by Joe McNally
‘That’s okay. Listen, I’ll get ready and drive to your place. I just need fifteen minutes to get dressed and get my gear.’
‘Can you call that fella, the one that helped us with DJ, the bodyguard guy?’
‘I haven’t got his number, Alice.’
‘Can you get it?’
‘I’ll see. Maybe. Look, let me get ready and drive down there. Don’t open the door to anyone, okay? Lock it. Now. I’ll call when I’m outside your house. What’s your address?’
She gave me it. I memorized the postcode for the satnav, and turned to go back to the bedroom. Mave was behind me. ’Shit! You scared me then!’
’Sorry. What’s wrong with Ben?’
‘He didn’t come home. Alice thinks he’s in trouble.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘Harm kind of trouble.’
Mave followed me to the bathroom, ‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t know. She’s frantic.’ I brushed my teeth.
‘Booze?’
I shook my head.
Mave raised a doubting eyebrow. I spat into the cold stream from the tap, wiped my mouth and said, ‘Ben would sooner kill himself than drink again.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to make sure Alice is okay. If half of Ben’s stories about Deadwood are true, it’s not somewhere to leave a kid at night.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘I wish you could, but I don’t want to leave Mac to wake up with nobody here.’
‘Why don’t you wake him now?’
‘He’s not long gone to bed. Anyway, he’ll just try to nag me into calling the cops. Why don’t you travel to Aintree with Mac and I’ll see you there?’
‘Of course. Sure. Should I pack an overnight bag for us?’
‘It’ll do no harm.’
We went to the bedroom, and I dressed and began checking my kitbag. Mave said, ‘Leave that, Eddie. I’ll do it and bring it with me later.’
‘Thanks,’ I kissed her and felt in my pocket for my car keys. Then I remembered Prim and scrolled back for her number and told her what I was doing.
‘Call me as soon as there’s any news,’ she said.
‘Can you come to Aintree, Prim? Alice thinks a lot of you.’
‘I…I don’t think Dil wants me to.’
‘Fuck Dil. Tell him you’re the guest of Monty Bearak, and that you’ll be in his box looking after Alice Searcey, and that I said so.’
‘Okay.’
‘Do it, Prim!’
‘I’ll do it! I’ll do it! I promise!’
‘Good. I’ll tell Alice.’
‘Call me when you get there, just to let me know she’s all right.’
‘I’ll try to remember,’ I said, going out the door, waving to Maven.
‘I’ll call you, then.’ Prim said.
‘Fine. Do that.’
I got in the car and drove hard and fast into the deep darkness.
35
My invisible companion, confidently guiding me from the satnav speakers, would have changed her bright tone had she seen where her “now, turn left” command had taken me. This was Deadwood, marked at its border with a row of broken street-lamps and graffiti-covered gable ends.
I slowed, watching for the next turn. From a house on the right, music blared. I glanced through the dimly lit, uncurtained window and saw dancers moving, and cigarette ends glowing. It was almost 3.a.m.
Outside the Searcey house, I stopped and switched off the lights, reaching for my phone as I looked around.
In the long terraces, a few windows showed light. Toward the bend in the crescent, a hundred yards away, two youths walked, their brash swagger marking their age and their vulnerability.
She answered on the first ring. ’Alice. I’m outside.’
‘Hold on.’
I watched the three windows on the house front and saw her peek from the curtain edge of the wider upstairs one.
Thirty seconds later she was unlatching the security chain. I went in. She’d been crying. Her fair hair was untidy and damp and pressed against her temple.
I felt like hugging her, but I was still too much of a stranger to risk her being comfortable with that. She led me into a small, warm living room where a lamp glowed in one corner, and a TV screen, wide and black, dominated the opposite corner. Two rugs sat neatly on a laminate floor. A gas fire burned low, only the central column glowing, an armchair and two-seater dark sofa angled toward it.
‘No word?’ I said.
