Unspoken Truths

by Liz Mistry

  She raised her voice. ‘Compo get on it,’

  Compo tensed at her tone, and as her words registered, he turned, a tentative half smile playing about his lips.

  Nancy smiled and continued, ‘If there’s evidence to refute the case against Alice, you’re our secret weapon… Find it. Don’t quote me but just find it – do what you need to.’

  Before she’d finished speaking, Compo was out of his chair, and hugging Nancy. Turning to Gus, he shuffled his feet, hands stuffed in the pockets of his cargo pants and opened his mouth to speak.

  Gus grabbed him and hugged him to his chest, ‘Don’t you dare apologise Compo. You shouldn’t have needed to say what you said, but I’m glad you did.’

  Taffy walked in at that minute, bundled up in a winter coat, hat, scarf and gloves. Snowdrops melted on the surface, as he entered the central-heated office, pulling his gloves from his fingers. He looked round at the tableau before him and frowned, ‘What’s going on?’

  Compo, clicking his fingers, gangsta style moved over to his computers and began pressing buttons and packing stuff into his rucksack, ‘Fucking justice is going on. That’s what, Taffy my boy. You’re with me, come on, we’re relocating to my flat to do some 007 stuff.’

  A short laugh escaped Nancy’s lips and Gus shook his head, ‘Christ, Compo. Don’t go all Die Hard on me. I’m still in shock with the amount of cursing you just did. Don’t let it become a habit, eh?’

  Compo grinned and saluted. As Taffy moaned about having already walked three miles to get to work in a blizzard, he pulled his gloves on again, seemingly reconciled to going with Compo.

  The dynamic duo were nearly out of the door when Gus called after them. ‘Comps? Just do your best eh? That’s all you can do.’

  36

  13:45 Premier Inn, Epsom Surrey

  ‘Storm Emma is wreaking havoc throughout the UK with Scotland and the north of the country being the worst hit. Here in Surrey, the met office has released a red alert. Clive Jones is on the ground with reports of road closures and freezing conditions. What can you tell us, Clive?’

  Sean Kennedy pressed mute on the remote control and flung it onto the floor beside the bed where he lay sprawled in his boxers. ‘Fucking storm Emma.’ He parodied the over-excited tones of the BBC weather reporter. He’d been stuck in the room for hours – trapped in a stench of his own making with only the fucking BBC to keep him company. Or, at a push, one of the equally mundane TV channels, all of which spouted drivel about the weather at every opportunity. As if the UK population were incapable of looking out their damn windows and seeing the snow for themselves – idiots!

  Limbs heavy, he lay in the overheated room, aware of the smell of sweat his body was producing. He was rotting from the inside out and, despite the free availability of hot water and toiletries, Sean couldn’t bring himself to move. Alternating between numbness, cramps and taser shots of pain, his body ached. His throat hurt when he swallowed – slivers of glass stuck at the back of his tongue. Immune system shot, there was nothing he could do but hope that it didn’t get any worse. Bet that fucking bitch had given him some germ or other – dirty bitch! Even at her lowest, the cunt was causing him grief. A hacking cough took him by surprise. It went on and on, slicing his throat – making his eyes water, forming droplets of sweat on his forehead.

  Fuck, this was shite. Giving himself a minute to recover, he lay on his back, looking at the patchy paint on the ceiling through glazed eyes before he began to breathe slowly and shallowly from his chest. He could taste blood – sickly and thick which made him want to cough again – to get it out of his mouth. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing further – wishing he hadn’t knocked the water bottle off the bedside table onto the floor. In a moment he’d try to reach it, but not right now. Not till his chest loosened.

