Lost Souls (13 page)

When Laura walked into the Incident Room, she was met by applause.

She smiled as she saw Pete coming towards her, holding a silvery plastic statuette, a poor replica of an Oscar.

Laura put her hands on her hips and scowled playfully. ‘Go on,’ she said warily. ‘For what am I owed this dubious pleasure?’

He tilted his head, amusement twinkling in his eyes. ‘We award it for fuck-ups, you know, like forgetting to caution prisoners when they are interviewed, or losing exhibits, and we think you’ve done just enough in your first fortnight in the job to deserve it.’

‘Like what?’ she said, punching Pete on the arm.

‘How about losing the number-one suspect? Or pissing off Jimmy King?’

‘Hey, that was you as well.’

‘But what about pissing off the abduction squad? Overnight heroine. On this misfit squad and then you just stumble over the missing child.’ He grinned. ‘Priceless.’ He thrust the statuette into her hands.

Laura didn’t know what to say. She looked at the statuette and saw all the scuff marks from previous recipients.

She looked up.

‘I couldn’t have done it without Pete Dawson,’ she said, in mock acceptance. ‘He has taught me how to fuck up royally in my brief time here.’

The room roared with laughter and Pete put his hand up in appreciation.

‘And I know I couldn’t have got by without you lot,’ and her hand swept the room. ‘The biggest bunch of fuck-ups I have ever worked with.’ She grinned and bowed. ‘Thank you.’

As Laura carried the statuette to her desk, she felt slaps on her back, whispers of ‘nice one’. She felt good. Fitting in was hard but she finally felt like she was getting there.

Just as she got to her desk, she heard the room go quiet. ‘McGanity. Come and see me, please.’

She recognised Egan’s voice. When she saw Pete’s scowl, she said, ‘Hey, at least I got a “please”.

It was mid-morning before Sam walked out of the police-station yard with Terry McKay.

Terry’s fines had been cancelled. He had been a few hundred pounds in arrears, but the court weighed it against the night he’d spent in a cell. It was the way the justice system worked, trapped by targets. People like Terry made the court look bad, because he made the books look bad, so they helped him, found shortcuts to make the figures work.

But still Terry didn’t seem happy. Maybe because he knew that he would run up a few more fines soon, whenever he next took a trip on the justice roundabout.

‘Did you speak to Harry?’ he asked, as he wiped his nose on his hand.

Sam stopped. ‘Look, Terry, will you just drop this.’ His voice was raised, and people outside the court looked round. ‘I’ve done my part, the legal part. Anything between you and Harry is nothing to do with me.’

Terry shrugged. He was holding a plastic bag, bound at the top by a red tag, his belt in there, along with the scraps of change he’d had on him when he was arrested.

‘Is that it?’ Sam asked, and stepped closer. He could feel his temper rising. No sleep and too much coffee. ‘You drag me out at midnight and pester me, and you end it with a shrug? For fuck’s sake!’ He stormed off.

He heard someone outside court jeer. He stopped. He took some deep breaths, tried to tell himself not to do anything, not say anything. But he couldn’t stop himself. He could feel his heart beating, the adrenaline racing through him.

He turned back to Terry. ‘Don’t make me a laughing stock,’ he hissed through gritted teeth. ‘Do you know what it is like to be with you in the middle of the night when I should be at home?’

Terry didn’t say anything. He looked at Sam and swung the bag he was holding over his shoulder.

Sam stepped closer. Terry didn’t flinch. Instead, he stared back at him and said, ‘I’d swap my life for yours.’

Sam looked at him, surprised. Then he looked down at Terry’s worn-out shoes, at the skinny arms, legs, the
boozy flush to his cheeks. He felt ashamed, embarrassed. What was he doing, shouting at people like Terry McKay, at his clients?

‘I’m sorry,’ said Sam. ‘It’s just been busy lately, you know, I’m a bit tired. If there’s anything else I can do for you, you know where the office is.’

