Comply or Die

by Tony Hutchinson

  ‘How do you know when he bought it?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Singh’s is a little furniture shop,’ Sanderson told him. ‘No computers, so everything’s written down. He’s got a little book with all sales written in it. When I asked how much it was worth, he showed me that he’d sold it to Dav for £120.’

  The dates were running like a sequence in Ed’s head.

  ‘What did it look like?’ Ed asked now.

  ‘Semi-circular, brown, and so low you almost laid down on it.’

  The one Aisha’s brother and sister were sitting on in the photograph.

  ‘And your point is?’ Ed pushed, already knowing the answer.

  Sanderson sat up straight and leaned across the desk.

  ‘Why would somebody want to burn a settee that’s days old? No better way to get rid of evidence.’

  He leaned back, stretched out his legs and put his hands behind his head.

  Ed gave it a moment before he jumped up and pushed his chair against the wall.

  ‘You’ve wasted enough of my fucking time here,’ he said. ‘I’m impressed you know the date someone bought a new settee. Now, I’ve got work to do.’

  He opened the interview room door.

  ‘Alright, alright keep your hair on.’ Sanderson sat up and Ed sat back down.

  ‘At one end of the settee, right in the corner, there was blood,’ Sanderson said. ‘They’d tried to wash it, you could tell, but there was blood. I know the difference between brown material and brown blood.’

  ‘Much blood?’

  Sanderson smiled: ‘Enough to see. Look, something happened on that settee, otherwise why ask me to get rid, to burn it.’

  Ed said: ‘Where is it now?’

  Sanderson paused again.

  ‘I sold it to Billy Wilson.’

  ‘The doorman?’ Ed said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Ed raised his eyebrows and held Sanderson’s gaze.

  ‘He’s going to love you.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Driving back to HQ, Ed considered their next move. Recovering the settee from Billy Wilson was important. It wasn’t stolen but it was potentially evidential. Billy would just have to get over it. Of course he would go straight to Fatty Sanderson’s unless Ed warned him off.

  Visiting the furniture shop was crucial if they were to prove continuity through Karan Singh’s records but as soon as that was done, Singh would probably notify Bhandal.

  Ed would suggest to Sam they stall going to the shop until they had been able to confirm whether it was blood and if it was Aisha’s. A ‘yes’ and a ‘yes’ would see the investigation take a dramatic turn. They were told Aisha went missing on the Friday 13th, albeit she wasn’t reported missing to police until the Monday, the 16th. The settee, according to Sanderson, wasn’t delivered until Saturday 14th.

  Friday December 13th 2013

  I was close now, so close I could see Sukhi’s beautiful white teeth flashing me that massive smile. I always said he could advertise toothpaste. His teeth are that good.

  I ran around the car to the open passenger door where he was standing. I was breathless, excited. ‘How does Cornwall sound?’ I threw my arms around him. This was it. I kissed him.

  He eased me away. ‘Nearest town?’

  I couldn’t remember. ‘Head south, set the satnav for Plymouth.’ I opened the back door; my pink suitcase could sit on the back seat for now.

  ‘We should get going,’ he said.

  I don’t know what I saw first, the arm or the metal bar. I certainly didn’t see who the arm belonged to. The arm and the bar were a blur, swinging in tandem along a shoulder height arc parallel to the ground. I tried to shout, scream, but nothing came out. It was as if my vocal chords had been cut. I realised somebody’s forearm was around my neck, dragging me backwards towards the boot.

  Sukhi’s head twisted, whiplash-like to the side, the sickening crack sounding like a gunshot, blood spraying from his mouth, white teeth bouncing off the bonnet.

  I was choking out, darkness close, the pressure on my windpipe like nothing I’d felt before. My eyes wanted to pop out of my face.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  My arms were listless. I dropped my bag, saw boots swing into Sukhi’s face and stomach, then a boot stamp repeatedly on his head.

  Tears streamed down my face. I was helpless, light-headed. The arm squeezed my neck, the pressure relentless, the forearm digging into my throat while another arm pushed against the back of my neck. Sukhi was lying motionless in the road, by the side of the car. The last bit of consciousness was calling his name. Then blackness.