  Taking care to move his hands only a little in case he provoked another coughing attack, he ran his fingers along the rumpled sheet. At last, just within his reach, he touched the familiar plastic of his inhaler. He wasn’t supposed to use it so often and it hurt like hell when it hit his windpipe, but he needed to ease his chest. Bracing himself, he stuck it in his mouth and took as deep a breath as he could whilst pressing the button releasing the dose into his shattered lungs. It stung like hell as it went down, and the blood taste increased, making his salivary glands fill his mouth with turgid spit. The taste was strong. He let the inhaler fall to the side and waited. How much fucking longer before the bastards found something that worked for him – something that boosted his immune system and helped his lungs? Of course, it was all Alice fucking Cooper’s fault. Right now, the fact that she was perhaps in as bad – if not worse – state than he, gave him no pleasure. She was a cunt who deserved everything he’d made happen to her and more.

  His phone rang and he sighed. Time to attempt a change in position. He picked his phone up from the wooden surface next to the bed and smiled when he saw the name flashing on the screen.

  Pulling himself into a sitting position, he took a deeper breath, pleased to note that his chest seemed looser and answered, ‘Hi Mum. You alright?’

  ‘I’m fine Sean, me and your dad were just concerned about you. Are you keeping warm in this cold weather? You know what the doctors said about you looking after yourself. Last thing you need is a chill getting into your chest.’

  Sean recognised the worry in her voice. She’d been fussing around him since the moment he’d woken up. Apparently, she’d visited him every day when he’d been in his coma; talking to him, reading aloud, playing music. His dad had confided that she’d tried everything to reach him. At one point she’d played every recording they’d ever made of him growing up. Days on end of her talking him through what was on the screen, his dad sitting beside her. The only thing she hadn’t done was turn to religion. Even in her darkest hour his mum – a firm atheist – had not been tempted by the hospital chaplain.

  One night, after Sean had come around, but before he’d been discharged, they’d managed to convince her to go home and rest. It had just been Sean and his dad sitting in the half-lit room, trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t send the other into deep introspection. Finally, his dad – always the quiet one of the couple – had started to laugh. Sean at first hadn’t known what to say. He’d no idea why his dad was feeling joyful. As his laughter became louder, Sean was torn between pressing the emergency button for help, convinced that the pressure of his illness had sent his dad loopy and trying not to be drawn into the compelling hysteria himself. The latter option won out and Sean gave in to his own laughter.

  His entire body had ached as the laughter jiggled his shoulders and bubbled up his throat, making him gasp for breath. Tears, only partly of laughter, seeped from his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. He pulled his arms round his chest, cushioning himself against the paroxysms that shook his body. After what seemed like hours, the father and son had wiped their eyes and allowed their hearts to slow and their breathing to deepen.

  Sean took longer than his dad to recover, his sparse frame too weak to bounce back. Every breath hitched painfully at the back of his throat and his wheeze was more pronounced. Without saying anything, his dad squeezed his shoulder and helped his son into a more upright position before fitting the nebuliser over his face.

  After he sat back down, he giggled once more and wiped his hand over his face before catching Sean’s curious gaze. ‘She never gave up on you Sean, not for one bloody second. Not when the nurses tried to prepare her for the worst, not even when your sister said it might be for the best to let you slip away and definitely not when that bloody pious git from the chapel came in all bloody ‘God’s will’ and ‘Welcome places in heaven.’ He paused and shook his head slightly. The love and admiration for Sean’s mum shone in his eyes as he spoke, ‘She was like a warrior. A five-foot one ball of warrior-ness. She turned to him and raised her head – you know, like she does.’

  Sean grinned behind the mask. He knew exactly which look
his dad was referring to. – he’d been on the receiving end of it too many times as a kid not to have an exact visual of it etched in his mind.

  ‘Her chin jutted out and, I must admit, I was tempted to give the priest a head’s up to what was to come. But he smiled and said ‘there, there’ to your mum. Right then I decided that I’d leave the patronising git to his fate.’ He laughed again, and slapped his thigh, ‘Oh it was brilliant. She turned to him and said in her quietest, most polite tone, ‘If you don’t remove yourself from the vicinity of my child, I will stick that piece of fiction you’re holding up your arse… sideways’.’

  Sean had laughed. He could well imagine his mother saying something like that. She was valiant in defence of her children – more so for him, he had to admit. Sean’s sister had always rubbed mum up the wrong way. Probably why she’d been keen to turn the bloody machines off.

