Lost Souls

by Neil White

  ‘Where does King live?’ I asked.

  His eyes focused on me slowly. He shut one eye as if the sun had blinded him, but it was almost certainly the sherry that had made his pupils sluggish.

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  I grinned at him. ‘I do.’

  He looked me up and down, and then laughed to himself. His friends stepped back and looked at me strangely, as if I was from another world. And I suppose I was in a way. They lived their lives in a haze as they stumbled from one bottle to the next, never really taking part in society. They regarded me as an intruder, a reminder of the life they had stopped living when the drink took full hold.

  He waved me away and lifted the bottle to his mouth.

  I thought our dialogue had ended, and I had turned to walk away, when he slurred at me, ‘Some big fucking house past Whitwell. On the road to fucking nowhere.’

  I reached into my pocket and floated a twenty down. I had a sense that we might speak again, so it seemed like dialogue in the bank.

  ‘Get drunk on some decent stuff,’ I said. ‘No more of that shit.’

  Terry didn’t look at me. Neither did any of his friends. They were looking at the note, and it was as if all they could see was their next bottle floating towards the pavement.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘How did Egan handle the interview?’

  Laura turned to look at Pete. It was the first thing he had said since they’d left the station.

  They were heading out to Luke King’s house, where he lived with his parents in a palatial new-build many miles from Blackley They were heading north and were driving along single-track country lanes, over pack-horse bridges, twisting between long hedgerows, the fields dotted by trees and painted in that brighter green which seemed so much more like summer, broken only by the white dots of sheep.

  ‘Egan was like I expected,’ said Laura.

  Pete laughed. ‘Like an arsehole then.’

  Laura looked out of the window and smiled. ‘Your words, not mine.’

  ‘Any hissy fits from the defence?’

  Laura thought back to the interview. It had been like a long fight, starting from when Egan tried to get the defence lawyer to sit in a corner, well away from his client. From then on the defence hadn’t co-operated. It was a tricky balance, Laura knew that, the need to throw the defence off-kilter, to try and get a confession, but without turning it into bullying. If it went too far, the confession could be kept away from the jury. Murderers had walked free because of that.

  ‘One or two,’ she said. ‘Maybe when Egan gets one of his confessions thrown out of court, he’ll do things differently.’

  Laura turned to look out of the side window. She had taken a gamble in coming up to the King house. The interview with Luke King had ended when a superintendent interrupted and asked to discuss tactics with Egan. Laura had guessed from Egan’s face that someone with influence had placed a call, that the tactics were more about getting King out than keeping him in.

  For all the things about Egan she didn’t like, Laura thought he was right to be suspicious about Luke King. And arresting him would get DNA samples from him, from his hair, his fingernails. Anything else was best to look for while he was still locked up. This was a murder investigation, and Jess Goldie deserved more than favours called in from the golf-club bar. Maybe the inside of the car had blood smeared on the steering wheel or on the seat, or his clothes contained traces of her blood or hair.

  Laura had needed Egan’s consent to search the house, and he was the only inspector she was prepared to ask. He had nodded quickly, hoping that she would find something to justify his decision to make the arrest. Laura had been ready to go on her own, but she sensed that it would be a no-loser for Pete: he would either play a part in Egan’s downfall or he would find something useful. Either way, he would get to raise a glass.

  ‘How was Egan with you?’ Pete asked, back to his favourite subject.

  ‘Familiar,’ she said, but she sensed that Pete guessed it anyway.

  ‘That’d be about right,’ he replied, still staring straight ahead. ‘He tries it on with everyone, especially new meat like you.’

  ‘You know how to make a girl feel special,’ she said jokingly, but Pete didn’t laugh.

  Laura watched him for a while as he just stared straight ahead. ‘What’s the thing between you two?’ she asked.

  Pete didn’t react at first, and Laura started to wonder whether he had heard her, but then he sighed and replied, ‘We started as cops at the same time. I ended up on the Support Unit before he did, so by the time he arrived I’d learned a few tricks of the trade.’

  Laura raised her eyebrows at that. She knew about the Support Unit. In jumpsuits and boots, they patrolled Saturday nights, looking to split up fights. Or maybe prolong them. The ‘distraction strike’ was their favourite technique, where an officer under threat could strike the attacker hard, the distraction of the pain making time for an arrest. Best delivered as a hard punch to the nose, it suited those who liked a ruck. As Laura looked at Pete, she guessed that he had fitted in well in the Support Unit.

  ‘Did you have the van door rule?’ she asked.

  He tilted his head, and then started to smile. ‘So they had it in London too?’

  Laura looked forward again. ‘I’ve heard of it.’ And she had seen it in action, the rule that if the back doors of the van had to open, the cops didn’t leave the scene until someone was in the van with them, for the handcuffed ride back to the station with plenty of hard braking. The spread of CCTV had stopped much of the fun for the Support Unit, but until they put cameras in the vans, most people would still arrive at the station on the van floor, the victim of one too many emergency stops.

