND of Travellers Bride. There are variations, embellishments, but the version my mother told always had a ring of truth. I remembered her, the chiaroscuro of her pale features thrown into relief by my bedside lamp, her palm pressing on the counterpane that covered my chest.