Then he stopped when he realised that Terry wasn’t listening.

‘Are you okay?’ asked Sam. He saw that Terry was staring straight ahead, his jaw clenched, his cheeks paler than before. Sam turned to where he was looking. Luke King. He was leaning against a wall, his arms folded. He was smirking.

Terry swore under his breath and then turned to walk away.

Sam walked towards Luke, angry. ‘You could have made an appointment,’ he said sharply.

Luke laughed. ‘Good performance. Do you treat all your clients like that?’ Before Sam could respond, Luke looked past him and said loudly, ‘Maybe it isn’t you I’ve come to see.’

At that, Terry looked back again and quickened his pace.

‘Stay there, Terry,’ Sam barked, but McKay was not going to stop.

Luke watched Terry McKay disappear around a corner and then he turned back to Sam. He smiled arrogantly. ‘Of course it’s you I want to see.’ Luke nodded to where Terry had gone. ‘He seemed twitchy.’

‘Next on your hit-list?’ asked Sam sarcastically.

Luke shook his head. ‘I’m your client. You can’t speak to me like that.’

‘No, not any more you’re not,’ Sam said firmly. ‘You stick with Harry.’

‘But it’s you I want, Mr Nixon. You helped me.’

Sam felt his fingers tighten over the file he held in his hand. He could feel anger surge through him again. He pushed past, felt his shoulder hit Luke’s. He didn’t look back, his mind racing. What did it all mean? He had seen how Luke had looked at Terry. To Luke, Terry wasn’t just another down-and-out.

Sam walked quickly, wanting to get away from Luke. The route took him past the court again and then along a small parade of shops: an insurance broker’s, a sandwich bar, and then, just before a small roundabout, a television shop.

He walked past the shops deep in thought. But then something caught his eye, made him stop. It was the television shop. No, more importantly, it was the television in the window, showing images of a park behind crime-scene tape. It looked familiar.

Then he heard a voice behind him.

Egan closed the door as Laura entered. He sat on a desk in front of her, one leg on the floor. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to find it alluring. She didn’t.

Laura stood, and Egan realised that she was towering over him, so he went and sat behind the desk.

‘I just wanted to check on how you are doing,’ he said, and pointed towards the Incident Room. ‘You need to keep away from that canteen culture crap.’

Laura smiled as sweetly as she could muster. ‘Thank you, sir. It must be worse up here than the ten years
I had in the Met. For you to warn me like that, I mean.’

Egan paused, trying to work out if Laura was laughing at him. His lip twitched.

‘I want you and Dawson to watch Eric Randle today. You lost him yesterday. He’s been found. There are two officers watching his house. You know, the same one you went to yesterday. Relieve them, and stay on him all day. Follow him, wherever he goes. Report back to me every hour.’

‘What about Luke King? Is he still a suspect?’

‘I’ll look after Luke King. I think that situation needs a bit more, shall we say, finesse.’

As she re-entered the Incident Room, she realised that it was universal, the yin and yang, that for every Pete there had to be an Egan. Laura knew which one she preferred.

‘Looking for a new one?’ I said to Sam, as I saw him transfixed by a bank of televisions in a shop window, all showing the same image. I had been to the library, and my hands were full of photocopies. I had been checking the other abduction stories for links to Eric Randle, but there were none, and I felt frustrated.

Sam turned around, and I was shocked by his appearance. There was stubble on his cheeks and his tie wasn’t quite straight. But worse than that were his eyes. They were red-rimmed, and as he looked at me I thought I saw something in them, just for a moment. Sam looked scared.

He looked down, stumbled for a response, but then
the image on the screens caught my eye. It showed a park in Turners Fold. I recognised it straightaway, from the brick block of the old burnt-out aviary to the sweep of the trees along the top of the park.

