Loose Tongues

by Chris Simms

  He closed the van door gently, keeping noise to a minimum. His heart was beating slightly faster. He’d not delivered before on a Saturday and there were signs of activity all around. A couple of cars passing slowly on the street. Music from an open window. A dog’s excited bark and a child’s laughter.

  He reached the turn-off for the development. A verge sign read Private: resident parking only. Heather Knight’s flat was under the archway that led into a courtyard neatly partitioned by parking spaces.

  His baseball cap was low on his head and he kept his eyes on the ground. Once out of sight beneath the archway, he risked a quick check about. Out in the main courtyard he could see that over half the parking spaces contained a vehicle. In the nearest one was a gun-metal grey 6 series BMW. The garage had obviously been keen to keep their contract. So now, no one else was due at her door. At least not for a while.

  He double-checked the courtyard was free of people, and kept looking in that direction as he pressed her doorbell.

  Now came the nerve-racking wait.

  His hearing seemed more acute. A voice told the dog to shut-up. Inside the flat, a door opened. From out in the courtyard came an electric double-beep. Someone had unlocked a car. He stared off to his right. A man in his mid-twenties stepped out of a front door no more than thirty metres away. He was speaking over his shoulder to a woman who stood on the front step.

  ‘Yeah, I heard: two of them.’

  ‘But only if the packets are five hundred grams.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘And,’ she said, ‘reduced fat coconut milk.’

  ‘One tin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He held his breath. He could still walk away. Right now. All the woman had to do was turn her head and she’d be looking straight at him. Yes, he was in shadow. But he wasn’t invisible. The footsteps beyond Heather’s door were getting closer. He couldn’t bear to abandon things. Not this close to success.

  The woman over in the courtyard stepped back and the front door of the apartment closed. He breathed out. Now it was the man he needed to worry about. He tried to work out timings. The man had the door of his car open. He was getting in. He would then need to reverse the vehicle out and swing it round. It would only take a few seconds. Heather Knight needed to open her door. And she needed to do it now.

  He heard a key turning in the lock. Come on, come on.

  His heart was hammering as the door finally opened. ‘Yes?’

  He immediately lifted the box. ‘Delivery for Heather Knight.’

  A frown appeared on her face. Off the side, he heard the car’s engine start. ‘Really? Who from?’

  ‘I think it was a car dealership.’ He handed her the package.

  She examined the label, studying her own name and address. ‘The BMW one on the A34?’

  He didn’t dare look to his right. He didn’t need to: in the periphery of his vision, a pair of reversing lights had come on. ‘I didn’t collect it. Sorry, but I’m double-parked out on the road. Just a signature here?’

  ‘Right, yes.’ She tested the package’s weight. ‘Chocolates, I bet.’

  He knew it contained nothing more than some balled-up newspaper and a block of wood. He risked a quick look to the side. The car had backed out of its space. Next, it would start to edge forward and he would be directly in its view.

  She tucked the package under an arm and held her hand out for the stylus. As soon as she had it in her grip, he pressed the button. The electric crackle was over in an instant. Eyes fixed, teeth clenched, she thudded against the hallway wall and keeled over. He bent down, and tried to fold her legs so they were clear of the door. Her bloody knees wouldn’t bend. Stiff as planks. He had to kick them aside before he could step in and shut the door behind him.

  He barely had time to suck in a chestful of air before the sigh of tyres went past outside.

  SIXTEEN

  ‘Four times?’ Ransford’s voice had gone squeaky.

  Sean sneaked a glance over. The man’s office door was half-open and he was pacing to and fro behind his desk.

  ‘How long until that happens? Christ. OK, OK – the instant it does, I want to know.’

  He put the phone down and emerged from his office. ‘Get this, everyone – Ian Cahill was in a McDonald’s out in Middleton. A constable coming off the night shift was in there having breakfast. Cahill walks straight past him. He makes the call and three cars of uniforms pile in minutes later. Cahill refused to lie down when ordered to do so. Instead, he stood up.’ Ransford did his best to suppress a smile. ‘Afraid he would attempt to arm himself, the officers—’

  ‘What with?’ Someone called out. ‘A McFlurry?’

