Gone to Ground (25 page)

"What happened to your DS," Parsons said, as he shook Will's hand, "I'm sorry." His accent was local, without being too pronounced.

"Thanks," Will said.

"She's on the mend?"

"Seems that way."

"That's good."

There was a stainless-steel flask of coffee on the table, milk in a jug, sachets of sugar in a bowl.

"This task force," Will said, once they were all seated. "Perhaps you could fill me in on the background?"

Parsons nodded and took a quick sip of coffee. "Where we operated, in the main, was between here and Derby, to the east. The Erewash Valley. Ex-mining towns, for the most part. Eastwood. Kimberley. Heanor. Used to be, lads went down the pit as soon as they were of an age, girls into the hosiery factories. That's how it was. No question. Then, twenty years or so back, the miners' strike—before that really—everything changed. Pits closed, factories as well, most of them. Lots of folk out of a job and little prospect of anything new. Kids leave school with scarcely a qualification to their name and what do they do? Hang round street corners, sign on. Bored rigid, most of the time."

"How about extremist activity?" Moyles asked. "BNP, for instance. Is there much of that?"

"You bet. Just the sort of thing the BNP thrives on. They've got a lot of support in that area and it's not hard to see why. They give people a focus for all that frustration. Or seem to. Some people, at any rate. And it doesn't take much for it to roll over into violence. Looking for someone to blame. Anyone other than themselves. Blacks, Asians, gays, asylum seekers."

Parsons paused for a mouthful of coffee.

"The task force managed to get someone inside. Undercover. Till they had him sussed. Gave us names, places, dates, enabled us to make arrests. After that it all calmed down. Or so it seemed." He shook his head. "Homophobic incidents reported in the county last year were up again by nearly thirty percent. Not in the city, but outside. Assault, harassment, criminal damage. Okay, some of that's down to more people having the confidence to come forward, but not all."

"Any chance of the task force being made operational again?" Will asked.

Parsons shrugged. "It's been talked about. But, you know, it's finance as much as anything. Manpower. Resources."

Will knew the problems only too well.

"The people you were talking about," Moyles said, "the ones the task force was investigating, you think they could have been behind the attack in Cambridge the other night?"

Parsons took his time. "The van being found where it was, that's what it points to. I'm just not sure about that degree of organization. Cambridge, it's a way off. Out of their normal territory. And most of the incidents—not all, but most—they tend to be more casual, no real plan at all. Whatever triggers them off, it's usually something small, local. A couple of gay guys holding hands at a bus stop, quick kiss good night, that kind of thing. But then again, there were instances where things were clearly well organized beforehand, a pub or a club would be targeted, some particular toilet used for cottaging. So, yes, it's possible. And they'll have contact with other groups, I don't doubt."

Will nodded and helped himself to more coffee from the flask.

"Aside from where the van was found," Parsons asked, "is there any other evidence that points in this direction?"

"Not so far."

"And there were others involved, I think Nick said."

"Yes. Gould be local. Gould be from further afield. Newmarket, possibly. We're chasing it down now."

"What's the likelihood," Parsons asked, "of any of the victims being able to identify their attackers?"

Will shook his head. "Doubtful."

"Because we've got names and faces on file, some at least. That'd be somewhere to start."

"Thanks," Will said. "We can give it a try."

"How about hauling a few in?" Moyles suggested. "Rattling some cages?"

"We've got to be careful," Parsons said. "Jump in willy-nilly, make a bunch of arrests, likely see them all released forty-eight hours later. Doesn't help any of us." He paused. "Reported hate crime incidents are up, like I said before, but the number of successful prosecutions is lagging behind. Talk to the local GPS, and they'll say it's because we're not always giving them all the ammunition they need."

"They would," Moyles said.

"Agreed. But I'd rather have something definite to bite on, before we show our hand."

"Message taken," Will said, and Moyles nodded agreement.

Parsons got to his feet and they followed suit.

