Salt Lane

by William Shaw

  ‘No.’

  She made an effort to get on with her work, looking at her screen, but after a minute she turned to Cupidi. ‘Do you think that was what he wanted? To kill himself? Because he was ashamed of what he’d done?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some men just blow up when they’re threatened. They don’t know what they’re doing.’

  ‘So we still don’t know why he killed her?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s the point. I don’t even know if he killed her.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Something’s off about the whole thing.’

  ‘I dreamed about him last night,’ said Ferriter. ‘It was like he was on fire, and if I touched him I would catch light too. But I did. And I died. I was in my dream and I actually died. It was scary.’

  ‘Maybe you shouldn’t be back at work yet. Maybe you need a couple more days off.’

  The office door opened. Moon came in, chewing on a Twix. ‘You got that map?’ He smiled.

  ‘Here.’ She smiled back, and handed it to him.

  ‘Thanks. You’re a star.’ He paused. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine,’ she said.

  When he’d gone, Ferriter said, ‘It was just a dream. Give me something to do. Please, Sarge. I don’t want to think about it all, right now.’

  Cupidi looked at her, then said, ‘Hostels. Shared houses. Get a list of Home Office temporary accommodation. Anywhere where recent North African migrants might be. Can you do that?’

  ‘I think so.’

  When she had started, Cupidi called her mother. ‘I’ll probably be home late,’ she said. ‘I have to go and visit some hostels and places. We’re looking for some information about the murdered man.’

  Her mother said nothing.

  ‘There’s no other time to do it,’ said Cupidi. ‘That’s the way it is these days. We don’t have an endless supply of officers any more. The people in these hostels are out at work all day. Only chance of catching them in is to get them in the evenings. Sorry, Mum. It’s something we need to do.’

  ‘I’m babysitting then,’ said her mother finally.

  ‘I’ll make it up to you.’

  ‘What does she eat, even? I’m worried about that girl.’

  Behind glass, in his office, the normally calm Inspector McAdam was chewing his nails. The dark weight of Eason’s death hung over them all now.

  TWENTY

  By five they had enough of a list to get started on.

  ‘You don’t have to come,’ said Cupidi. ‘I can always get someone else.’

  ‘Be honest, I’d rather be doing this,’ said Ferriter, buttoning her jacket with one hand.

  Cupidi moved a pile of papers and files so that the constable could get into the passenger seat of the police car.

  The quality of information on the list they had put together was mixed. There were bona fide hostels, hotels and boarding houses, but there were also ordinary addresses where suspected illegal migrants could be living, picked up from council officers, agencies and fellow coppers. Migrant workers were mostly young men. However discreet they tried to be, they created their own kind of noise. Curtain-twitching neighours of a rented house might make complaints about vans coming and going late at night; a dozen men cramped together in a house would never be inconspicuous.

  Cupidi had gathered printouts of maps, addresses and emails and had tried to compile them into a route that roughly circled the farm where the body had been found. Ferriter held them on her lap, fumbling the pages with her bandaged hand.

  The first place they visited was a small terraced house on a new estate, just to the west of the town. The homes here were all shapes and sizes, some clad in fake plastic planks, attempting to look like some architect’s idea of a village, but there was no hiding how cheaply they had been put together. Already green slime dripped down the wall below a broken gutter. Cars were parked haphazardly on pavements.

  ‘Remind me. Why this one?’ asked Cupidi.

  ‘About three weeks ago, neighbours here reported a street fight between two gangs of young men. Community officer said one of the groups were Tunisians.’

  The curtains were drawn, but all the lights were on, upstairs and down.

  ‘I’ll knock,’ said Cupidi. ‘And maybe you should head around the back, just in case.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  Cupidi rang a bell. Almost simultaneously, curtains pulled back and a man’s face peered out from behind them. She could hear voices inside; scuffling feet. She pushed the button a second time.

  A voice from behind the door said, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can you open the door? I’m a police officer. I would like to talk to you.’