She shook her head, staring at me, wide-eyed. I took three steps toward her and put my hands on her shoulders, ‘I’ll fix this, for you, Alice. I promise.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know, yet, but I’ll fix it. This is what I do. Outside of riding horses, this is what I do. I’m good at it. Okay?’
Her shoulders were high, making her neck look just half its normal length. The tension in her seemed to be keeping her upright. She just watched me. ‘Okay?’ I repeated.
She nodded, then said, ‘Did you get that fella’s number?’
Bruno.
I’d forgotten, and I realized what I’d just said had washed right over her. She didn’t want a jockey promising he’d fix things, and find her father. She wanted a proper hard man.
I said, ‘I’ll speak to Sir Monty tomorrow, and if I think Bruno can help, I’ll get him on our side. But you need to believe what I’m telling you, for your own sake. I do stuff like this. I find people. I deal with problems. I’ve been offered jobs in the past, jobs just doing this, finding people, fixing problems that the police can’t, that other people, even people like Bruno can’t. Understand?’
She nodded, more slowly this time, looking at me with deeper concentration. I said, ‘If you want me to, I’ll tell you the details of all the jobs I’ve done that are like this.’
Fear was coming back into her face. She said, ‘Like what? Do you know what’s happened to my Dad? How do you know it’s going to be like the other things you’ve done?’
I moved my hands down onto her upper arms and squeezed, ‘I don’t know anything about what’s happened, Alice, that’s not what I meant. I just wanted to reassure you that if something has gone wrong, I’ll fix it. I’ll find him. Listen, he could walk back through that door anytime, and I believe that’s probably what he’ll do. But if I need to go looking, then I’ll find him. Okay?’
‘Okay. Should we go out now and start looking?’
‘No. We should sit down and you should tell me everything about what he’s been doing lately, especially with DJ’s people.’
’Then what?’
‘Then, I’m going to ask Mave to help us track his phone activity. Mave’s good too. She’s helped with some of that other stuff I mentioned.’
’She could start now, then, couldn’t she? What does she do, work for a mobile company, or something?’
‘Better than that. She’s a genius. A walking talking genius.’ I took out my phone. Alice was right. Mave could have been working on this. So much for all my boasting. I brought up Mave’s number, and asked Alice to write Ben’s down. I told Mave I’d arrived safe and asked her to let Prim know. ‘Will do. How’s Alice?’
‘Alice is fine. I’ve promised her we’re going to find her Dad, so Alice is fine.’
‘Good.’
‘Can you get into the system of his phone supplier and track his activity?’
‘Er, yes, but I don’t know how long it’ll take. I haven’t done anything like this for a while. They’ll have upgraded their security.’
‘Can you start now?’
‘Of course. Give me the number.’
When I ended the call, I told Alice that Mave was as confident as I was about finding her father, and steadily, I could see Alice begin to unwind.
’Now let’s sit down and try and work out where he might be,’ I said. Alice told me of the trailing work Ben had mentioned, from betting shop to betting shop, watching
these guys put large amounts of cash into Fixed Odds Betting Terminals then taking most of it back out, suitably “laundered”, ten minutes later.
The more she talked, the more confident she grew that this was the line to take.
I wasn’t so sure that it was the DJ stuff behind Ben’s disappearance. He’d been tracking these bookie boys for weeks, but had disappeared soon after telling me he had a lead on the wild horses side.
Alice was still talking, working her way through the different players in DJ’s girl-running scheme, describing each in detail and giving me their backstory, when Mave rang, ‘Eddie, I’ve found Ben’s phone. Well, its location. It’s still live and pinging the closest masts.’
‘Where?’
Alice stared unblinking at me. Mave said, ‘Weirdly, it’s west of mast BLU831, the BLU standing for Blundellsands.’
‘Why weirdly?’
‘According to the system map, that mast is on a building right against the sea wall at Crosby.’
’So, all that’s west of it…’ I tailed off as I realized Alice was obviously hanging on everything we talked about. Mave said, ‘Yep, all that’s west of that mast is the sea, and maybe fifty metres of beach at low tide, which it is just now.’