  Guffaws of laughter.

  Ransford raised both hands. ‘All right, all right. Actually, he had a threatening-looking straw in his milkshake.’

  More laughing.

  ‘Seriously, though, he got to his feet, so they deployed Tasers. Four times.’

  ‘Oooh, that would have hurt.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Fucking commendations all round.’

  Ransford nodded his agreement. ‘Yes, but while he was flipping about on the floor, he managed to smash all his front teeth out against a table leg.’

  Delighted cheers filled the room.

  Ransford stood still, patiently waiting for the noise to die down. ‘Upshot is, he’s now at the A&E getting it seen to, so it will be some time before we get to offer him our hospitality here. I’d also like to stress, we have still to find what links all three victims: keep digging, ladies and gents, keep digging.’

  Sean sat back in his seat. Shortly after news of Cahill’s capture broke, Troughton had pulled a chair up beside Sean’s and sat down. ‘These financial checks you did on Francesca Pinto’s various accounts. It’s nice work, Detective.’

  Sean quickly checked the man’s face for any hint of sarcasm. ‘Thanks,’ he said, cautiously. ‘What’s next?’

  Troughton sent a glance in the direction of Ransford’s office before turning back and sighing. ‘What are we going to do with you?’

  ‘Sorry, sir?’

  ‘You’re very thorough, DC Blake, and I like that. My problem is, DCI Ransford doesn’t want you on outside enquiries, if it can be avoided. Not until the incident with Mark Wheeler’s been resolved.’

  Anger spiked in Sean’s chest and he opened his mouth to protest.

  ‘Leave it,’ Troughton cut in. ‘I’ve read your report. I’ve read the others, too. Until Mark can give his, we’ll only be going round in circles. Bottom line is, I’m limited to which actions I can put your way. Do you understand that?’

  Sean didn’t reply.

  ‘Detective, do you understand that?’

  He gave a nod.

  ‘OK. I’ll do my best not to only shovel shit in your direction. Right now, I want you to look over the reports on the three victims’ movements during their last twenty-four hours. See if you can spot anything that might link them to Cahill which the computer hasn’t picked up.’

  During his training, Sean had been taught the scope of the police computer system, HOLMES. Though it was able to process and cross-match the countless reports and tiny pieces of information that any murder enquiry inevitably generated, it had its weak points. For instance, if the indexing system used to categorize those reports wasn’t used consistently, things could fall between the cracks.

  ‘Sir, what are the chances of that actually resulting in anything useful?’

  Troughton stood. ‘Best I can do, Detective.’

  The inspector walked away and Sean turned to his screen. The back of his neck and ears prickled. This was fucking out of order. This was shit. This was … he took a deep breath then let it out bit by bit. Yes, it was shit. But what could he do about it? Nothing.

  He brought up the report on Pamela Flood. Whoever had compiled her timeline, he quickly concluded, had done an excellent job. Almost every second to the point of her arrival home had been accounted for. B
reak times at work, colleagues spoken to, shops visited, phone calls received and made, streets walked along.

  He accessed the one for Francesca Pinto and started doing the same thing all over again.

  Lunchtime came and went and it was only when he started into the preliminary report on Victoria Walker that a thought occurred: if he was seeking to find some kind of connecting factor, would it not make more sense to know what the two later victims had been doing in the twenty-four hours that led up to Pamela Flood’s death? Similarly, it could be useful to know what Victoria Walker was up to in the twenty-four hours prior to Francesca Pinto dying. The reports didn’t cover that.

  He had gathered the necessary paperwork together and was about to approach Troughton with his suggestion when Ransford emerged at speed from his inner office. This was his chance to ask for a word.

  ‘Cahill’s out of A&E,’ Ransford announced to a detective whose desk was by his door. ‘As soon as downstairs have processed him, we’ll need an interview room. I’m bringing the assistant chief up to speed.’

  Sean was directly in Ransford’s path as he marched purposefully towards the doors. ‘Sir?’