  There was talking, whispering. Across the street, a light came on. A man was standing on his porch with a smartphone, filming her. Cupidi turned and gave the neighbour what she hoped looked like a reassuring smile, then rang the doorbell again.

  The door opened a crack and a man’s face appeared. He looked to be Asian, Cupidi guessed, rather than North African. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Cupidi. I’m investigating the murder of a man…’

  The man interrupted. ‘It’s all legal here. We all have visas. We have papers.’

  ‘I’m sure, sir. I’m not here to ask about your status. I want to know if you know this man.’ She held up the photograph of the victim to the crack in the door. The man shook his head, though he had barely looked at it.

  ‘What about anyone else in the house, though?’

  The man hesitated. ‘Give me the picture.’

  ‘Maybe if we just opened the door a little wider, sir. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. I promise. I’m only interested in finding out what happened to the person in the photo.’

  The man turned to speak to someone behind him. There was another muted conversation. These were people who had grown up in other countries, who always distrusted police, who would not be sure what was happening right now.

  All the same, the man opened the door a little further. Behind him, a shirtless youngster muttered something angrily in a language Cupidi didn’t recognise. This time, the one behind the door turned round and replied, equally tersely, then spoke to Cupidi. ‘Welcome,’ he said, holding the door for her.

  The small hallway into which she stepped was now crowded with people. Faces craned from the living-room door. Two women stood on the staircase, looking down.

  Cupidi held up the picture of the dead man and talked slowly, unsure how many would understand what she was saying. ‘This man has been murdered. We want to find his killers, but we don’t know his name. Do any of you recognise him?’

  The man who had opened the door took the photo and translated.

  Under a bare light bulb in the hallway, the men and women handed the photograph around, pausing to look at it.

  A woman mumbled something.

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said he was handsome,’ said the man. There was a muted laugh. She in turn gave it to the woman on her left, who shook her head and handed it on again.

  Just because these workers said they had papers didn’t mean they were telling the truth. They would have their own reasons for not wanting to talk to police. Cupidi scrutinised the faces looking for any hesitation, any sign of recognition.

  ‘Who was he?’ asked the man who had opened the door.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, pulling out handful of flyers and handing one to him.

  ‘Anything?’ asked Ferriter, when they were both back in the car.

  ‘I counted ten people in there. How many bedrooms do you reckon that house had?’

  ‘Two. Three maybe.’

  Cupidi nodded.

  Ferriter looked at the house. ‘No wonder my little brother can’t get a job round here. Living like animals they are. They can work for bloody nothing. I thought we were putting a stop to all that. I thought that was the whole idea.’

  ‘Jill,’ she said. ‘I’m not in the mood.’ Cupidi put on her seatbelt an
d checked her phone. Nothing from her mother, or from Zoë. She started the engine.

  It was a long night. The second place had been empty, its tenants evicted weeks ago. The third, a hostel, turned out to have been closed down after a campaign by local residents.

  They drove from one address to another. ‘Waste of time. We’re getting nowhere,’ said Ferriter, frustrated.

  ‘This is what it’s like. You don’t know what you’re looking for, so you have to look everywhere. Ruling things out can be progress too.’

  ‘So there’s nothing at all to go on as far as Hilary Keen is concerned, either, is there?’

  ‘No,’ said Cupidi cautiously. She had steered clear of raising the topic of Hilary Keen in case Ferriter was still raw about the death of Stanley Eason. ‘There’s nothing on her. We’ve found a birth certificate and school records. But then nothing until she turns up five years ago to have her teeth fixed at the cost of thousands. Can you get the Anadin out of my bag?’

  ‘Something wrong?’ she asked, dipping into it.

  ‘Headache,’ she said.

  ‘Surely there are previous NHS records?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve requested they dig around, but nothing was sent on to her GP.’

  ‘So she just appeared out of nowhere?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  Ferriter handed her the packet of pills. ‘Don’t you need water?’

