Fall From Grace

by Menon, David

  ‘You’re smiling.’

  ‘I’m smiling because you’re sounding so bloody absurd.’

  ‘What does absurd mean?’

  ‘It means you when you’re resisting any kind of change,’ said Paul, holding up his now empty coffee mug. ‘Will you make me another one? I’m not sleeping at the moment and I need all the help I can to stay awake during the day. Oh and will you lay off Anita? I know you’re giving her a hard time but she doesn’t deserve it.’

  Lorraine took the mug from him and emptied a spoonful of coffee granules into it from the jar.

  ‘I don’t think you and I can ever really be friends, you know?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Paul, smiling. ‘Now that really would be absurd.’

  Paul drove away from Lorraine Cowley’s house realising that revolutions didn’t always have to involve the chopping off of heads.

  *

  ‘This is becoming a rather detestable habit, Detectives,’ said Eleanor as she sat in the interview room again with Sara and Tim. Her lawyer was again next to her.

  ‘You were very busy during the war years, weren’t you, Lady Eleanor?’ said Sara. ‘Not in a way that helped the war effort for our own side, of course. You were busy helping the enemy, weren’t you?’

  ‘Oh what do you want to know now?’ said Eleanor, wearily. ‘I really have had enough of all this.’

  ‘How many children did you buy for the Reich?’

  ‘The total was two hundred and fifty-six.’

  Sara was taken aback at her Ladyship’s candour. ‘You’re not even going to try and deny it?’

  ‘Why should I? I was proud of what we did. Do you hear me? I was proud of what we did to try and make Germany victorious. Those children were born into nothing. They were urchins. They had families who were happy to part with them for cash. We sent them to be part of the glorious Reich and they’ve probably led better and more productive lives in Germany, despite the post-war nonsense, than they ever could’ve led here.’

  ‘You just don’t see it, do you?’ said Sara, shaking her head in disbelief at her Ladyship’s bare faced audacity. ‘You bought children and sold them to the enemy!’

  ‘Oh save me your puritan values,’ Eleanor scoffed. ‘I’d do it all again if the situation arose. And if I’d been able to facilitate the rise of a fourth Reich then I most certainly would’ve done.’

  In the interview room next door, Steve and Joe were trying to get the truth out of Dieter Naumann.

  ‘You talk, I procrastinate,’ said Dieter. ‘I don’t have much time left and you have to secure some kind of confession. What fun we shall have!’

  ‘You think the issue of buying children is fun?’ demanded Joe, angrily.

  ‘Well if the Nazi’s were guilty of everything we’d been accused of in the war, then the buying of children for the Reich is nothing,’ said Dieter. ‘I mean, it really isn’t. It’s just a little something that happened.’

  ‘Not for the children involved,’ said Steve.

  ‘Oh they were only babies most of them,’ said Dieter, dismissively. ‘All two hundred and fifty-six of them.’

  ‘How many?’ Joe asked, astonished.

  ‘Eleanor and I were perfect Nazi’s so we kept perfect records,’ said Dieter.

  ‘So you can hand over those records and reveal the identities of all the babies involved?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Dieter. ‘We destroyed all the records when the Polish woman identified me and this whole process began to take shape. Sorry to excite you and then disappoint you, Detective. Sorry to have you licking your lips only for them to go dry again with equal suddenness.’

  ‘You’ve recently got back into the child trafficking business, Lady Eleanor,’ said Sara. ‘Do you want to tell us about it?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  Sara wanted to slap the bitch but she pressed on regardless. ‘We can’t do anything about the children you bought during the war years, Lady Eleanor. But we can do something about the trade you’re engaged in today. Your business relationship with Glenn Barber. Why don’t you start your explanations there?’

  Eleanor paused before responding. ‘I have mixed with many criminals over the years. Oh I’m not interested in the petty thief. I’m only interested in the ones who keep pushing it and pushing it until they’ve had way more than their fair share of everything. The ones who become leaders in their community.’

  ‘By leaders you mean those who rule by fear and intimidation,’ said Sara.

  ‘Most people are so stupid they need the strength of firm, hard leaders.’

  ‘Like Adolf Hitler?’

  ‘Like the beloved Fuhrer.’

  ‘Like Glenn Barber?’

  ‘Glenn Barber was known to an associate of mine who introduced us,’ said Eleanor. ‘He needed some investment in his business and I needed teenage girls for some of my friends who still know what it’s like to have some fun. They like the girls to dress up for them and be playful.’

  ‘It’s the oldest perversion in the book!’ Sara scoffed.

  ‘I didn’t take you for a prude, detective.’

  ‘I’m not a prude,’ said Sara, ‘but neither am I an abuser. What goes on between consenting adults is nobody else’s business. But the key word there is consenting. And only adults can consent to activities within the law.’

  ‘If you say so, my dear.’

  ‘So everything was all your idea? You thought of a plan to take teenage girls off of families who couldn’t repay their loans?’ asked Sara.

  ‘Well Glenn Barber wouldn’t have had the brains to come up with it,’ said Eleanor, haughtily. ‘But he had his way and he knew what I needed so he’d target the families with the suitable girls accordingly. I saved the state a lot of money by taking those girls out of it.’

