by Menon, David
‘It makes me go cold just thinking about it,’ said Kelly. ‘Do you think they planned it?’
‘Yes, I do,’ said Paul. ‘I told them they had to leave by this morning. Maybe that pushed them into doing it but, you know, I’m not going to beat myself up over it. They were bad people. They did some evil things. But they left this world together after a long life.’
‘They were actually lying on the bed in an embrace?’ Lydia questioned.
‘They were, yes,’ said Paul.
‘Well it’s quite… well romantic in a pretty twisted, dark sort of way.’
‘Oh they were in love alright,’ said Paul.
‘They didn’t deserve that kind of feeling,’ said Kelly.
‘They’d loved each other for seventy years,’ said Paul, ‘but what really frustrates me is that their end was too quick and clean. They should’ve ended their days as painfully as possible as far as I’m concerned. Where’s the justice for all those people they made suffer? Where’s the justice for all of their victims in what they did?’
‘They’ll get their justice alright,’ said Lydia, her Catholic upbringing coming through despite her lapsed application to it. ‘I’m sure they’ll be going downstairs.’
‘I hope so,’ said Paul, ‘it’s what’s due to them.’
‘You’re not wasting any tears then?’
‘Not one,’ said Paul. ‘Naumann’s body will be taken by his family once the coroner is through with it. They can feed it to the birds as far as I’m concerned. As for her… well I’ll be burying her in the local churchyard but there’ll be no fuss. I’m not even going to put her title on the gravestone.’
‘Some people might say that’s vindictive, Paul,’ said Lydia.
‘Lydia, I’m really not in the mood to be sugar and spice and all things nice about the old witch and I’m not going to rewrite history just because she’s dead. She deserves nothing from me and that’s exactly what she’s going to get. As for this place, well, things are going to be very different round here from now on.’
‘Having all this to deal with,’ said Lydia, looking all around at the splendour of the surroundings. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start, Paul. How many rooms are in this place?’
‘About two hundred apparently,’ said Paul. ‘Give or take.’
‘So where do you start?’ asked Kelly.
‘With the people who’ve been running this place long before I came along,’ said Paul. ‘I’m not the expert.’
‘But there’s all the grounds as well,’ said Lydia. ‘I suppose there’s people looking after those too?’
‘There are nearly thirty people working here,’ said Paul. ‘They look after the house, security, the grounds. I’m just going to leave them to it whilst I get on with washing all that dirty money clean that I’ve inherited.’
‘How are you going to do that?’ Kelly enquired.
‘I’m going to see to it that certain debts are repaid.’
‘You’re thinking of the Jenkins family?’ said Kelly.
‘Yes,’ said Paul. ‘I’m going to make sure that Wilfred Jenkins’ good name is restored. It’s not just about getting him a posthumous pardon. I’m going to do more than that.’
‘But you weren’t responsible for what your grandmother did,’ said Lydia.
‘No but I’m responsible for this estate now,’ Paul insisted. ‘I’m going to rename this place too, after my mother.’
‘That’s a lovely touch,’ smiled Kelly.
‘You sound like you’re getting a lot of things worked out,’ said Lydia.
‘Yes,’ said Paul. ‘I think the fog is clearing.’
‘And how are you feeling about Jake?’
‘I’m sick with worry about him,’ said Paul, his heart falling to the ground as he thought about Jake. ‘But there’s no change there. I just hate to think of the whole city being on alert because of him. This is the man with whom I’ve shared all the tender moments you expect from being in love. But now he’s the most wanted man in the country and it sends a shiver down my spine to think of those poor souls he shot dead in cold blood. It’s hard. It’s just so fucking hard.’
‘And he’s still out there,’ said Kelly.
‘Yes,’ said Paul, ‘and that scares me more than anything.’
NINETEEN
Superintendent Hargreaves joined the rest of the squad to look over the CCTV pictures from the petrol station and the travel agent.
‘There’s no doubt about it, sir,’ said Tim. ‘That’s Jake Thornton, clear as day on both images. It’s a gift, sir. It’s like he’s wrapped it all up in coloured paper and handed it to us with a big blue ribbon bow.’
‘I see what you mean,’ said Hargreaves. ‘Where are the reports from the areas at the time of the attacks? The petrol station didn’t have many people in it and the travel agent shop isn’t in the centre of town. We’re not talking about great crowds of people here.’
‘In both incidents, sir, people seemed to have frozen,’ said Sara.
‘Usual story,’ said Hargreaves, ‘and understandable considering gun fire was involved.’
‘That’s right, sir,’ said Tim. ‘One or two people are being treated for shock and trauma after witnessing the incidents but after both of them, Thornton was able to just run off and lose himself in the local surrounding areas. He wasn’t pursued by anyone and by the time the police arrived on the scene in both cases he was long gone.’
‘He wanted us to know it’s him,’ said Hargreaves.
‘You could almost call it a cry for help, sir,’ said Joe. ‘Our friend Thornton here is desperately in need of getting his head sorted. He doesn’t think anyone cares about what he or any of his comrades went through out in Afghanistan.’
