Steven wasn’t a member of a gang. I would have known. I would have noticed a sudden unexplained income stream, a deviousness about him. He wore his emotions on his face. He could not have got away with lying to me about where he was, what he was doing there, or who he was with. The signs he was participating in unlawful actions would have been difficult to ignore.
‘Miss Bennet, ya gotta believe me.’
‘No.’ I don’t believe anyone anymore.
He reaches out to pull me towards him, to look him in the eyes while he lies to my face. I shrug him off, manage a shake of the head, and turn to open the door, shoving Jerome outside and slamming it behind him before I gather the ability to inhale a lungful of air, releasing it in a tortured scream.
I tried so hard to be a good mum. Dependable, open, and non-judgemental. And still, like so many other boys his age in this area, he succumbed to the lure of the gangster life. And I had no fucking idea.
I sink to the floor, face in my knees, allowing fresh sobs of grief to envelop me.
Tired. I’m just so fucking tired of the not knowing, the wanting, the waiting. The perpetual feeling of negative anticipation.
When I’ve composed myself, cheeks stained with dried tears, I think back to the development of Steven’s friendships with the group and wonder if Jerome, Natalie, Leighton, and Marcus’s parents were also misinformed. Or was I the only one who hadn’t worked out the close group of friends who hung out on the estate with each other as often as possible were the very definition of a gang?
Had I been duped or in denial? And what secrets did they share, what lies had they told that when disclosed could lead to them being permanently silenced?
Whoever killed Steven is out there lurking in the shadows and if what Jerome says is true, they’re all under threat of a similar fate. But what concerns me more is the possibility my own life might be at risk if I dare to divulge what I’ve learned to the police. It’s a no-win game I don’t have the energy to engage in but, if I want answers, I have no choice but to play along.
DS MAGUIRE
Croydon, London
Before I approach the front door, I’ve already established that Keenan’s flat is empty. The curtains have been left partway open. The rooms are void of furniture. Even the light fittings are bulb-less.
‘Where now?’ says Pierce.
‘Door to door. He must have spoken to one of his neighbours at least once.’ You can’t live in such cramped conditions and not bump into any of them in the corridor on the way to the lift. ‘One of them might know where he’s gone.’
The third maisonette we approach has a bare light bulb brightening up the slim hallway. The man who answers has a mop of stringy grey hair combed over with the intention of covering a large bald spot at the top of his head. His striped shirt that looks as though it was accidentally washed with something and has been dyed navy blue is worn inside out. His socks don’t match, and he stinks of mothballs. I withhold a gag when asking if he knows what happened to Keenan.
‘Got into a fight with his boss. He left in a hurry two nights ago.’
‘Any idea where he’s gone?’
‘No, sorry.’
His father’s never been around. I don’t think he’s in contact with his mum. She’s a crack addict whore by all accounts.
‘Thanks. If you hear from him—’
‘I’ll be sure to let you know.’
He types my number into his phone then waits until our backs are turned before closing the door behind us.
‘With or without a confirmed identification of the vehicle we’ve got to head over to the flat where the registered keeper of the Golf supposedly lives.’
‘What’s the man’s address?’ says Pierce.
‘The Citiscape tower block on Drummond Road.’
‘Half a mile away from Apollo House on Chatfield Road where Jerome and Natalie live,’ says Pierce.
‘Only two miles from Addiscombe Gardens.’ Where Steven was murdered.
‘And just a ten-minute walk from Centrillion Point on Mason’s Avenue.’
I give him a look that says, ‘And so what?’
‘Where Dejuan’s son lives.’
‘What son?’
‘The one he had behind Honour’s back.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Fifteen. His name’s Marcus West.’ He takes a step back.
‘Marcus is Steven’s half-brother?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘You didn’t think to tell me this after you interviewed him?’
‘It’s only just come to my attention. He got cautioned for shoplifting this morning. When the DNA got logged on the system it threw up a sibling comparison.’
‘I wonder if Steven was aware.’ Was it possible they’d only just discovered their relation to one another and fought, resulting in Steven’s death?
‘We’ve got to go and speak to Marcus after we’ve spoken to the owner of the Golf.’
‘Agreed,’ says Pierce, wearing a hint of reluctance on his face.
We’ve worked together for three years, but it’s the first time I’ve felt uneasy in his company.
*
The high-rise opposite looms over us, shadowing the car park beneath it where we wait for Mr Mahajan to buzz us in. DC Pierce has gone all out. His disguise is centred around the knowledge that the previous fourteen times uniformed detectives have entered the estate their presence has caused riots and their vehicles have been stoned. We walked, we’re in casual dress, and we enter in seconds without a warning note being whistled up to a floor above by a youth hiding behind the communal bins parked to the side of the entrance where the main doors lead to a grotty unkempt staircase. We take the lift that stinks of piss up to the fifth floor and force ourselves to slow-walk along the sticky vinyl corridor to room sixty-four to avoid suspicion, still holding our breath.