  The DCI didn’t break his stride. ‘Not now!’

  Sean had to step back so fast, he almost fell over the wastepaper basket behind him. As he bent down to stand it back up, he caught the look of amusement on the nearest officer’s face. It was the same one who’d told him about Cahill being arrested.

  ‘Watch your step there, pal.’

  Sean engineered a smile. ‘Didn’t pick that moment very well, did I?’

  ‘No, not really.’ He raised a hand. ‘Adrian Wareham.’

  ‘Hi. Sean—’

  ‘Yeah, I remember from Ransford’s briefing.’ He looked over at the doors their senior officer had just vanished through. ‘I wouldn’t worry, his stress levels always go through the roof,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Listen – people are going for a pint after work tonight. Want to come?’

  The Oddfellow’s Arms was one street over, on the corner of Bosworth Road. A traditional-style boozer with, Sean noticed approvingly, only one TV screen. Adrian led him past the main bar to a side hatch, where he began trying to signal a barmaid.

  Sean turned back to study the front area of the pub. A couple – both younger than him – were sitting either side of a small table. Heads bent, faces lit by their smart phones’ glow. Jesus, thought Sean. I hope it’s not a first date.

  A server approached the table and put down two plates of food. Saying nothing, the girl immediately lifted her phone to take a photo.

  ‘Pint of lager, cheers, Kate. Sean?’

  A pint, Sean thought, without enthusiasm. But he couldn’t think of a better option. ‘Yeah, the same. Thanks.’ He glanced around, wondering where everyone else was.

  ‘Behind you,’ said Adrian. ‘They pretty much keep the entire thing free for us.’

  Sean looked over his shoulder. Across the corridor was an open door. The room beyond was the sort of space that would perfectly suit a private function. Somewhere that was part of the pub, but also slightly removed.

  ‘Half the stuff that gets talked about would give normal punters nightmares. Better to just shove us all out of the way, in there.’

  It was, Sean thought, the type of gesture that only resulted from putting considerable amounts of cash behind the bar. ‘Nice little arrangement.’

  ‘Well,’ Adrian added, handing him a drink, ‘we’re always dead paranoid about being overheard, aren’t we?’

  Sean followed him into the room. Maggie James and her cohort of support workers seemed to have taken over the table at the far end. The rest of the room consisted of small groups of mostly male officers. Sean spotted DS Fuller in one corner, deep in conversation with Morris and a few others.

  Adrian led him to a group who were discussing Cahill’s long list of previous convictions: two of the officers knew him from their time in uniform. For them, it had only been a matter of time before the man had progressed to murder.

  Once Cahill had been put into an interview room, there’d been another wait while he consulted with his solicitor. Or tried to consult, the oldest detective had gleefully reported. The bloke looked like he’d had a few too many injections of filler: like someone had stuck some inner-tubing to his mouth and painted it the colour that lips were meant to be.

  Sean sipped at his drink, doing his best to appear at ease. He’d never found trying to interact with new groups of people easy. Especially not in the noisy surroundings of a pub. The conversation drifted onto other topics and the group began to fragment as people peeled off to chat with other colleagues.

  Sean checked the time on his phone. He’d only been in the room for a quarter of an hour. Too soon to head home and, besides, he owed Adrian a drink. Looking about, he spotted Magda sitting at a table near the door. The place next to her was empty. ‘Mind if I join you?’

  She patted the seat enthusiastically. ‘Take a seat. So, your first taste of the Oddfellow’s Arms – how are you finding it?’

  ‘Yeah, nice.’ He glanced at the old black-and-white photos of Manchester on the walls. Horse-drawn carts on Deansgate. Stern-looking men in aprons outside dimly lit stores. Dirty-faced kids, playing with marbles in back alleys. ‘I like this back-room business.’

  ‘Yes,’ Magda nodded. ‘A good place for talking shop. What would you normally do on a Saturday night, if you weren’t only just finishing work?’

  Feeling self-conscious, he adjusted the position of a beer mat. Saturday nights? How to answer that. He could hardly say that most of his social life during his teenage years and beyond had been organized by Barnardo’s. Meetings in musty social clubs and the odd excursion to give young carers some respite from looking after sick or injured parents.