‘Did Paul Foster concur with this?’ asked Hargreaves.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Joe, ‘and he has had an intimate relationship with him.’
‘So he is best placed to comment,’ said Tim.
‘So Thornton feels like he’s got nothing to lose from randomly shooting innocent people to somehow draw attention to the plight of the men and women out there? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Tim.
‘I mean, I presume there’s no link between these two victims?’
‘No, sir,’ said Steve. ‘We’ve checked it out and there’s nothing.’
‘Sir, there’s been a manhunt underway for Jake Thornton ever since the murder of Glenn Barber. The whole city is on alert for another sniper incident and all the usual services are standing by.’
‘Christ, the press conference is going to be fun,’ said Hargreaves, ‘the public are right to expect answers and quickly before someone else is shot.’
‘Sir, we’ve got to try and take Thornton,’ said Sara, ‘he may be the only one who can tell us where the missing girls are.’
‘What happened with Colin Bradley?’
‘He and his family boarded a Singapore Airlines flight at Manchester on the morning they left their house, sir,’ said Sara. ‘They had a connection to Melbourne, Australia and according to the immigration authorities down there, Bradley gave an Australian address that was his brother’s house in a place called Scoresby about an hour’s drive east of Melbourne. The local police have been there to interview him but as yet they’ve not been able to make contact. It seems pretty certain to me, sir, that Bradley had been asked by Lady Eleanor to take over from Glenn Barber but he lost his nerve and ran.’
‘Taking the proceeds from the loan shark business with him,’ said Hargreaves.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Sara. ‘We’ve checked his bank accounts and credit cards. He wouldn’t have been able to afford his trip around the world if he hadn’t taken the money from somewhere.’
‘Yes, I agree, DCI Hoyland,’ said Hargreaves. ‘Is Paul Foster still okay about taking part in the press conference?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Tim. ‘When we put it to him earlier this morning he almost jumped at the chance. He feels guilty f
or not coming clean about Thornton right from the start and he wants to make amends.’
‘You don’t think he’s lying to us anymore then?’ said Hargreaves.
‘No, sir,’ said Joe. ‘We believe him when he says he doesn’t know where Thornton might be.’
‘I have to disagree, sir,’ said Steve.
‘With what, Steve?’
‘With the way we’re handling Foster. Sir, with all due respect I think that Foster is the one who’s going to lead us to Thornton. He and Thornton have been intimately involved and still could be. If he’s going to try and contact anybody it’s going to be Foster.’
Hargreaves turned to Sara. ‘DCI Hoyland?’
‘We have discussed this at some length, sir,’ said Sara, looking at Steve with barely disguised irritation. ‘Foster’s life has become very complicated and very high profile lately and we don’t think that Thornton would risk any contact.’
‘I see that, DCI Hoyland,’ said Hargreaves, ‘but I also think that DS Osborne has got a point. I’m not going to mount a full-scale surveillance operation on Foster. But I will ask the local uniforms to make his house and his place of work part of their patrols.’
‘Sir,’ said Steve who was happy enough with the partial victory but still wasn’t completely satisfied.
‘So we’re down to finding the missing girls and locating a sniper before he’s able to kill anyone else,’ said Hargreaves.
A call from the reception desk downstairs informed them that Paul Foster had arrived and that the press were beginning to gather in the conference room. Hargreaves put on his uniform jacket and buttoned it up. He then led them out and down to where Foster was waiting in an interview room. They briefed him and told him to just relax and talk to Jake as if he was there.
Once the press conference started, Superintendent Hargreaves opened proceedings sat at the makeshift desk with Sara Hoyland on one side and Paul on the other. Paul looked around. He’d seen this sort of thing hundreds of times before on TV with a backdrop advertising Greater Manchester police behind where they sat before three microphones.
By the time it came for Paul to speak he cleared his throat and hoped he’d be able to make it through to the end without getting emotional. Kelly and Lydia had been allowed to come with him and were sitting at the back behind the twenty or so journalists. Because the ramifications of the case meant that it had now turned into a hunt for a sniper, even the national television networks were there.
‘…I’ve known Jake Thornton for four years and in that time I’ve known what an honourable soldier he’s been, on duty for his country in Afghanistan. Since returning though I’d noticed a complete change in his personality. He seemed to have been consumed by the terrible memories of what had happened to him and his friends out there and I’m not making excuses for him because he needs to answer for his crimes. So Jake, if you’re listening to this, I’m begging you to turn yourself in. Please don’t let another family suffer. Turn yourself in and take responsibility for what you’ve done. I’m also appealing to anyone with information about Jake’s whereabouts to please come forward and contact the police. Jake, it’s time to do what’s right. And that means turning yourself in. So, please do it before anyone else gets hurt and so that you can get the help you need.’
*
Julie Loudon had walked into too many doors. Any statistician would say that nobody in a whole lifetime would walk into as many doors as Julie had done and she was only thirty-seven. If it was only a question of walking into doors then she would be able to cope with everybody’s questions about where her bruises came from. But it wasn’t a question of walking into doors. Same as it wasn’t a question of missing the bottom step when she ran down stairs to answer the phone or slipping in the shower or just simply not looking where she was going.