Mr Mahajan isn’t our person of interest. He’s not a detective either. He’s what’s known as an informer. An ex-inmate of Her Majesty’s Pleasure, Pentonville. A category C prisoner having served two years of a three-year sentence mainly on G wing, educating and rehabilitating himself while ratcheting up favours that would pay him more than sweeping the floors and helping the screws, turn-keys, guards, prison officers, or whatever you want to call them catch rodents for the money to purchase tobacco and phone cards. Released from his sentence with a reduction due to his impeccable behaviour, he now assists the police as well as the local drug dealers to ensure the top dogs get sent down and their foot-soldiers’ businesses continue to thrive; a balancing act I’m not envious of in the slightest. It’s a dangerous job sniffing out, conversing with, and infiltrating class A suppliers, and it goes unpaid. But the work satisfies him as well as us because he gets away with dealing weed while we catch the hard-arse nasties: those involved in distributing more than powder, rocks, pills, or vials of liquid.
We enter the stuffy dusty maisonette and follow Mr Mahajan into the kitchen.
‘I already made you tea,’ he says.
‘Thank you.’
I take a biscuit too and dunk it in before remembering the last time he gave me shit for it. His home might be a mess, but he has standards when it comes to food being dipped into drinks and swallowed. He gives me a disgusted look I pretend not to have noticed and waits for Pierce to take a swig of tea before he tells us what he’s learned. ‘The car belong to a man who lived down in number twenty-two. But he gone long time.’
‘Any idea where the owner could be?’
‘The cemetery. I mean he dead gone.’
Pierce’s forehead creases up, but he manages not to huff.
‘Liver cirrhosis. Alcoholic. His mum still live there.’
Unless she’s a glove-wearing transvestite, who drives like a bat from hell and keeps a knife on her to slay teenage boys for god knows what reason, I’m doubtful she’s the culprit.
‘She got no family and the car be sitting there so long I don’t think it even start.’
He moves aside the lace net curtain and points down past the car park to where a lone Volkswagen has been left to rust on an uncut stretch of grass. Even from here I can make out the alloy wheels were long ago stolen.
‘The number plate matches the car you said got flashed for speeding. I check.’
*
In the car Pierce nudges my arm and says, ‘It could be a clone.’
‘Her son’s been dead for twelve months and I’m disinclined to suggest a seventy-seven-year-old woman had the gall to swap plates.’
‘Could’ve been done by anyone, any time. That’s the problem with vehicle theft. If you’ve got access to an exact vehicle, same colour, same year of registration only the VIN plates, if they haven’t also been altered, will give the game away.’
‘And no ANPR check is going to alert us unless you’re driving like a maniac and manage to get a photograph snapped of your car or we have a witness willing to come forward and identify you.’
‘I don’t suppose anyone’s turned up to the local police station with their licence to sign up for a driver’s awareness course to avoid a fine on top of the speeding points?’
‘Not yet.’
I watch the estate disappear while Pierce heads towards the building traffic closing in on the roundabout.
‘We’ve got the elderly woman’s grandson’s address. Let’s just check his alibi to ensure he isn’t operating a black Volkswagen Golf using cloned plates removed from his deceased father’s static car. Then we can go and grab something to eat. I’m starving.’
‘You always are. That stomach of yours is like a black hole.’
SINEAD
Newport, Wales
They call this place The Lookout. Situated at the highest point of Christchurch, the view is spectacular and changes drastically dependent on the positioning of the sun as much as the season. Today a thick mist has descended on the mountainous viewing spot. The cold October air steams up the windscreen of my car within minutes of pulling into a space and switching the engine off so that I can only make out a lone woman walking a lead, the dog invisible among the long hazy grass.
I’m parked facing the hillside. The River Usk is disguised by the blanket of off-white that snakes across the landscape like a well-worn bedsheet, the knolls hidden from view. Only the spire of the chapel distinguishes a mile-long stretch of countryside from the rooftops of several large houses and the church, a tall building cloaked in history a few metres off the tight winding road to my right.
I raise a disposable paper coffee cup to my mouth, taking a careful sip of the hot bitter liquid as I stare at the bleak horizon, reminiscing.
This is where we came for the first time of many that we would spend alone together, gazing at the sky from a mattress of stiff dry grass, the buzzing of a bee somewhere nearby, the scent of wildflowers in the air. We met during a routine house inspection. I was working for an estate agent, cleaning the properties before the arrival of new tenants. My boss thought it resourceful for the individual completing the inventory or the maintenance person to carry out their job while I was there, tidying up, wiping surfaces, or vacuuming the cream carpeted floors that always looked dirty no matter how well-kept they were. It saved time, the fat-cat landlord said, and so long as the inspector/plumber/electrician/carpenter kept their dirty shoes by the door I didn’t mind.
Gareth was an architectural engineer. He’d been sent to the wrong address by my boss, David Williams of Whitechapel Properties.
Gareth’s eyes were the colour of gold beer bottles and his hair was a shock of thick curls, slightly overgrown though not unkempt and styled in an out of date eighties undercut with a quiff. He wasn’t especially charming, but he was confident, laid-back, and slightly mysterious. He had a way of speaking to people as though while conversing he shut out the rest of the world. He made me feel important. He tilted his head when he listened, offered thoughtful replies when I spoke, and when he smiled my stomach did a backflip. He spoke in a quiet gentle way that forced me to stand close to hear him, but his tone was masculine and he didn’t seem to include unnecessary words, which made everything he voiced sound sincere and thoughtful.