  When I opened my eyes, I saw the walls of the room, the floor where Justin had been hiding under the bed. The note was gone. My throat was raw. I stroked it. It was tender, swollen.

  What time was it? Where was Sukhi? I got off the bed, crept to the window, and pulled the curtains back the tiniest amount. Pitch black.

  Voices downstairs... my mother, father, uncle and brother. Mia must have been in the house somewhere.

  I tiptoed to the bedroom door, took hold of the handle as if it were a bomb, slowly applied downward pressure and pulled. Nothing. It was stuck. I grabbed it, tighter this time, pushed down and pulled again. Nothing. I yanked the handle, pulled it back and forth. The door groaned but didn’t budge.

  Now footsteps running up the stairs. ‘Whore,’ my mother screamed in Punjabi. ‘You little slut,’ shouted my father. ‘You dare to shame this family.’

  ‘Let me out,’ I screamed. Only I couldn’t scream. It was more like a whimper. ‘Let me out,’ I croaked, my voice hoarse, every syllable feeling as if Mr Geppetto was sanding my throat instead of Pinocchio’s body.

  ‘Stay there,’ my father yelled. ‘We’ll deal with you later.’

  I banged on the door with my fists. No response. They’d gone back down. They must have put a lock on the outside of the door. How had they done that so quickly?

  I walked away from the door. Then I saw them. The blister-pack on the chest of drawers. Sleeping tablets. My mother’s sleeping tablets. How long had I been asleep?

  Where was Sukhi? What had they done to him? Had they left him or had he escaped? Had they done something really bad to him?

  I went back to the window, pulled back the curtains. I opened the side window and peered up the street. Nothing. It looked like it always did. Deathly quiet.

  No sign of Sukhi’s car.

  I stared at the ground below. How far? There were no trees I could reach, no climbing plants snaking up the wall to my window. A straight drop. How many metres? Too many.

  I walked on my toes to the wardrobe. The clean bedding was always on the bottom shelf. I opened the dark wooden door. Nothing. Empty. Everything was gone.

  I looked around again. This time I saw the bedding had been removed from the beds.

  I walked to the drawers where the sleeping tablets were. Why was there so many? Why was there a bottle of ‘Whyte and Mackay’ whisky there?

  Realisation hit me.

  I ran to the open window and tried to shout for help, but nothing escaped from my mouth. I remembered the old school books under my bed. Was there a pen with them?

  I could still hear the voices downstairs.

  I crawled under the bed, reached for the books and felt my fingers curl around a biro. Sellotape. I needed Sellotape.

  I opened one the books and took a deep breath. I’d covered them with wallpaper and drawn doodles on the woodchip. I checked. Recycle the Sellotape.

  I sat on the bed, ripped the front and back covers off the books, and in block capitals began writing ‘HELP ME’. Once I’d written each message I began colouring in the blocks. Any passer-by would see them. On one I even wrote ‘PLEASE CALL THE POLICE’.

  I began unpicking Sellotape from the first book. I replayed finding them under the bed, how they might just help rescue me.

  Then I remembered.

  I slithered back under the bed. I was right. Top corner. I s
tretched and pulled out the old clothes. I threw the sleeveless dresses back into the darkness against the wall, but the jumpers, the trousers, anything with arms and legs I kept.

  Back on the bed I stared at my treasure. It wasn’t a big pile, but it might just be big enough.

  I started to tie them together, listening for footsteps coming up the stairs. If anybody came up, I’d throw them back under the bed. They wouldn’t be looking for them; they’d forgotten they were there.

  I tied them as tight as I could. Would they hold my weight? What was the worst thing that could happen if they didn’t? Break my legs? Break my neck? So what? They’d left tablets and whisky for me.

  It must have only taken me 10 minutes. Funny how quickly you can do things.

  I crept back to the door and listened. It sounded like they were in the kitchen. I could hear cups rattling on saucers. That was good. The kitchen was at the back of the house; my bedroom was at the front.