  Back in the present, he tuned into what his mother was saying, making a mental note to work out some small punishment for his sister; that dog of hers was a whinging little yappy thing – worth thinking about.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about me, Mum. I’m good.’ He was reluctant to speak too much in case his mother’s acute ears picked up on the thickness of his voice or the shallowness of his breathing. He was glad she couldn’t see him, because one look at him would have her phoning an ambulance and the last thing he needed was for his presence in Epsom to be logged anywhere. She had some sort of inbuilt calculator that seemed to scan his entire frame every time she saw him, calculating loss of muscle, increased pallor and pain indicators.

  ‘You got enough food in, Sean? You don’t know when you’ll be able to get out. You need to wait till the ice has completely gone. Your bones are fragile, you know? Can’t have you falling over and fracturing something now, can we?’

  Sean rolled his eyes, she’d got that right. He could feel how fucking fragile they were right now. Throbbing they were. ‘I’ve no intentions of going out. You know me, Mum. I’m a hothouse plant – more your sauna man than your snowman.’

  She laughed. A tinkle of laughter down the phone that made him smile, ‘Love you son.’

  Sean’s smile widened and his shoulders relaxed, ‘Love you too, Mum. Don’t worry about me. I’m great. Last time you came, you filled up the freezer, I’ve got plenty to eat and the house is warm as toast – amazing what central heating will do.’

  He heard the smile in his mum’s voice as she replied and imagined her petite frame untensing, ‘Oh you, Sean. Always teasing your old mum. Now, I don’t know when your dad and I will get up to see you, what with the storm and the snow and all that. But as long as we know you’re okay.’

  A pang of guilt contracted Sean’s chest. Lying to his mother wasn’t one of his favourite pastimes, but needs must. No need for her to know he was three streets away from their family home right now. No need to worry her. The least she and his dad knew about his plans for Alice Cooper, the better. Some secrets were best kept to himself. It was best for all concerned that she thought he was safely tucked up in his flat in Brent.

  His phone beeped a signal to say he had another call waiting, and after a quick glance he frowned, ‘Hey Mum, got another call waiting. Best take it. I’ll phone you back later.’

  His chest tight, he answered the call. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Bad news, I’m afraid Sean old boy.’ It was Russell Allison-Hinton, his tone full of bonhomie and patronising bluff.

  Sean closed his eyes and counted to three. When he reopened them there was yet another weather report involving swirling snow lines and red alert symbols on the telly. How fucking apt! Seemed like the story of his life. He moved his head side-to-side, relieved when his neck cricked, removing a little of the stiffness that plagued him on a daily basis. ‘Go on.’ He was aware his tone was abrupt but he didn’t care. Bloody tosser, Allison-Hinton had let him down before, so he shouldn’t be surprised at Sean’s tone.

  ‘Well, em... it’s a shame really. Totally outside my control, you understand?’

  Sean growled down the phone. ‘Just spit it out, will you?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course… of course. It’s just well, I want to…’

  ‘Just tell me, right now.’ The tension was seeping back into his neck as he enunciated each word with a pause that spoke volumes in between.

  ‘Yes, well… one of the prison officers got a bit frisky and raped Alice Copper during the night.’

  For a moment, Sean was confused. How the hell was that bad news? Anything that punished that bitch was a cause for a celebration, surely? The implications sunk in. The fucking prison officer had fucked things up for them. Sean pushed himself to his feet only to fall back onto the bed as his legs buckled beneath him, his breathing shallow in his chest. Fucking sneaky cow! Now, she’d get preferential treatment in the prison. Officers wouldn’t dare let Sean’s colleagues have free access to her now. All eyes would be on them and Sean’s plans to ratchet things up for Alice would be on hold. Smarmy bitch had dodged a bullet. ‘Fuck sake, couldn’t the tosser keep it in his pants?’

  ‘Apparently not. He’s been arrested and will no doubt be suspended. Not that any of that helps us.’