"There is one thing might prove useful," Will said. "Seems as if some of the gang were using their mobiles to take pictures of what was happening."

"In which case," Parsons said, "sooner or later they'll turn up on the Internet. One right wing site or another. Takes time, but we could do a trawl. See what we can come up with."

He walked them downstairs and they shook hands.

"Thanks for your time," Will said.

"Anytime," Parsons said. "Nick, see you again."

"Sure."

Burly men in Day-Glo jackets and yellow hats were standing around the entrance to the building site opposite, cigarettes cupped in their hands. The noise from behind them was such that neither Will nor Nick Moyles could hear themselves speak.

Driving back to Cambridge, Will was mindful of what awaited him back at his office. The fact that he got out from behind his desk as often as he did drew down a lot of flak from on high, his bosses forever pointing out his job now was to manage, not to detect. If I'd wanted to manage, Will stopped short of saying, I'd have signed up for an MBA, gone to work for someone like Shell or Unilever, not joined the bloody police force.

Thinking of work was enough to remind him of a conversation he was due to have with Lorraine, one he was conscious of avoiding. Her work and not his. She'd been pushing him about it again that morning, not wanting to let the chance go begging, assuring him it was all for the best. One of her friends from the ante-natal group was back doing three days a week already with the insurance company where she'd worked before, short days mind, finishing at three. Baby off with a child minder, happy as anything. Did them both a power of good, this woman reckoned, a break from one another that way. A bit of adult company, that was what made the difference. Someone your own age to talk to.

"You can talk to me," Will had said.

Lorraine had looked at him. "While you read the paper, while you eat your breakfast, while you clean your shoes."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, as long as you listen."

"I do listen."

"Listen and respond."

Will craned his neck toward the clock on the kitchen wall. "Time I wasn't here."

In the car, he checked his rearview mirror, indicated, and accelerated smoothly into the fast lane.

Helen was sitting up in bed when he got to the hospital that evening, thumbing through a copy of
Marie Claire. Vogue
and
Harper's
and several other magazines were scattered across her bed. She'd been feeling well enough, Will noticed, to apply a little makeup and her hair looked recently brushed, if not washed.

"You know the trouble with magazines like this?" she asked Will, as he pulled over a chair.

"Aside from the distractions of beautiful young women in their underwear?"

"Aside from that."

"I can't imagine."

"It's almost impossible to work out where the adverts end and the articles begin."

"Synergy," Will suggested. "Synthesis. Something."

"Will, you're going to have to stop doing the
Police Gazette
crossword. Or is it Scrabble? You and Lorraine, these long winter evenings?"

"She's been offered a job," Will said.

"Lorraine?"

"Yes."

"Will, that's great."

The expression on his face told her he didn't necessarily agree.

"Don't tell me. That new pole dancing club. Will, you should be proud."

"Very funny."

"What is it, then? What's the problem?"

"It's at one of the colleges. King's. Something in the admissions office. Overseas students in particular. Three days a week."

"And you're worried about what? The kids?"

"She says she's got it covered, a child minder for Susie, someone to pick up Jake after school."

"Then that's perfect, surely?"

"I don't know."

"Will, for heaven's sake."

"By the time all the child care's paid for, travel, national insurance, God knows what else, I can't see us being a great deal better off."

"Come on, Will. That's not the point."

"Isn't it?"

"It's for her, surely? Something to get her out of the house and doing something useful. Somewhere she can use her brain, instead of just hanging round the house all day reading nursery rhymes."

"In a few more years, once Susie's at school too, maybe."

"A few more years, she might have forgotten she's got a brain at all."

"That's crap."

"Is it? What would you be like without a job to go to? The kind of job you do?"

"That's different."

"The principle's the same. Self-respect, Will, that's what it comes down to."

"And you don't get that from being a mum? Bringing up a kid? Two kids?"

"Not on its own, no. I don't think so. Oh, some people, maybe. And if it works, then fine. But where Lorraine's concerned, she clearly wants more. Who's going to lose from that? You?"

