Hope Road (17 page)

“What?”

“Just a matter of time, that’s what he said. Then you’d be back to run the business. He wanted to make sure he was around when you came home.”

“But I was never going to come home.”

Moran raises his eyebrows: “You’re here now, aren’t you?”

John stares at his big black shoes. Then he lets his head fall back, looks at the ceiling.

“How is your dad?” Moran asks.

“No change,” John says up into the air. “Hardly speaks, y’know.”

They continue looking up to the ceiling.

Eventually the silence between them threatens to turn intimate. By what feels like mutual consent, they decide it’s time to go.

“There’s another thing,” John says as he stands. “The money in the car. It’s different.”

“Different from what?”

“There’s a lot of fake money going around at the moment, it’s been in the news. But the notes in the boot of the Mondeo are different. Much better quality. No comparison.”

“Do
they
know?” Moran asks, no hint of surprise.

“I think so. Let’s wait til this afternoon, see how things pan out with Freddy.”

“The money in the boot,” Moran says. “Fifty grand of fakes? Is it…?”

He doesn’t have to finish the question.

“Don’t worry. Your client won’t go down for that.”

“Somebody will.”

“Not Freddy. Just tell him to say nothing about it.”

“Listen, John. I think it’s time you got yourself a solicitor.”

“I’m not under arrest yet. Give me time.”

Moran lets it go. But he’s not finished.

“One other thing,” he says, drawing a little closer. “In strictest confidence. I’ve had a couple of calls. You’re not the only wants to know what Freddy’s saying in there.”

“And I don’t suppose…”

Moran’s already shaking his head.

“Well, thanks for letting me know, Henry.”

Suddenly Moran looks every one of his fifty-eight years.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, John.”

T
here’s a patrol car and two unmarked cars outside the
Eurolodge
. He drives slowly past them and watches as a fat scene-of-crime officer in a white body suit emerges from the hotel and opens the boot of one of the cars.

John parks a hundred yards up the road and waits for the SOCO to disappear back into the hotel. Then he walks down the road. The silver beemer is there again, a 3 Series, right outside the fire doors of the hotel. It’s immaculate, a couple of years old but spotless. And it’s got that fresh out of the showroom look. No mud under the wheel arches, the bloom of a recent waxing. Fuller’s pride and joy.

He looks inside the car.
Scholes BMW,
it says on the servicing tag that’s still hanging from the indicator arm.

Behind him the fire exit doors clatter open.

“I
asked
him not to come back…”

Adrian Fuller is speaking to a uniformed officer as both men step out through the doors.

“You got the security camera fixed sharpish, I see,” John says, looking upwards and noticing that the camera’s tiny red light is back on.

Fuller comes to a halt on the pavement.

“Nice car!” John adds. “
Scholes
give you a good deal, did they? Very tidy.”

“Could I ask you what you’re doing here, Sir?” the uniform asks.

Sergeant, old school copper.

“John Ray,” he says, introducing himself. “My best friend’s been arrested for murder. The body was found in a car belonging to me. I’m what’s called an interested party. In fact,” and he taps the BMW with his knuckles, “on the night of the murder, the car in question was parked right here where you normally park, wasn’t it, Mr Fuller?”

“He’s been specifically asked not to…” Fuller begins.

“It
was
parked here, wasn’t it? I mean, you’d know, since you were inside when she was killed, you and the
two
guests at the hotel that night. You also helped drag the dead girl from the room then propped her up against the wall while some thug hit her repeatedly in the dead face.”

He puts a cigarette between his lips, and casts a glance up at the camera high up on the wall.

The policeman purses his lips, shifts on his feet.

“I’ll have to ask you not to come inside the hotel, Sir.”

“Absolutely,” John says.

Fuller turns on his heels and disappears back into the hotel. The sergeant stays where he is.

“Thought you were the straight one, Mr Ray?”

“Mr Ray? My reputation goes before me, does it?”

He holds out his cigarettes.

“Nah,” the copper says. He takes a few steps towards John, near enough so he could reach out and grab him if he wanted. “I know you cos of Denise.”

“Oh, right. I see.”