  They were stationary, at lights. Cupidi shook her head and popped a pill from the pack.

  ‘Left here,’ Ferriter said. The fifth address they visited was in a new apartment block just west of the town centre. A couple of dozen squeezed onto a former petrol station site.

  ‘Why here?’

  ‘North African asylum seeker. Name of Abdussalam Hasan. Address from the Home Office register. Not sure how current it is.’

  ‘Your turn,’ said Cupidi.

  She watched from the car for a minute as Ferriter stood pressing buttons at the entrance to the flats. She could see her leaning forward, talking into the speakerphone. Eventually she gave up and wandered back towards the car.

  ‘He’s in. I can bloody hear him. When I told him why I wanted to talk he said, “No English.” Lying bastard.’

  ‘Let’s give it a minute. We’ll try again,’ Cupidi said.

  ‘What if we ring another bell? Or just wait till someone comes out.’

  ‘We can’t force people to open the door to us,’ she said. ‘They’ve done nothing wrong.’

  ‘Not that we know about.’

  They sat waiting in the car. A drunk man moved unsteadily towards them, first on one side of the pavement, then the other.

  ‘I could wait till someone comes out and go in. His flat’s just up there on the first floor, I reckon.’

  ‘It’s a private building. He’s not a suspect,’ Cupidi said. ‘We’re trying to win these people’s trust.’

  ‘Right.’

  The drunk man passed on. At the corner he leaned over and vomited into the gutter, then walked on again.

  ‘Nice round here.’

  ‘Thing is, I’m that starving, not even that has put me off,’ said Ferriter.

  ‘I didn’t think you ever ate anything.’

  ‘He’s watching us. Look.’

  Above the ground floor each flat had what estate agents like to call a Juliet balcony, which meant it wasn’t a balcony at all, just railings across the lower half of a window. Behind a first-floor window, there was a man peering down at them from behind the curtain.

  ‘Might not be him.’

  ‘Bet you it is. Shall I try again?’

  Cupidi opened the car door a crack, but just as she did so, a small, slight, olive-skinned figure in a green military jacket appeared on the pavement. Over her head she wore a black scarf.

  ‘She could let us in,’ said Ferriter, ‘couldn’t she?’

  ‘Stay there. Let me,’ said Cupidi.

  Startled by the opening car door, the woman looked round. She was pressing the entry bell, but no one was opening the door. Cupidi looked up. The man at the window had disappeared.

  ‘Excuse me,’ called Cupidi. ‘I just want to ask you something. Do you know a man called Abdussalam Hasan?’

  The woman was speaking urgently into the small grille, pressing the button with her left hand. Cupidi noticed she held her right one close to her chest, as if protecting it.

  Cupidi raised her palms. ‘I only want to talk.’

  ‘Iftah albab,’ the woman pleaded.

  The door stayed closed. The woman removed her hand from the buzzer.

  ‘Do you live here?’

  The woman didn’t answer, just looked blankly at Cupidi.

  ‘It’s all right. I’m not going to do anything. I just need to talk to you. Do you speak English?’

  ‘Of course,’ said the woman quietly.

  ‘You live here?’ Cupidi asked again.

  The woman gave a small nod.

  ‘But you don’t have a key?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Listen. My name’s Alex. I’m just trying to find information about a man who may have gone missing.’

  ‘I don’t know any man who is missing,’ the woman said. Her English was perfect.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  The woman squinted at her for a second, but said nothing.

  ‘The man upstairs.’ Cupidi pointed upwards. ‘He won’t let you in because we’re here?’ said Cupidi.

  ‘He has his reasons.’

  Ferriter approached. ‘And what would they be?’

  ‘We’re not interested in him,’ said Cupidi, as much to Ferriter as to the woman. ‘And we’re not interested in you. We’re asking questions about a dead man.’

  The woman shrugged. ‘We just want to be left alone.’

  ‘This is Detective Constable Ferriter,’ she said. ‘I didn’t catch your name.’