  Sara sat back in her chair in absolute revulsion. ‘I don’t follow?’

  ‘Well they would never have amounted to anything,’ Eleanor insisted.

  ‘At least one of them is dead!’

  ‘Well she would’ve been the same drain on the state for the entirety of her sad, stupid life as any of the others.’

  ‘How did you make them do what you wanted?’ asked Tim who was equally as sickened as Sara at what he was hearing.

  ‘Drugs,’ answered Eleanor, simply. ‘They were drugged into compliance. Their parents should never have had them in the first place but of course, we let the wrong sort breed these days. You could say that I was doing my bit to put that right.’

  ‘So you have no remorse for what has happened to these girls at all?’ Tim pressed.

  ‘None whatsoever,’ said Eleanor. ‘I’d be a liar if I told you otherwise.’

  Even the uniformed police officer assigned to the room was aghast at what was coming out of Lady Eleanor’s mouth. What none of them could get over was the brazen candour with which Lady Eleanor was admitting her culpability in such heinous crimes.

  ‘Where are these girls being held, Lady Eleanor?’ Sara demanded.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Lady Eleanor.

  ‘You expect us to believe that?’

  ‘It’s the truth,’ Eleanor insisted. ‘I didn’t get involved in the where, just the how and the why.’

  ‘What happened to Shona Higgins, Lady Eleanor?’ asked Tim.

  ‘It was simple,’ said Lady Eleanor. ‘She was costing us money.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘She needed more drugs to maintain her compliance,’ said Lady Eleanor. ‘Once the cost of those drugs met the income figure we were getting for her, then she started to cost us money. It was our policy that when that happened the girls had to be got rid of. Her novelty had worn off. Our clientele weren’t asking for her anymore.’

  ‘And because of that she had to die?’

  Eleanor shrugged her shoulders. ‘Her parents are the ones to point the fingers at,’ she said. ‘They shouldn’t have got themselves into such a financial mess.’

  ‘A mess that you were charging them an indefensi
ble amount of interest for!’ retorted Sara, angrily.

  Eleanor shrugged her shoulders again. ‘That’s what’s called the market.’

  ‘And Glenn Barber committed the murder?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Eleanor, ‘or at least, I gave him the instruction so I suppose he must have.’

  ‘Lady Eleanor, why did you get involved with all of this?’

  ‘Because I could and because I like making money.’

  ‘But you already had more than you’ll ever need.’

  ‘I wanted more.’

  ‘How do you sleep at night?’

  ‘In my bed with a clear conscience just like every good Catholic who goes to confession every Sunday to absolve herself of her human sin.’

  SEVENTEEN

  Sara drove into work the next morning and paused before getting out of her car. She still couldn’t get over how someone like Lady Eleanor had actually sat down and planned such heinous crimes. She’d dealt with two serial killers in her career so far and both of them had been able to justifiably claim at least a measure of insanity as part of their defence. They’d both been able to point to events in their lives that had twisted their emotions beyond any reason or perspective and contributed to turning them into killers. Not that any of it could excuse what they’d done and it certainly didn’t inspire her to have any sympathy for them. But it did explain some of the psychology behind their crimes and helped Sara try to work out how they’d come to commit them whereas Lady Eleanor wasn’t even trying to claim that she might’ve been driven to such evil by events further back in her life. On the contrary, she saw everything she did as a stroke of genius to be celebrated. It was beyond Sara to even try and understand the workings of a mind like that.

  She asked the custody sergeant to open up the cell where Lady Eleanor had spent what Sara hoped would’ve been a very uncomfortable night. And she was right. Her Ladyship looked as rough as a stray dog.

  ‘Good morning, Lady Eleanor,’ Sara said, in greeting, ‘I don’t expect you’re used to such surroundings but I hope they’ve served their purpose in inspiring you to talk.’

  Lady Eleanor looked up at Sara with eyes that were those of a predator who was desperate to unleash her savagery on her. ‘You will most certainly pay for this.’

  ‘No, I’m hoping that you’ll finally pay for your crimes, Lady Eleanor.’

  ‘I’ve told you that I don’t know where the girls are being held!’

  ‘And I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Then you’re wrong’

  ‘Who’s taken over the Glenn Barber side of your business, Lady Eleanor? Now that Barber is dead. Who’s your executioner of choice now?’

  ‘Jake Thornton was working with him,’ said Eleanor, flatly. ‘You should start there but of course, he’s on the run and you don’t know where he is.’

  ‘I don’t think we need to go that far away from home, do we? I’ll be driving out to see your head of household, Colin Bradley. I’m sure he’s got a tale to tell.’

  ‘When are you going to let me go?’

  ‘You’re helping us with our enquiries, Lady Eleanor,’ said Sara, lightly, ‘and we’ve a few more hours yet before we have to give you back to your life of luxury. So sit back and take in the scenery. Oh and I suggest you choose tea. The coffee in this place really isn’t up to much.’

  ‘Do you really think you can get one over on me? After all this time?’