I knew nothing about him other than the fact he was a father and had recently split with his girlfriend who was ‘loud, obnoxious, and impulsive.’ He didn’t expand upon his intimate life. I still don’t know where he lives, though I suspect he hasn’t moved. His company still exists, though I haven’t driven past the building in a long time and I unfollowed his Facebook page over two years ago. He’s a couple of years younger than me, but emotionally mature. I wasn’t the only one who found his quiet temper and kindness intriguing. He had a string of female employees who equally appeared to be attracted to his considerate approach towards women. Though it made me jealous, I somehow managed to contain my envy when we were together.
It wasn’t an affair in the true sense of the word. We never slept together, although there were moments of profound connection I’m unable to truly explain. I wanted to feel his warm skin on mine, but something always propelled us apart at the last second, as though we were subconsciously afraid of taking it that one step further. Knowing we would find it impossible to retract from the event once we’d made the leap into bed.
It started that day in the empty house. I should have been scared, alert of the potential danger I was in, being alone in a property with a stranger I hadn’t expected to appear through the door. But his body language, his attitude made me feel safe, and at a worrying time in my marriage, happy. I found myself making jokes, becoming a funny, carefree version of myself. And I left that day with a swirl of butterflies fluttering in my stomach, looking forward to seeing him again, though there was no reason I should. I don’t know what led me to the building he worked from, or what motivated me to invent a reason to return, but something within me had fallen loose as though I was no longer in control of myself, as though my destiny had been mapped out for me. Perhaps I imagined the energy between us tensing and receding, maybe I seduced him. But our relationship quickly grew from friendly chit-chat while hiking the countryside to more personal matters, cuddled beneath a secluded willow tree, miles from town. And I found myself confiding in him things I couldn’t articulate to my husband.
Aeron suffered a two-year-long battle with depression after our move to Newport during which time I falsely believed my husband was cheating on me. There were moments when I looked at him as he slept beside me and wondered what it might be like if he were someone else.
He spent hours lying across the sofa, facing the television, with his back to me, staring at the screen of his mobile phone, hidden from my eyeline. There were days when he would criticise everything that I did but offer no help with the chores I was struggling to do alone, and which incidentally was the reason for his oftentimes insulting remarks. Hostile bickering and passive-aggressive door slamming had taken over cosy chats in front of the fire on cold winter nights once the children had gone to bed. And I wondered briefly if I left, walked out the door and booked into a hotel, would he notice I hadn’t returned with the milk?
Something had to give, but I didn’t want to split up the family, scared of venturing the unknown path of single parenthood. I knew I could do it, had the psychological strength to take on the role of father and continue to be mother, and the money to afford the mortgage on my single salary. Brandon and Mai were articulate in the varied dynamics of families, were resilient enough to understand how to navigate their way through our divorce. But I’d never lived alone. And what would my response to a solicitor be when asked what my reason for separation was?
That we’d grown apart? That wasn’t strictly true.
He’d remained stagnant and I’d run ahead.
That one of us had committed adultery? Though I’d suspected it for a while I found no evidence that Aeron had been unfaithful, and to mention the possibility would lead him to suggest my paranoia was due to a guilty conscience. He’d accuse me of projecting my own behaviour onto him and I�
��m not a good liar, so I’d have to confess my extramarital relationship and admit I was to blame for the end of our marriage.
Aeron is a good father. Despite the fact he often behaves selfishly, he doesn’t mean to put his needs above the children’s. He does so on the basis that getting to work so that he can afford to keep a roof over our heads is more important than taking the train when his car breaks down and I have no cash in my purse to pay the expense of a taxi to get the children to school. I woke up one morning a few days before I met Gareth to discover Aeron had taken my car to work as I slept. He didn’t think his actions would have a profound effect on my ability to get to work, to do my rounds. And when he returned, he suggested I call in sick so that I didn’t have to cover the six taxi fares each day for the rest of the week, enabling him to keep my car while he waited for news from the garage regarding the repairs on his. When he’s not on the tools at a job he’s usually found working unpaid for friends and family. His brother and sister are as dependent on him as we are, so it’s no wonder that when they have a problem, they call on their younger sibling to fix it for them. That is not his fault, it’s the way he was brought up: family first. Only it doesn’t seem to start at home, and instead extends beyond his wife and children’s needs.
Aeron and I were best friends. We raised each other when one of us fell. We laughed and cried together, and sometimes clung to each other. But three years ago, during what is commonly termed ‘the seven-year itch’ we pushed one another away. I was becoming increasingly frustrated with the imbalance of distributed housework, the taxiing of children to school, ferrying them to clubs, shopping, and the never-ending bill paying. I had a job too, but mine appeared to be less important. Our partnership had ceased to function.
I thought we were broken beyond repair until he returned from the doctor’s surgery with a prescription for Prozac and a leaflet about stress. I knew he’d been keeping something from me but until then, I’d assumed he’d found someone else.
I Know You (DI Emma Locke) Page 6