  ‘I didn’t tell you it,’ she said.

  ‘He’s not going to let you in, is he?’

  ‘Not until you go away. If he doesn’t know who is at the door, he doesn’t open it.’

  ‘Wait here with my colleague. Just for a second. I want to show you something. OK? Don’t go anywhere.’

  The woman shrugged again. Back at the car, Cupidi dug into her bag for a copy of the poster; as she looked up she saw the young woman talking to Ferriter.

  When Cupidi returned from the car, she had pulled off her woollen hat and lowered her scarf. Her hair was thick, black and straight. She had fine cheekbones and high, rounded eyebrows. It was hard to tell how old she was; maybe in her early twenties.

  ‘What have you two been talking about?’

  ‘She was asking what I’d done to my hand. I told her I burned it, trying to save someone from a fire.’

  ‘It’s true. She did,’ said Cupidi.

  The girl lifted her hand. She had a small bandage on the same side.

  ‘Twins,’ said Ferriter.

  ‘But the man died, she says.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Cupidi, looking cautiously at Ferriter.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘That is terrible.’

  ‘What did you do to yours?’ asked Cupidi.

  The dressing was fresh, wrapped around her wrist and palm. ‘She said she fell from a ladder.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said.

  Cupidi smiled as reassuringly as she could. ‘Here. Do you recognise this man?’

  The woman took the paper with her good hand and held it up to the light coming through the entrance hall’s glass door, chewing on her lip. ‘Do you know who he is?’

  ‘No, that’s the point. He’s dead, and we want to find who is responsible, but it would be easier if we knew who he was.’

  ‘You are just the ordinary police?’ Her English was clear, despite an accent Cupidi couldn’t place.

  ‘That’s right. We’re part of a murder investigation, looking for whoever killed this man. We’re nothing to do with immigration.’

  ‘I’m sorr
y. I don’t know him,’ she said with another small smile. Her eyes were red-rimmed and weary.

  Cupidi tried again. ‘Looking at him, could you guess who he might have been?’

  ‘Why would I know?’

  ‘I think he might be a migrant worker of some kind.’

  Again the woman shrugged, looked at her feet. ‘Maybe. There are many, many workers.’

  ‘What nationality would you say he was?’

  The woman seemed puzzled by the question, but looked at the paper again. ‘Syrian, maybe. Or Libyan. I don’t know. Romanian. There are Romanians here.’

  ‘We found a Koran with him. Apparently he was a Sunni.’

  She nodded. ‘Maybe.’

  Cupidi hesitated. Ferriter had been right. They hadn’t learned anything useful this evening.

  Constable Ferriter stepped forward. ‘Look, what if we bought you a coffee? My boss isn’t as bad as she looks. She just wants to talk. To be honest, she’s floundering around here. Just talking to you for a bit would help her out.’

  Cupidi raised an eyebrow. The woman looked up at the window above again. ‘I’m tired and hungry. I just want to go to bed and sleep now, but my friend is not answering the door.’

  Ferriter said. ‘Tell you what. I’m bloody starving too. It’s been an ultra shitty day all round. I could do with a bite. What if we get something to eat?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the woman said. She looked around her, as if wishing she could disappear.

  Cupidi said, ‘I promise everything is just between you and me.’

  ‘You and us,’ said Ferriter.

  The woman hesitated. She asked, ‘What happened to the man in the photograph?’

  ‘Do you really want to know?’

  A small nod.

  ‘He was beaten and left to drown in cow shit,’ said Ferriter. ‘We don’t know why, but we’re pretty sure that several people were involved in killing him. It was very brutal. I want to find out who did it.’

  The woman looked at the flyer for a long time. ‘You’ll buy me something to eat?’ she asked Ferriter, putting her scarf back up onto her head.

  TWENTY-ONE

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Cupidi, striding after them.

  ‘Do you like Nepalese?’ Ferriter said. ‘There’s one on the high street.’