“You want a bit of advice?”

“I can only ignore it.”

“Fuck off and wait til someone gets charged with this. And hope it’s not you.”

The sergeant doesn’t blink.

You get a nose for coppers when you’re Tony Ray’s son. And this one strikes John as a good bloke. For some reason he wants to tell him his secret, the one only Den has ever heard.

I wanted to be a copper. I really wanted to be a copper.

“I won’t be back,” John says, turning to go. “That security camera up there on the wall? It was broken yesterday. They got someone in pretty quick for a weekend.”

The sergeant watches him walk down to the corner of the building then cross over, back up towards his car.

“
Twat
,” he says to himself, pulling the fire doors closed after him.

John lights his cigarette and props himself up against the Saab while he smokes. Even from this distance he can see a familiar face peeping out from behind a beige blind in one of the ground floor windows, ginger hair catching the light.

Seconds later he emerges from the hotel. He’s in a Motorhead T-shirt today, and an army surplus canvas jacket.

“Why don’t you leave us alone!” Craig says even before he gets up to the Saab, his voice surprisingly firm for someone so wiry.

“Leave
you
alone?”

“Yeah, why not just let the police do their job, then we’ll find out who killed her. That’s what we want, isn’t it?”

Craig looks hyper and morose at the same time, the dark shadows underneath his eyes more pronounced than yesterday. He hesitates, not sure what to do.

John lets the silence run for a while. Then:

“They had me in Millgarth most of yesterday.”

“You?”

“It was my car they drove her away in.”

Craig straightens.

“And Freddy?”

John considers the question.

“Look, I’ve got to be going. Can I give you a lift somewhere?”

On the way into town he explains that Freddy is still being questioned, and lets slip a few details, the arrest at the race course, the suggestion that fake money is involved. Craig nods like a dog, desperate to know.

“And you’re, like, doing the Inspector Rebus bit?”

John laughs. “Something like that. Just trying to find out what happened.”

They turn off the York Road, skirting the city centre.

“So, what would
you
tell Rebus?” John asks. “Still got the night porter down for it?”

“I don’t know. I’ll tell you what I told the police. It’s the truth. I was on the bar, Friday. She comes in…”

“Donna?”

“Yeah. She comes in about eleven, quarter past. It’ll be on the video…”

That I can’t see.

“She’s upset. Angry. Something about dodgy money.”

“Something?”

“She was drunk, or high, or both. Whatever. The notes were all she had. So I bought her a drink. Large vodka. She gave me one of the notes, told me to keep it.”

“You said this to the police?”

“Yeah. Why not? Doesn’t seem that important now.”

“And you kept the note?”

“Spent it. I know, it’s illegal. Like they care.”

John watches the traffic as he speaks.

“You didn’t want to keep it, out of curiosity? What happened next?”

“She went to the Ukrainians’ room, y’know, she was their…”

“Yes, I know what she did,” John says, “it’s okay.”

“She was tired of it. Sick of those scumbags. They treated her like shit.”

His voice tails off.

They turn into a shopping centre on the ring road and pull into a quiet corner of the car park.

“Mike rewound the tape,” Craig says, staring down at his hands.

“Who told you that?”

“
He
did. Last night.”

Told everybody, apparently. Getting your story out, Mike?

“Strange thing to do if you’re innocent, don’t you think?”

Craig shifts in the passenger seat, undoes the seatbelt.

“I was on reception. Mike came, I left. That’s it.”

“And you changed the video before you went?”

Craig continues to examine his hands. “Yeah. That’s why I was confused when we watched it yesterday. There was no footage of me leaving or Mike doing his rounds.”

John taps the steering wheel with his fingers.

“I’ll tell you what. I bet Fuller’s upset by all this. Can’t be doing anything for business. You been working for him long?”

“About a year, evenings mainly. Don’t know how much longer, though. The place is empty. And now, after this?”

“You sound pretty shaken up about it.”

“I am, yeah.”

“You liked her, didn’t you?”

“I’ve gotta go.”

“Sure.”

John extends a hand, and Craig reluctantly takes it, still looking down at the floor.