  The ‘Help Me’ signs were scattered across the floor. I didn’t care. I needed something to tie to the end of my clothes. I couldn’t afford for that something to drag across the floor as soon as it started to take my weight and crash into something, and besides I needed to keep my makeshift line as long as possible.

  The bunk beds. I inched them across the carpet. A noise now and it was all over. Not just escape but me. No way would I get the beds back in time if they came upstairs.

  Each drag brought it closer to the window. Finally I tied one end of my clothes rope around the leg of the top bunk.

  I threw the knotted clothes out of the window, gave it one last pull to check for tightness, and climbed out.

  Once I hit the ground, I was just going to run. Run as fast as I could. Run to the nearest police station. They’d know what to do.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Thursday 17th April 2014

  ‘Okay.’ Sam was sitting behind her desk, everyone waiting for instructions. ‘Ed, Bev... go and see Billy Wilson and recover the settee. Tell him if he goes near the person who sold it to him or the owner of the shop it came from, he’ll be locked up for perverting the course of justice.’

  Ed raised his eyes.

  ‘He doesn’t know what offence he’s committed,’ Sam answered his unspoken question. ‘If he believes it, it might stop him going after them. The ‘Ways and Means Act’. Isn’t that what you called it in the old days?’

  Ed smiled.

  ‘I want that settee testing for blood and I want it fast-tracking at the lab to see if it’s Aisha’s blood. Remember, if it is her blood, that settee was delivered the day after her parents said she went missing and removed from their house on the Monday before they reported her missing. By the time we’ve got round there, a new settee’s in place.’

  Ed looked up from his pad. ‘Good chance he’ll kick off when we tell him he’s losing the settee.’

  ‘That’s why I’m sending you,’ Sam said. ‘He knows you. Tell him if he buys dodgy gear he runs the risk of us taking it away.’

  She stood up. It was time to pace the room.

  ‘Paul, I want interview strategies drawing up for Charlotte, Alex and Tracey. I want them bringing down to Seaton nick. Their lies point to them being involved in Goddard’s death. Frighten them. I need to know if any or all of them are in this Sisters of Macavity.’

  ‘What does your instinct tell you?’ Ed asked her.

  Sam kept moving.

  ‘Maybe they were taking him somewhere to get his photograph taken.’

  ‘Did Never throw any light on anything?’ Bev asked her.

  ‘Bloody hell, I’d forgotten about him!’ Sam said.

  ‘Mick, it’s Sam Parker.’ The ivory handset was sticky, needed a good clean, or was it Mick ‘Never’ Wright who made her feel dirty? ‘You wanted to speak to me?’

  ‘I did.’ Wright’s voice was cool, unfriendly. ‘One of my son’s mates goes to Seaton Uni. He was beaten up on the riverbank after a night out a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Did he report it? Did he know his assailant?’

  ‘No to the first,’ Wright told her. ‘Maybe to the second.’

  ‘Go on.’ Sam picked up her pen.

  ‘He’d been out and was a bit of an arse around a couple of young girls. You know the type of thing.’

  She could almost hear him shuffling on his seat, his deep breath a spotlight on his stress. She smiled.

  ‘I gather he’d gone up to them in a pub. The Jolly Roger. He’d had a drink. I know him. He’s not a bad lad. His dad was captain of the golf club last year.’

  She didn’t disguise the irritation in her voice.

  ‘That makes it okay then,’ she said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I gather he’s asked them, his words not mine, for ‘a shag’.’

  ‘Golf expression, is it, like shouting four when the ball’s flying towards someone?’

  Wright didn’t take the bait.

  ‘One of them threw a drink over him and a bouncer threw him out. It was near closing time. He staggered home, walked along the tow path and got jumped. He thinks it was the bouncer.’

  ‘I need his name and address, Mick,’ Sam said. ‘You know as well as I do it could be linked, otherwise you wouldn’t be telling me.’

  ‘I know but I don’t think he wants to get involved. He certainly doesn’t want to make an assault complaint.’

  Sam could feel herself getting hot with irritation.