‘If we drive there, could you pinpoint my phone in relation to Ben’s?’
‘Yes.’
’Okay. I’ll call you when we’re parked.’
Alice said nothing. She just reached involuntarily and clasped my forearm. I said, ‘Crosby isn’t far, is it?’
‘Has she found him?’
’She’s found his phone.’
Alice got up, ‘Crosby’s only about twenty minutes! Come on. Dad liked Crosby. Used to take me there when I was a kid.’
When I was a kid
I couldn’t picture a time when she had been any more childlike than she was now; eyes beaming, gripping and pulling at the sleeves of her denim jacket, elated at the promise of something special.
She ran down the path to the car.
36
We drove through the suburbs of Crosby until we reached the long sea wall. Mave had been tracking my phone as I spoke to her. She guided us to a parking spot closest to the straight line west she had pinpointed.
We got out. The wind off the sea blew Alice’s hair above head height, but she didn’t reach to smooth it or hold it down, ‘Which way?’ she said.
We had driven past a flight of stairs leading to the beach. I pointed back toward it. Alice, hands in pockets, jogged and I quickened my step, still talking to Mave, ‘It’s black-dark out there, but I can’t hear any waves.’
‘Tide’s out, remember’ she said, ‘I checked the tables. You’ll be safe to walk. Wet and splodgy maybe, but safe.’
Alice looked up at me as I took the last few stairs and stepped onto dry sand. ‘How far do you reckon?’ I asked Mave.
‘Hard to say. Start walking, and keep moving. This’ll play catch up. It’s not quite a GPS, but it should make sure you’re on the line to cross where Ben’s phone is.’
‘Hold on,’ I said and I called for Alice to come back and stay beside me, ‘we’re going the right way. A few minutes, but I don’t want you getting out of my sight in the dark.’
She nodded, but wouldn’t come right alongside, staying a step ahead, putting her hand to her forehead as though it were bright sunlight she faced. I knew what she was trying to do, the streetlamps on the prom were leaking enough yellow light to stop our eyes from adjusting fully to the darkness.
‘Keep going,’ Mave said.
And we walked toward the sea, though I could neither hear nor see it.
Then I saw a man.
Big. Upright, ahead of me.
I put a hand out, pulling Alice back. She turned. I pointed. She shook her head, ‘Those are statues. It’s art. There are quite a few of them scattered along the beach. Been here for years.’
My memory dredged up an old news article about a sculptor, Antony somebody. I told Mave.
‘Antony Gormley,’ she said, ‘sorry, I should have told you to expect those.’
‘No worries.’
We walked on, over wet ridges and through troughs of tidewater. The farther we got from the sea wall, the better my eyes coped.
‘You should be close, now,’ Mave said.
I told Alice. She called out, ‘Dad! Dad!’
Something in me wanted to silence her, but that was senseless.
‘Is she okay?’ Mave asked.
‘On the edge…I think she’s hoping he’s drunk, and he’s passed out here somewhere.’
‘I didn’t think I’d be saying this, but that would probably be a blessing.’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘Go right a bit, Eddie.’
Alice was almost gone from sight, still calling for her father. ‘How much is a bit, Mave? It’s pitch dark.’
‘If you see it as walking now toward twelve on a clock face, go off toward ten past.’
‘Okay.’
A few silent moments, then she said, ‘That’s it, that’s the line. You’re very, very close.’
‘There’s another statue about ten yards ahead.’
‘Keep going.’
I reached the statue, ‘Fuck,’ I said.
‘What is it?’ Mave asked.
‘Ben’s jacket is on the statue. Looks like his trousers are tied to it.’
‘Jeez! Where’s Alice?’
’She’s out of sight, off to my left.’
‘Check the jacket pockets.’
‘I am…his shoes are on the ground on top of what looks like his underwear.’
‘Oh, no,’ Mave said quietly.