But it was something else that caused the flutters of excitement in my stomach. I pulled the painting from my pocket, the one given to me by Eric. I looked at the picture and then back at the television screen. As my eyes were drawn back to the painting, I began to recognise things in it. The square block in the middle. The trees, the way they curved around the top of the park in a high crescent. The shape of the lawns.

I held it out to Sam. ‘You recognise it, don’t you?’ When Sam ignored me, I pushed it nearer to him. ‘You saw it this morning, when Eric showed it to you.’

He looked at me, his eyes wide. ‘It’s the ramblings of a silly old man,’ he said quietly, and then he walked off, head down.

I rushed into the shop and barely noticed the looks of the shop staff as I went over to one of the televisions inside and searched in vain for the volume control. Why did everything have to be on a bloody remote? It was the tail-end of the report, and I recognised Turners Fold, but it was all in silence.

I looked at the painting again. It looked like the same park, and there was a small figure lying down.

A spotty youth in a shirt and tie appeared at my shoulder.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

I looked around and pointed at the television. ‘What’s this about?’

He looked confused. ‘About twelve hundred pounds. To be exact, eleven hundred and ninety-five.’

‘No, the news item. What have they been saying?’

He shrugged. ‘We sell them, we don’t watch them.’

Then a picture of Connor Crabtree appeared on the screen. I realised that either Eric was telling the truth, or I held in my hand a painting by the kidnapper.

I left the shop as quickly as I had gone in. I needed to see Eric Randle again, before the police got there.

The town centre faded quickly in my rear-view mirror as the Triumph Stag climbed the long lines of terraces, with dusty windows and stone doorways right by the pavement. The streets were busy with Pakistani women in billowing silk clothes, some with veils, glittering brown eyes peering out. The cars on the street were mainly new, with alloys and chrome, spoilers and bright paint, magnets for the young men who stood around talking.

Once the terraced grid faded, I turned into an estate, a collection of cul-de-sacs coming off a circular road. One route in, one route out. The faces on the pavements became white, and hostile eyes glared out from under the peak of a baseball cap or a hood, with tracksuits wrapped around skinny legs and tucked into socks. No one walked. They either bounced or they slouched, some attached to vicious-looking dogs with bow legs and jaws like bolt-cutters.

The houses were mainly semi-detached and well-spaced, with dark brick at the bottom, grey pebbledash at the top, behind straggly privet hedges with beer cans wedged at the bottom, blown there by the wind, the
colours faded by the summer sun. England flags hung from some of the windows, dirty with the rain, almost like a warning. The cars along the kerbsides were old and worn. Pool cars, the police called them, ragged old Vauxhalls used by local youths, none with insurance, most without even a driving lesson let alone a licence.

It was a desperate sight, but one that made me realise how lucky I had been. I hadn’t grown up wealthy, but I had grown up loved. On this estate I saw just hopelessness and anger. But then I saw something else, something which made me think that maybe there was some fear as well.

Among the collection of grimy semis were the occasional spots of colour, flower baskets and double-glazing, with well-kept gardens and neat brick walls. They were islands, pockets of hope, but their children hung around in the same neighbourhood, were bothered by the same dealers, made to run in the same pack, their dreams of a better life stolen by those who didn’t dream at all.

I found Eric’s street eventually, tucked away at the top of the estate, backing onto fields. I crawled up slowly in the car as I tried to work out the address from the numbers on the doors.

I stepped out of my car and looked around. I noticed a small group of teenagers leaning against a wall, looking like they weren’t interested, passing a cigarette between them. But I could tell they were watching me. I patted my wallet and phone subconsciously.

I looked back at the address given to me by Randle. The brickwork was splashed with paint and someone had painted ‘peedo’ in large red letters over the board.
It would have had more impact if it had been spelled correctly. As I looked up, I saw every window was boarded up, no sign of life anywhere. The numbers on the door were chipped and broken, and the letterbox was nailed shut.

I heard the teenagers approach me.