  ‘Oh I think the law has finally got one or two over on you, Lady Eleanor. Let’s recall, you’ve been charged with one murder, one case of accessory to murder, and the abduction and sexual exploitation of underage girls. You could go home on conditional bail now, only because of a concession to your age and only if you told me where the girls are being held.’

  ‘And I told you that I don’t know!’

  ‘I’ll give you a few more hours to think again about your answer,’ said Sara who then turned on her heels and made for the door.

  ‘Where’s my Dieter?’

  ‘At home, waiting for you.’

  ‘You won’t get what you want by dividing us!’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘I’ll destroy you when I get out of here!’

  ‘Make anymore threats like that and you never will get out of here, Lady Eleanor, believe me,’ warned Sara, ‘I’m the one with the power here and neither you nor anybody else is above the law. This isn’t 1940.’

  *

  Paul was driving west along the elevated stretch of Mancunian Way on the south side of the city centre, heading for home, when his mobile rang. He was glad that he’d finally fitted the hands free kit the other day, even if the earpiece did make him look like a twat. He saw from the caller display that it was his friend, Colleen Price. He pressed the answer button.

  ‘Colleen? How are you?’

  ‘Not very good,’ said Colleen, solemnly.

  ‘Colleen? What’s up?’

  Colleen struggled to stay calm. ‘Oh Paul, something terrible has happened.’

  ‘What, love?’

  ‘Somebody came into the school and… everything’s destroyed, Paul. They’ve smashed all the computers, the language lab looks like a battlefield, and the windows of all the class rooms are in shards scattered everywhere…’ she started to cry. ‘…I don’t know what to do, Paul. I’ve sent the kids home but I don’t know how I’m going to clear all this up.’

  ‘I’ll be straight round,’ said Paul. ‘Sit tight.’

  When Paul made it round to the school he noticed a group of local lads standing across the road looking pleased with themselves. He couldn’t help himself. He walked over to them.

  ‘Do you lot know anything about who did this?’

  ‘Don’t know what you mean, mate,’ said Tyrone, Lorraine Cowley’s nephew.

  ‘Don’t fuck with me,’ said Paul.

  Tyrone and the rest of them started laughing.

  ‘Do you think it’s funny? You’ve destroyed everybody’s hard work and you think that’s funny? You’re sick, pal, sick and twisted in the head.’

  Tyrone didn’t quite see the funny side of that and moved up close and threatening to Paul, the rest of his mates forming closely behind him. At this point Paul wondered if he should’ve challenged them. They could pull a knife on him or anything. But he wasn’t going to back off. They weren’t going to intimidate him especially this streak of shit who was acting like the big, hard man.

  ‘Watch your mouth, social man,’ Tyrone threatened, ‘it could get you in a lot of trouble.’

  ‘You don’t deserve it,’ said Paul. ‘You don’t deserve for people like Colleen Price to try and get you to believe in a future. There’s people all over the world going out onto the streets to demand their freedom and liberty. And what do you do? Sit around like slobs all day waiting for the next handout, throwing away all the rights and responsibilities that people throughout history have fought to get for you. You’re not worth it. You’re not worth anybody’s sacrifice.’

  Paul turned and walked into the school, not looking behind him and noting the silence that followed him.

  Once inside he stood with Colleen in the computer science room, or what was left of it, it made him so bloody angry. Colleen had fought tooth and nail for the funding to buy the computers and get them set up and now some… some little shit had come along and smashed all of her good work away. She’d been really making a difference with these kids. She’d been determined to get for them the same facilities that schools in more advantaged suburbs benefited from and she was succeeding. Or she had been.

  ‘It beats me why some people choose to be so destructive,’ said Colleen, her heart breaking with all she could see around her.

  ‘It doesn’t beat me,’ said Paul. ‘Whoever did this doesn’t want this community to move on. They want it to stay in the pits because they’re too idle to take advantage of what people like you are trying to do for them.’

  ‘But what am I going to do, Paul?’ Colleen pleaded. ‘How am I going t
o get all this back for the sake of the kids?’

  Paul put his arms round her and pulled her close. ‘Hey, hey, it’ll be alright.’

  ‘How will it?’

  ‘Colleen, we’ll rebuild,’ said Paul. ‘We’ll get the funding and we’ll show them that you’re not beaten.’

  ‘The insurance will cover most of it,’ said Colleen.

  ‘Well there you are then.’

  ‘But it’s just that it’s happened at all! Somebody has come along and laid into everything I’ve done to help the kids round here. It’s not fair!’

  ‘I know, love, I know,’ said Paul, holding her tight. ‘But one way or another we’ll sort it.’

  They were shaken out of their embrace by the sound of a single gunshot. Their first instinct was to get down but they managed to make the way, crawling along the floor, to one of the smashed in windows. What they saw was Tyrone lying dead on the ground, with blood pouring out of a wound in his head. Some of the assembled crowd were looking down at him whilst the rest were looking in the direction of a man who was running down the street and heading further into the estate.

  *

  Sara and Joe went down to Gatley Hall only to be told that Colin Bradley had gone off duty two days previously and that although he was due back today after his days off, he hadn’t shown up for work. This was unusual by all accounts. He hadn’t missed a day since starting at the Hall almost twenty years ago.