‘The phone’s here, Mave. In his inside pocket.’
‘Anything else?’
I moved to the northern side. ‘I can smell whiskey…there’s something in the big jacket pocket…a bottle…a half bottle…empty.’
‘I’m sorry, Eddie.’
‘I’m not buying this, Mave, no way. It’s not even Ben’s style. If he was going to kill himself, he’d do it quietly. The only thing that stinks higher than the whiskey is this set up.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘Go to be…got to be.’
‘Who do you think?’
‘I don’t know. Whoever Ben had picked up on with the horses, I’d think.’
‘What about this DJ guy?’
‘Ben got him warned off, didn’t he? He’s gone.’
‘Maybe he’s back.’
’No way. From what I’ve heard, this wouldn’t be the kid’s style. He’s got a single cell brain. And he’d be too scared of Bruno Guta.’
‘What are you going to tell Alice?’
I sighed, long and heavy and reached stupidly to lean on the cold metal arm of the statue, covered with Ben’s jacket, ’I don’t know, Mave.’
‘I’d best let you find her. Call me when you’ve decided what we’re doing. Do you want me to tell Mac what’s happened?’
‘Yes. But tell him to speak to no one until he’s spoken to me. Try and get to Aintree for eight. We’ve got a lot of sorting out to do before racing.’
‘I will. Good luck.’
‘Thanks, Mave.’
I stood with my phone in one hand, and Ben’s in the other, and I heard Alice call again for her Dad, her voice carrying on the southwest wind.
‘Alice! Over here!’ I shouted, and swallowed the lump in my throat.
37
Two hours later, Alice and I were still waiting for the police. We took turns in the car, out of the wind. Her shock had long ago turned to anger, then, through half a dozen calls to Merseyside police, into rage.
I had twice talked her out of removing her father’s clothing from the statue. I didn’t think Ben had committed suicide, but there was a chance he’d been murdered, and I knew enough by now about the importance of Scene of Crime Officers, and not disturbing anything. Trouble was, I couldn’t tell Alice the reason I was holding out. I’d spent most of the first
hour trying to convince her that he wasn’t dead.
I walked the beach, trying to stay warm. Each time I moved downwind of the statue, the smell of whiskey was strong, and I knew it must have soaked into the fabric of the jacket.
It was still dark, but I could hear the tide coming in. If the cops didn’t turn up soon, the crime scene would be under the Irish Sea.
I saw Alice marching toward me out of the gloom, powering forward, head down.
‘What is it?’ I asked, as she stopped in front of me.
‘I just spoke to a knobhead sergeant who said they had more to do with their time than run around after alcoholics who got lost after a beach party!’
‘Did you get his name?’
‘I hung up on him. I said “fuck this” and hung up on him!’
I almost smiled. Alice came past me and unbuttoned her Dad’s jacket, ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘we’ll find him ourselves’.
Driving back to Deadwood, I asked Alice what she wanted to do about the invitation to Monty Bearak’s box for the Grand National.
‘I want to go. I want to ask that Bruno fella to help. I know you’ll help me, but I think he’ll want to as well, once he knows.’
That solved one problem and created another. I had to be at Aintree for two rides, but I wasn’t leaving Alice on her own. Monty would want a day of fun and relaxation for his guests. If Alice was going around the box the way she’d stormed the beach, people were going to have a day to remember.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’ll make arrangements for Bruno to help. You won’t need to ask. He’ll be happy to, and Sir Monty will want to do all he can. But I think you should still come. Prim will be there.’
She folded her arms and nodded firmly. I said, ‘I’ll stay in the car while you get ready, and I’ll make a few calls.’
When we got to the track, Mave and Prim were waiting by the weighing room, as arranged. Monty had told me he’d meet us in his box.
Prim and Mave hugged Alice, and she half-heartedly hugged back. Monty was the best tonic. He spent the first five minutes reassuring her that he was certain everything would work out, and that all his powers were at Alice’s disposal.