Will shook his head; he didn't know. Neither did he like the way the conversation was going. He usually avoided talking about Lorraine with Helen, problems between them especially, something about it making him feel uneasy, and now it felt as if, somehow, they were both ganging up on him.

"My sister," Helen said, "she stayed home, two kids, just like you and Lorraine. Afternoons pushing a buggy round the park, mother and toddler groups, the whole bit. By the time the oldest started school, the inside of her head was like mashed rutabaga. Valium, beta-blockers, she ended up close to walking away from the whole shoot, husband, kids, everything."

"That's not Lorraine."

Helen looked at him squarely. "Not now. Let's hope it never is."

Above the blackened silhouette of the cathedral, the moon was a faint lozenge, fading behind cloud. Closer to, the fields were touched, here and there, with tracings of white. A few stray flakes brushed against Will's face as he approached the house, his feet soft and quiet on the pebbled surface leading to the porch.

Closing the front door behind him, he stood for several moments in the half-darkness before removing his coat and shoes.

Lorraine was leaning back against the sofa, arms spread, eyes closed. The sound of her breathing was surprisingly loud in the room, a faint whistling whenever she breathed in. Will reached down and touched her hand, and her fingers moved inward a little, as if to enclose his.

She did not wake.

The children, Will assumed, were both upstairs in bed.

At the sink, he let the tap run until the water was cold, then drank from a glass.

When he opened the door to Jake's room, the boy stirred and Will waited for him to settle before going over and standing beside the bed, looking down.

In his and Lorraine's bedroom, Susie lay on her back, thumb in her mouth, pressed up against one side of the cot.

Will slid a blanket from one of the drawers beneath their bed and carried it downstairs.

Lorraine had not moved.

Will spoke her name, once and then again.

Bending, he lifted her legs round onto the settee, so that she was lying more or less flat, and then placed the blanket over her. Carefully, he kissed her on the forehead and she murmured something from inside her dream.

He waited, then went back into the kitchen, refilled his water glass, and carried it up to bed.

SPLUTTERING, GASPING FOR BREATH, LESLEY FLAILED her arms, and it was only when her outflung hand struck the digital alarm and knocked it to the floor that she realized she'd been dreaming. Not drowning, but dreaming. What was it? Not waving, but drowning? One of the only two lines she remembered from two years of sixth form English Literature. Stevie Smith and Larkin. What was his? They fuck you up, your Mum and Dad?

Lesley disentangled herself from the bedclothes and swung her feet toward the floor. One way or another, she thought Larkin was probably right.

In the shower, radio playing at a level below which the words could actually be heard, water bouncing off her head and shoulders, she thought again about her dream. Her nightmare. It came from the film, of course, from
Shattered Glass.
Stella Leonard's Ruby benignly smiling at the man who has chosen virtue over what? Evil? Experience? Adventure? Sexuality? A life of the body instead of a life of the mind? "I'll take you to her," she says, "my sister." And then, just for a moment, a split second which only the camera sees, something in her eyes changes as she slips the car into gear before driving, headlong, toward the precipice, the cliff, the sea.

You know how she died?
Orlando Rocca had asked her.
In real life? She drowned. Trapped in her car. Her father was with her at the time. Just the two of them. Stella was driving. For some reason, they went off the road. Neither survived.

Turning, Lesley switched off the shower and stepped away, reaching for a towel.

What did they call it? Coincidence? Life imitating art?

Dry, she applied moisturizer, put a comb through her hair and found clean underwear, pulled on a V-neck sweater and jeans. She made instant coffee and took it across to the computer. What was the year? 1985? The Internet, she thought, and not for the first time, can be a wonderful thing. Since her conversation with Rocca, she had been putting together all she could find about the accident.

Both national and regional press had carried the story, running it alongside pictures of Stella in her later, soap-star days. Several accounts alluded to her earlier film career, singling out
Shattered Glass
for special mention, but, amazingly, only one drew attention to the film's ending.