‘Nice car,’ said one, in a way that told me that it might not stay nice for long.

‘Looking for Dirty Eric?’ another asked, blowing smoke towards me, the cigarette almost down to the filter.

I turned around. ‘Does someone still live here?’

They all laughed. ‘Yeah, the fucking nonce,’ one said, and another said, ‘We tried to torch the fucker’s house,’ and then threw a stone at the boards as if to emphasise the point.

‘You the police?’ It was a girl, her eyes bagged by dark rings, her tracksuit stained and grimy.

I shook my head. ‘No, I’m a reporter.’

‘What’s the dirty perv done now?’

‘Nothing. I just need to see him.’

Some of the group walked off and picked up pieces of brick from the front garden. They made thuds as they threw them on the boards over the windows.

I looked back towards the house. ‘So he’s got it all boarded up because you little wankers keep on breaking his windows?’

They stopped what they were doing and looked at me, surprised. Then they started to look uncertain. They were in a pack, but I was bigger than all of them, fitter than all of them, and older than all of them.

‘Who you calling wankers?’ said one, but he was at the back of the group, and mumbled it quietly.

I smiled, but I packed it full of menace. ‘Work it out. Now, tell me what Eric Randle did to make you want to burn his house down, and then watch my car while I’m in there. A tenner if it’s good, and my car is still how I left it when I come out.’

The girl at the front held out her gold-ringed hand. ‘Money first.’

I shook my head. ‘Info first, and then look after my car. Then you get your money. You’ll get enough cider and fags with that to see out the rest of the afternoon.’

The group started laughing, flicking their fingers and bouncing on their heels.

‘He got locked up for murder, man,’ said one, a skinny blond kid with his head shaved around the sides and a fringe gelled flat.

I tried to bluff my surprise. ‘Shit, and you want to mess with him?’ I said, my voice filled with sarcasm.

‘Yeah, but he got off with it.’

‘So he’s not a paedo?’

He looked sad. ‘I don’t know. But he’s not right,’ and he jabbed his temple with his finger.

‘How long ago was this murder?’

The group looked between each other, and then the kid at the back said, ‘A few years ago, when I was still in juniors.’

I winked at them. ‘Cheers. Now for the next part. I won’t be long.’

I walked up the path and someone shouted, ‘Do we still get our money if he’s not in?’

I didn’t answer, but I smiled to myself. At least it showed a spark of initiative. I banged on the door and stood there for a while, waiting, and then looked back when I heard the sound of a key being turned. ‘You’re going to have to work for it.’

As I turned back to the house, I saw Eric’s face appear, blinking in the sunlight.

My eyes struggled to adjust to the murkiness as I went inside. I turned around fast when I heard the door slam shut and the key quickly turn.

‘You saw it,’ said Eric, his voice snapping out the words.

‘What did I see?’ I asked, squinting.

I was aware of Eric moving in front of me, like a shadow, the slow shuffle of his feet betraying his whereabouts.

‘You saw the news,’ said Eric. ‘Where that boy was found. It was in my picture.’

I smiled to myself. I had been right. I had started to see through the darkness better, and I thought I could see Eric grinning. ‘Why is your house all boarded up?’ I remembered the words of the teenagers outside and wanted his version.

Eric’s grin twitched and he turned away. ‘The local kids don’t like me.’

‘Why not?’

He shrugged. ‘I live on my own. I just sit in here and paint. If I don’t have the boards up, they brick my windows or put petrol through my letterbox.’

I stole a glance towards the front door. I could make out charred floorboards.

‘There’s more to this than that,’ I said. ‘Kids don’t pick on old men because they’re old. You’ve got “peedo” painted on the boards. What’s that about?’

Eric turned away and walked across the room, glanced towards a framed photograph of a young girl. She looked young, maybe fifteen.

‘Because when people go missing, I tell the police about my dreams. But that makes me a suspect.’ He went quiet for a moment. ‘Sometimes suspect number one.’