  ‘We’ll find him, Mick,’ she said sharply. ‘Somebody will say something. Maybe not this week, but we’ll find him, and it might have an adverse effect on him if he failed to come forward with what might be material evidence.’

  ‘I understand.’ Wright’s voice was monotone, quiet.

  ‘Was your son with him on the night?’

  Silence.

  ‘Mick?’

  ‘Yes, he was, but he didn’t see his mate get kicked out. They got separated. Someone told my lad that Luke had been ejected. He went outside but Luke had gone.’

  Sam forced herself to soften.

  ‘Tell you what, Mick, instead of us going in heavy handed, and Luke thinking he can’t trust your son, why don’t you have a word with him? Explain the importance and get him to give me a call. Tell him he might be able to help catch Jack Goddard’s killer. Does he know Jack?’

  ‘Think so… I’ll have a word.’

  An estate agent might describe the terraced house as being in need of slight modernisation. Ed knocked on the ill-fitting wooden door, varnish peeling, the brass letterbox mottled with green mould. He looked to his right. He could probably get his little finger between the blackened wooden window frame and the glass. Forget the spin. He’d call it a shit-hole.

  Billy Wilson opened the door, barefooted in shiny tracksuit bottoms and a grubby white vest. ‘Alright Ed?’

  ‘Got a minute, Billy?’

  ‘Yeah, come in.’

  Ed stepped over the plastic tractor, his foot just missing the child’s dummy on the chipped tiles. Ed knew this could go one of two ways – mild disagreement or open hostility.

  He stepped into the living room. Wilson was throwing coats and clothes off the settee on to the floor where they joined the discarded shoes and socks and last night’s take-away food cartons.

  One look at the settee confirmed Sanderson’s story. It was identical to the one in the photo.

  ‘Have a seat,’ Wilson said, flopping into the only armchair.

  ‘It’s the settee I’ve come about.’

  Wilson leapt up.

  ‘I paid a fair price for it,’ he bristled. ‘It’s not nicked, it’s second hand. If you’re here about it, you must know that.’

  ‘I do, but... ’

  ‘No buts, it’s mine.’

  Ed heard the front door.

  ‘Why’s the fucking CID outside?’ a woman shouted. ‘That dyke detective’s sat in a car right outside the house.’

  She was in her late 20s, tall with short blonde hair like straw, not in colour but consiste
ncy. ‘What do you want?’

  Ed said nothing, although he couldn’t wait to tell Bev she had been called a dyke, and let Wilson speak to who he presumed was the bouncer’s most recent girlfriend.

  ‘It’s nothing, Charlene. Stick the kettle on.’

  She glared at him, gave Ed the finger, and stormed out.

  Wilson watched her go.

  ‘That’s the problem with younger women,’ he said. ‘No respect. No respect for me, no respect for you. Imagine my first wife bursting in like that? Never happen.’

  Respect seems to be a recurring theme in Wilson’s world, Ed thought.

  ‘Half her family’s banged up so you can’t expect her to welcome you with open arms,’ Wilson said. ‘She’s a Jenkins. Harry Jenkins’s grand-daughter.’

  ‘Explains a lot,’ Ed said. ‘I’ve got to take this settee away with me Billy.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I can’t tell you. I need to do some tests. If it’s nothing, you can have it back.’

  ‘And if it’s something?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘I’ll have to keep it.’

  ‘What if I refuse?’

  ‘I know you won’t,’ Ed said. ‘I’ll end up taking it anyway. And don’t go around seeing whoever sold it to you. They didn’t know it could be dodgy.’

  Wilson nodded towards the kitchen. ‘She’ll go mental.’

  ‘Has she got a bairn?’ Ed asked him.

  ‘Yeah, mine.’

  Ed raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I know,’ Wilson said sourly. ‘Goes with the territory if you chase younger women.’

  ‘Tell her the police are working with the manufacturers, recalling all the ones that weren’t treated with the right fire safety treatment. Tell her it’s an accident waiting to happen with the kid.’

  Wilson looked at the settee. ‘And we’re supposed to be the liars.’