  ‘What did Egan do that upset you so much?’

  ‘He didn’t like our methods, so he reported them, and then backed a prisoner up on a complaint.’ Pete glanced at Laura. ‘Maybe he was right, I don’t know, but why didn’t he tell us first?’

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I got shoved into Custody for a couple of years. It was only the arrival of civilian jailers that got me out, and by the time I did he had arse-kissed all the way to his pips.’

  ‘So he’s not the most popular person in the station?’

  Pete shook his head. ‘Not below him. Those above him like him, admire him for his courage, all that shit. And let’s face it, he’s only looking up.’

  Laura shook her head and looked out of the window. She felt her phone vibrate again. ‘Meet for lunch? J xx ’

  Laura sighed. It sounded like a great idea, but she knew it was a no.

  She texted back. ‘No can do. Off for drive in country. Make sure Bobby ok from school’

  She put her phone back in her pocket and thought about the long nights in she’d shared with Jack in London just a few weeks earlier. As she looked at the countryside flashing by, they seemed like part of a different life.

  * * *

  I smiled when I got the message. I had expected the police to head out to the house. It was a common formula: have an interview to set up the lies, and then search the house to disprove them.

  I had parked half a mile from the house. I’d asked at a local garage for the exact location of Jimmy King’s house, showed them my press badge and said I was late for an interview. I was still driving my 1973 Triumph Stag, in Calypso Red. It had been my father’s old car, washed and treasured by him every Sunday until his death. I loved the car myself now, it reminded me of sunny weekends watching Dad polish it, but I knew that Laura would recognise it in a flash if I parked it too close to the house.

  I was sitting in a tree, fifty yards from the house and across a secluded lane. I was looking down into the garden, a long green lawn, striped, with colourful borders all around. Pink, blues, violets. They looked well-maintained, and at the end of the garden were trees, willow and pine, although they were still small, some years to go before they created the country-garden look they were tryin
g to achieve. The house itself stood out against the old stone cottages dotted around the valley. The bricks were fresh and new, with white pillars against the church-style front door and two large gables at the front, so that the house was H-shaped, grand and imposing. I guessed that the grilles on the gate were so people could see in, rather than the Kings see out.

  All I had to do now was wait.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The boy was still asleep, the television off now, just the flicker of the oil-lamp for company.

  He leaned forward, watched the rise and fall of his chest, the slight movement of his lips as he breathed. He looked angelic, young and untroubled, a long way from the problems at home. In that light, unaware of his surroundings, he was just another young boy.

  He scuffed his feet on the floor, the noise of his soles in the dust loud, as if the surroundings weren’t used to sound. The walls were thick with cobwebs, the ones above the oil-lamp dancing in the heat of the flame, grey flicks as they waved in the half-light.

  He stood up and stretched. He knew he couldn’t stay there all day. He knew the boy would be all right. There was still enough sedative in him to keep him quiet until the next morning. Just one more night and then it would all be better.

  He leaned over the boy, watched his face for a moment. His hand reached down and moved the boy’s hair to one side, as if to keep it out of his eyes. He smiled, almost paternal, and then leaned forward to kiss him on the forehead. His lips touched softly, just a light brush.

  He would be back, to make things right.

  ‘I always knew there was money in property,’ said Pete.

  Laura looked up, and through the windscreen she saw what he meant.

  They were approaching a pair of high steel gates sitting between brick pillars, the central point of long brick walls that surrounded a house she could see at the top of a sweeping gravel drive.

  The house stood out as a blemish in a quiet green valley, Laura thought. It was too new for the setting, the ivy planted around the base of the walls not up to the ground-floor windows, so that the brickwork still gleamed. Maybe in a hundred years or so, when the roof had dipped in a few places and the walls had weathered darker, it would look desirable, but Laura thought that it seemed more lottery-win than country-set.

  Pete had to bark stern words at the intercom to get the gate to open, but within a couple of minutes his tyres crunched on the gravel and they had parked in front of the large oak double doors at the front of the house. Jimmy King stood on the front doorstep. He was wearing a shirt open at the neck, but the rest of his attire was smart, with crisp pleats in his pinstriped trousers and a deep gleam to his shoes.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he barked.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr King,’ said Laura, stepping ahead of Pete, guessing that her diplomatic skills would be better than his. ‘We are currently holding your son, Luke, at Blackley police station, and we just need to have a look around.’

  ‘Do you have a warrant?’

  ‘Do I need one?’ It was a clichéd question, but it usually worked.

  Jimmy King paused for a moment, and then stepped forward to block Laura’s way. ‘Yes, you do,’ he said, before turning around and walking back into the house.