  ‘Is this,’ Magda said, ‘the sort of place you go to with your friends?’

  A few faces flashed in his head. Damon, whose dad had multiple sclerosis. Lauren, whose mum had a massive stroke in her mid-thirties and now couldn’t talk or walk. Richard, whose mum lost both legs to blood poisoning and whose dad was now suffering from fibromyalgia. They’d all welcome the day trips and cinema visits the charity had arranged, but none of them were able to ever truly relax and have fun: the yoke of premature responsibility had seen to that. He was about to shrug and say, actually, wine bars were more his thing. But something about the way Magda was watching him made him decide against lying. ‘It was tricky, you know – after Mum was injured. She needed a lot of looking after. There were operations. Lots of them.’

  Magda placed her drink down. ‘Of course. I should have realized.’

  ‘It’s all right. Not the most cheerful thing we could chat about.’

  ‘No: but I would like to know. If you don’t mind …’

  ‘Fine with me.’

  She sat back. ‘Did you not have help?’

  ‘For the first few years after it happened. But that money ran out, eventually.’

  ‘And then it was just you?’

  ‘A community nurse would come by.’ He glanced at her. She looked horrified. ‘It wasn’t that bad. She’s become a lot more capable of looking after herself. We make a pretty good team, actually.’

  ‘How old were you when she was—’

  ‘Nearly ten.’

  ‘You had to learn to do all the chores, did you? Around the home?’

  ‘You mean like doing the washing? Cleaning the house? Shopping?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I did. But surely that’s no bad thing? Better than being helpless. Or hopeless.’

  Her eyes roamed the room. ‘Like most men. And how is she now?’

  Sean took a sip of his drink. ‘She’ll never walk properly, if that’s what you mean. The damage to her pelvis and hips, it was too serious. But, as I said, she’s learned to adapt. She has a little wheelchair she nips about on.’

  ‘And is she – you know – how is her spirit?’

  Sean had a sudden image of his mum tending t
o a small ghost. A miniature phantom she kept in a birdcage. He smiled.

  ‘What?’ Magda asked, looking confused.

  Sean shook his head, still smiling. ‘Sorry. It’s your choice of words. They’re quite funny.’

  ‘Ah. Spirit is not right?’

  ‘No, it is. I don’t know, maybe a bit old-fashioned. Her spirit?’ He paused to take another sip. He couldn’t tell her his mum’s spirit was crushed. That she got by, had found a job with a very understanding employer, kept a cheerful front for her colleagues. But, some mornings, he suspected the only thing that got her out of bed was a determination to see him succeed. ‘She’s OK, most of the time. Talking of which …’

  He checked his phone again. If he stayed much longer, he’d need to let her know he was running late. ‘So what about you? What brought you to Britain?’

  She waved a hand. ‘You remember someone called Nicolae Ceauşescu?’

  He gave her a blank look.

  ‘He was our head of state, until 1989.’

  ‘Oh – you mean the one who was executed?’

  She gave a grim nod. ‘He was terrible for my country. Many people had to leave. Some other time I will tell you. Not now.’

  ‘OK.’ He checked his drink: hardly any left. ‘Would you like another?’

  She shook her head. ‘One’s plenty for me. I think most people will head home except, maybe, some of the—’ She caught her words.

  Younger ones, Sean thought. Like me. ‘One’s who aren’t driving?’ he asked, happy to rescue her.

  ‘Yes, those.’

  ‘I’d better be off, too. I’ll just check if Adrian wants a drink. See you tomorrow, Magda. And thanks, you know, for making me feel welcome.’

  He opened his front door on a dark hallway. Odd, Sean thought, checking his watch even though he knew full well it was almost seven o’clock.

  ‘Mum?’ He hung his keys up and looked in the kitchen. Empty. There was a packet of biscuits on the table, so she must have got in from work at some point. He placed a hand against the kettle. Faintly warm. So where was she? The familiar ripple of anxiety.