Her marriage hadn’t always been like that. When she and Barry had first got together he was as sweet as he could be. Julie had always been the nervous sort. She’d never had much in the way of confidence. She’d been bullied at school because they said she was too fat. She was a bright girl who’d never been given the chance to realise her full potential. Her father had left home when she was seven and after that her mother had almost given up on life. Her father had married again and had two more daughters but he rarely went back to see Julie. She was alone a lot of the time. Her mother slept a lot on account of the pills she took for her depression and mostly Julie had to take care of herself. She used to try ringing her Dad. But he was either never in or when he did come to the phone he always sounded like he was too busy to talk to her. She did find out from him though that he and his new family lived in a nice bungalow overlooking the sea at Bridlington in Yorkshire. Julie never saw the sea when she was growing up. She and her mother never went on holiday. After her mother developed agoraphobia they never went anywhere. So Julie gave up on school. Later on in life she wished she’d had more drive to achieve. But she hadn’t.
Barry had first hit her on their wedding night. His card had been rejected when he’d tried to buy a round of drinks at the hotel bar. She’d stepped in and handed over one of hers but later, when they were on their own in the honeymoon suite, he’d accused her of humiliating him in front of their family and friends and slapped her once, twice, three times. It had now been fourteen years since she realised that Barry wasn’t her Prince Charming after all and whenever anything went wrong for him he would take it out on her. It had almost become a pattern. Between these times he was a good husband and a good father to their three kids. But when the darkness descended she knew she would be in for a beating. His parents knew what he was like but they never offered her any support. They turned a blind eye. Except for a bizarre conversation she’d once had with his mother in which she told Julie that Barry’s father had sometimes slapped her about a bit but she hadn’t made a fuss because that’s what men do. And women just had to accept it.
She was sitting waiting for him in the car outside the shops. Barry was picking up his dry cleaning. With the pain of her latest beating giving her a lot of discomfort across her back she didn’t notice the man point his gun at Barry as he approached the car and when she heard the shots she swung her head round and saw him fall to the ground with blood pouring out of the back of his head. In that split second she decided to let him spend the last few seconds of his life on his own. She wasn’t scared anymore and now she would tell both her two sons and her daughter that it wasn’t ever acceptable for violence to be part of any marriage.
*
‘So,’ said Lorraine Cowley as she watched Anita pack her things and those of her daughter Candice, ‘you’re leaving me.’
‘I’ll only be down the road, Mum,’ said Anita. ‘You can see my place from here.’
‘But you won’t be here with me,’ Lorraine insisted.
‘No, I won’t, Mum, but I won’t be far.’
‘Then what’s the bloody point!’
‘To be independent, Mum! To do things my own way!’
Lorraine started crying. She slid down the wall and onto the floor. She was disconsolate.
‘Mum?’ said Anita as she went to her. ‘Mum, please don’t get upset.’
‘Everybody leaves me,’ said Lorraine, unable to stop the sobs from overwhelming her. ‘Everybody goes. My Dad. My Mum, and now my own kids.’
‘I’m not leaving you, Mum,’ said Anita. ‘I’m just going to live somewhere else.’
‘You won’t want me anymore.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ve got your posh friends at work now.’
‘They’re not posh, Mum,’ said Anita. ‘They’re just ordinary people getting by just like the rest of us. They have to rob Peter to pay Paul, they’re broke at the end of the month before they get paid, they’ve all got credit card debt. Mum, everybody has their struggles. That’s the biggest thing I’ve learned since I started work.’
‘What?’
‘That we’re not the only ones,’ said Anita, ‘but we can
make it better if we try and if we want to and that’s why I’m so proud of you for agreeing to go to those reading and writing classes.’
Lorraine let herself be held tight by her daughter whilst she recalled the emotional pain inflicted on her by her deadbeat Dad and her deadbeat Mum and all the deadbeat men she’d used to get pregnant. Her eldest son had gone. Her youngest son had gone. Her eldest daughter was about to go and her younger daughter was caught God knows where and that was all her mother’s fault for borrowing money from Glenn Barber. Not much to show for thirty-five years on this earth.
‘I just don’t want to be left,’ Lorraine cried.
‘You won’t be,’ said Anita. ‘I’ll be round here every day.’
‘You promise?’
‘I promise,’ said Anita, ‘and are we friends again, Mum?’
‘You’re all I’ve got left.’
‘And me and Candice want you to be our first visitor to our new home,’ said Anita. ‘Will you do that for us?’
‘And sit on the furniture that Paul Foster has bought for you? You must be joking.’
‘Aw, look Mum, I thought you’d made your peace with Paul?’
‘I’ll do what he asks because I’ve no flaming choice!’ Lorraine declared.
‘You just keep picking at it, don’t you? Well Mum, Paul has been a good friend to me and I’m not giving that up’