  Sean sighed. The TV was now showing footage of rosy cheeked kids on sledges, whirling down hills at a rate of knots, their parents supervising from a distance, travel mugs of coffee in gloved hands. Oh, how the middle classes lived, thought Sean. In the distance an old fella was shuffling along, head bowed against the wind, carrying armfuls of newspapers, yet the reporters only had eyes for the wholesome families. That poor old fucker was most certainly not having fun.

  Sean was aware of the tension down the phone. He could hear the other man’s breathing. It was louder and quicker – raspier. Sean, the expert in breathing, grinned. If Allison- Hinton wasn’t careful he’d be having a full-blown panic attack.

  ‘This is your problem – fix it. Make sure there’s no let-up for her in prison,’ he paused, eyes narrowed, thinking, ‘And make sure you have eyes on her parents at all times. They’re our biggest bargaining tool.’

  37

  14:20 Holmfield Court, Bradford

  The sense of relief that had flooded through Compo after he’d yelled at Gus was tempered with guilt. There was no doubt in his mind that it had needed saying, but Compo wasn’t comfortable with challenging Gus like that – and especially not in front of Nancy and Lewis. He’d done it for Alice though and that was the one thing that had stopped him from backing down. In Alice, Compo recognised a kindred spirit – someone flawed and vulnerable, yet someone, who at the same time dug their heels in and, against the odds, survived. Only this time, he wasn’t so sure Alice would survive. He was determined to do his best to bring her back to the team.

  Now that they were brought round to his way of thinking, Nancy and Gus had been happy to turn a blind eye to his investigation. They’d told him to work from home for now and Compo interpreted that as ‘go as deep and as dark as you need to without implicating West Yorkshire Police in anything untoward’. He’d been assigned Taffy to interface with Gus and follow up on any leads on the Izzie Dimou/Daniel Farrier investigation.

  The two officers had left the station, with Taffy mumbling about only just having some feeling back in his toes. There was no point in attempting to drive, the gritters were mostly engaged around the motorways and the streets outside, Bradford city centre had remained ungritted since the previous night. In truth, the grit was useless against such heavy blizzards. So they’d set off, cutting through the side streets, wading through piles of snow, heading down to Thornton Road. Compo had been in The Fort since his return from the crime scene at Keighley station and had been largely oblivious of how bad the snow had got. After hefting his rucksack on his back, wishing he’d thought to grab a pair of wellies from the boot of Gus’ car before setting off, he trudged head down against the wind, Taffy leading the way.

  Damp was gradually seeping up his cargo pants, making them cling to his shins and thighs. His parka
offered little resistance to the driving snow or the cold. Huddled over, furry hood drawn tight round his face, Compo thought about the tasks ahead. Apart from having to delve deeper into Izzie Dimou’s and Daniel Farrier’s pasts, which was already running away gently on his work’s PC system with alerts set up to link to his home system, he was liaising with Manchester police who were securing CCTV for more sightings of either Daniel or Izzie. Then there was the USB that Gus had found in Saltaire. It was encrypted, and Compo was – bit by bit – breaking through the encryption. Again, alerts would be sent to his home system when the programme had finished.

  His main concern now was Alice. Nancy had sent him all the information Alice’s lawyer had obtained from the prosecution team. Whoever had set Alice up had done a great job. The layers went deep and Compo had a few ideas of how to ferret out the origins of the trail Sean Kennedy and his crew had used to implicate Alice. Despite Nancy’s final warning that they might be wrong and Alice may have got herself into something really bad, Compo was convinced of her innocence. He’d use all of his contacts, all of his skills and he’d go as dark as was necessary to prove Alice’s innocence.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a snowball hitting his face. It disintegrated on impact and slithered down his cheeks to drip off his chin. His head jerked up and shaking the last of the ice off his face, he glared at Taffy. ‘What the…?’

  Taffy, grinning, had already scooped up another handful of snow and was compacting it between his gloved hands. ‘Come on, not scared of a bit of snow are you? Show me what you’ve got, lad!’

  Compo wiped the wet from his face, hoiked his rucksack further up his back and, eyes narrowed, bent over and scooped up a pile of pristine snow. ‘You better start running I’ve a good aim!’