  Laura and Pete exchanged looks, and before she could stop him, Pete was bounding up the steps to the front doors, large and imposing, a stone above the entrance engraved with a motto: Strength in Unity. Pete jammed his foot in just as the door was about to close.

  Pete grinned. ‘No, we don’t.’ When Jimmy King stepped back, surprised, Pete continued, ‘Your son is under arrest and we have the authority of an inspector to be here, so we can do it with or without your co-operation.’

  ‘Which inspector?’

  Pete shook his head. ‘That doesn’t concern you. So it’s arrest or search. Which do you fancy?’

  ‘I’ve met bully-boys like you before,’ said Jimmy, his face impassive, his voice cold. ‘You need to remember that it’s only a job, that you’ll want to go home at night and forget about it.’ His look hardened. ‘I don’t forget anything.’

  Pete glared at him. ‘And I’ve met plenty like you before,’ he said, and pushed past him and into the house.

  Laura shook her head. She admired Pete’s style, but she wondered how many complaints he could fend off and stay in the job.

  When they went in, Laura saw how unlike a country house it was. There were no panelled walls or dark corners, no oak beams across the ceilings. Instead, the light almost bounced its way around the house as it streamed through large windows and off the gold stripes on the wallpaper. The stairs went up out of the hall and fanned out to both sides of the house. Laura thought she saw a chaise longue at the top, below a large window that streamed light down into the hall. The rooms on either side of her were carpeted in pristine cream, and flowers adorned every spare piece of surface. It made Laura realise how much she had to do in her own home, with so many boxes still unpacked and none of the rooms in colours she liked.

  Laura was pulled back to the reason for the visit by Dawson’s growl.

  ‘Where’s Luke’s car, the blue Audi?’

  Jimmy King stared at them both for a few seconds, and then sat down. ‘I thought this was a search,’ he said, his fingers together, steepled upwards. ‘So find it then.’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ said a female voice from the top of the stairs.

  Laura looked up and saw a woman in her late fifties, with bottle-blonde hair swept back into a tight wave. She was wearing a yellow jumper, her shirt collar up, and a string of pearls, like a woman who ached to be accepted for what she would like to be, higher up the social scale than everyone else. It was the unpleasant rise to her smile that gave her away, looking down on Laura like she was trying to sell her lucky heather.

  Laura glanced towards the pictures on the wall, dominated by a family portrait: the success story with his society wife and his two perfect boys. Luke King was the youngest, and he looked nervous in the gaze of the lens. The woman at the centre of the picture, sitting on a throne-style chair, was the woman now coming down the stairs towards Laura.

  Laura smiled. ‘Thank you.’

  Mrs King nodded as she passed and then walked towards the back of the house, through a large kitchen full of the stainless-steel trappings that looked like they cost as much as Laura earned in a year, and then into a brick-built conservatory filled with wicker furniture and pot plants.

  As they stepped into the garden, Laura saw someone watching them from the end of the lawn, a tall, dark-haired man, lean and fit in his jeans and T-shirt. But he headed off to a brick workshop tucked away into a corner as soon as he saw them. Laura watched him as he padlocked it and then headed back to where he had just been, pocketing the key as he went.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked Laura.

  Mrs King followed her gaze and then said, ‘Danut, our gardener and handyman.’

  ‘Danut?’

  ‘He’s Romanian.’

  ‘Has he worked for you for long?’

  ‘Started at the beginning of the summer.’

  As Laura watched Danut, she noticed how he avoided her gaze, how he seemed suddenly engrossed in putting his tools away.

  ‘He’s a good worker,’ continued Mrs King, seeing that Laura was watching him. ‘Honest, strong, very good with his hands.’ She looked at Laura. ‘Do you want to question him?’

  Before Laura could answer, Mrs King waved him over.

  ‘Danut, come here.’

  Danut stayed where he was for a moment, and then began to walk slowly along the lawn. As he got closer, Laura could sense that he was wary of them. When he came to a stop, he looked at Laura and clenched his jaw nervously.

  ‘These are two police officers,’ Mrs King said, ‘and they would like to…’

  ‘Where’s Luke’s car, the blue Audi?’ Pete interrupted sharply, cutting out any prompting.

  Danut glanced at Mrs King, who nodded, almost imperceptibly.

&n
bsp; ‘The blue car is for valeting,’ said Danut, his English broken and heavily accented.

  ‘Where is it, though?’

  ‘I just say, I took it for valeting this morning. They wax and polish and I collect soon.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Only twelve pounds, and it come out like from showroom.’

  ‘When did you take it?’ Pete barked.

  ‘Early. Before nine.’

  ‘Who asked you to take it?’

  Danut looked at Mrs King again before answering. ‘Luke. He asked. He said take it for valeting.’