When he tries to pull it away, John tightens his grip.

“Look at me, Craig.”

“Whoa, what the…”

“Tell me what’s going on in that hotel. Fuller, Bilyk…”

“Get off me!”

“Tell me. Tell me what you know…”

There’s tears in Craig’s eyes and he’s struggling to pull his arm away, as if the playground bully’s got hold of him and he’s too ashamed to call out for help.

“I… don’t,” he says, yanking the arm free and scrambling out. “Fucking arsehole!”

“See you around, Craig,” John shouts after him.

But Craig’s gone, the passenger door wide open.

Five minutes later he’s in
PC World
looking at a display of printers and watching Craig, who pays for something then leaves the store, head down, walking quickly. The young man who served him leaves the till area and busies himself re-arranging DVDs on the back wall.

John reaches inside his jacket and feels ten bundles, a thousand pounds in each.

I knew I was going need some of this today…

“Hi, Andy,” he says, reading the young man’s name badge as he grabs his hand.

“Sorry, do I…”

John looks straight into his eyes.

“Skinny ginger kid in the Motorhead T-shirt, what did he buy? That’s two hundred quid in your palm, by the way.”

He keeps on smiling as he looks at Andy, whose own eyes go big, then narrow a little.

“A… a memory stick. Sixty-four gigas.”

John nods.

“Got a customer account with you, has he?”

“U-hu.”

“Go over to the till and get me his address.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Another eight hundred says you can. You’ll never see me again and you’ll be a thousand pounds richer.”

Sixty seconds later John walks out of
PC World
. Andy has just doubled his disposable income for the month. John has a scrap of paper in his hand. He reads the address and doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry: Craig lives up Harehills.

But before that there’s somewhere else he needs to go.

H
e checks the name on the tower block. Council-owned flats, thrown up in the sixties, pre-fab walls and poured concrete floors. Functional. Miserable. Then again, not everybody can afford to live in a converted art studio. He consults the telephone listings on his iPhone again. Only one Macken. Tenth floor.

Cast your mind back, John. Victim of crime counsellors in your house, making you cups of tea, and detectives hanging about in the hall trying to look concerned, begging time with you, eager for information and to be away.

He sits, engine still running, wondering if they’ll still be there. One day since the girl was found dead. He’s been through this, knows what it’s like. The grieving relative, the one left alive with no answers.

Tenth floor. They’ve tarted these old blocks up. No more lifts that stink of piss. There’s a porter now, a security door with camera and intercom. He has to lie just to get in the building. Says he’s a friend. Friend of her dead daughter.

Lying to the newly bereaved, John. Another ethical milestone.

“They’ve been and gone,” she says, lighting a cigarette and fussing about finding him an ashtray. “And now you, whoever the hell you are…”

She sits in an armchair opposite him, another ashtray in her hand, careful not to drop ash on the carpet.

“You’ve had the grief counsellors?” he asks.

“And coppers. They were here most of yesterday. Young woman mainly, stayed til late. Back again this morning an’all. I told her I’d rather make my own dinner. Said she’d call in this after’.”

He has no idea what to say.

She helps him out.

“So why are you here?”

There’s a thread of accusation in her voice, a bitterness that he can’t quite make out.

“Just a friend,” he says. “And a couple of people I work with knew her. Younger than me, y’know.”

He feels the suspicion in her silence.
A couple of people I work with. Younger than me.
What a stupid thing to say.

She smokes on in silence.

“She was good person,” he adds, despite the brief and pretty much negative picture he’s been given of the girl. “Lively, intelligent. I mean, I didn’t know her that well, but…”

“She tried at school.”

The woman speaks without emotion, as if she’s been through this so many times its meaning has faded. “Didn’t seem to matter. There was always some problem. And me on my own, I couldn’t do much. Same when she left school. Got on an arts foundation course, but that fell through. Hair dressing, that didn’t last either. After that she kept getting turned down for courses. In the end she got work as a croupier at the casino, did that quite a while. Seemed happy there. But about a year ago she got made redundant. That’s when she got into, you know, the other stuff. She had a wild side, I suppose you’d say.”