‘So the police don’t believe you?’

Eric shook his head.

‘But if you went to them again, they might believe you this time.’

‘Or I might just become a suspect again.’

I sighed and began to walk around. The place was bleak. There were no carpets on the floor, and the boards on the windows blocked out most of the light, so it seemed like a cave. The living room contained an old electric fire, a plastic cover with log shapes moulded into it, brought to life by the light underneath. Elsewhere there was an easy chair with worn arms, and a table upon which there was a book, open and face down, a lamp, and a small colour television.

‘Why do you stay here?’ I asked.

Eric looked down and spoke quietly. ‘If they drive me out, the house will stand empty. The kids will play in the house, it will become somewhere to drink and take their girlfriends. Some older ones will come along and rip out the bathroom, take all the pipes. It won’t take long to turn this into an empty shell, and I won’t let them do it.’

‘But Eric, why should you care? Ask for a move, get settled somewhere else. You’re too old for this crap.’

‘This is my
home’
, he said angrily. ‘I’ve lived in this house for forty years. It used to be nice round here, with good people. There are still some good people, but more bad than good now. It’s my home, I’ve got some good memories, and I won’t leave.’

He stood there, his chest heaving with emotion. ‘So are you going to write about me?’

‘I’d like to, if it’s a good story. But a lot of people won’t believe you.’

‘It’s difficult for people, I know that,’ he said, nodding. ‘If I didn’t have the dreams,
I
wouldn’t believe it.’

‘Do you believe in God?’ I asked.

Eric looked confused. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Just that. Do you believe in a celestial being, a force, something that guides us, determines our life?’

‘That’s not God. That’s fate.’

‘You can’t have one without the other. Fate is a predetermined end. Someone or something has to pre-determine it, some force. If you don’t believe in God, you can’t really believe you dream the future.’

‘I don’t believe in it; that would make it a faith. I just sort of know it. I have dreams, I paint them, and then they come true.’

‘There is another possibility,’ I said, watching Eric carefully.

Eric said nothing, perhaps guessing what I was going to say.

‘That you are responsible for what is in the pictures,’ I continued.

‘If you think you are the first person with that idea, you are wrong,’ he said.

‘I’ve got to ask the questions the readers will ask. Some will be suspicious.’

Eric smiled softly. ‘That depends on how you write it.’

‘Show me where you paint,’ I said, worried that I had lost his trust.

Eric looked at me for a moment, as if he was wondering why he had to humour me, but then he shuffled towards the kitchen. As I followed him, I noticed a small door between the two rooms. I paused for a moment, it looked like a cellar door, but I looked up when Eric shouted, ‘No!’

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, startled.

Eric looked apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s dark down there, and I don’t want you to fall.’

I glanced at the door. As Eric nodded his insistence, I followed him into another dark room, wooden boards covering the windows at the rear too. I could see some cupboards around the walls, and then a stainless-steel sink and a grubby gas cooker. Right in the middle of it was an easel. On it was a pad of paper. The top sheet was blank.

‘Ready for the morning?’ I asked.

Eric nodded.

‘Have you got any other paintings involving Sam Nixon?’ I asked.

‘It’s not as simple as that,’ he said. ‘I dream a lot of things. I don’t always know who or what it is.’

‘What about Luke King?’ I asked. ‘He was in the first
picture you showed to Sam, the one with Jess. He was interviewed about her murder. Did you know it was him?’

Eric shook his head slowly. ‘No, I had no idea. I knew it involved Sam Nixon, but that’s all.’

‘But you knew it was Jess?’

‘Come with me tonight, to my group. You might understand then.’

I was surprised. ‘Are you sure?’

He looked pleased. ‘Of course. You can meet others like me.’

I smiled at Eric. ‘Thank you.’ And as I pulled out my notepad and camera, ready to begin the interview, I thought that he looked truly happy for the first time since I’d met him.