To Catch a Rabbit (13 page)

Carole was waiting for him at the garages, talking to a skinny boy on a BMX bike.

‘Give us a hand, Lee,’ she said. ‘My back’s knackered.’

‘Nah, I’ve got a delivery.’ The boy nodded up towards the dual carriageway. ‘A little something for a lady in a caravan.’

On closer inspection, Phil saw that the youth was older than he’d first thought. Despite the underdeveloped body, he had stubble on his face.

‘Near the quarry?’ Phil said and the youth nodded. ‘I’m on the way up there myself. I can drop something off for you. Take it as payment, if you’ve got time to give us a hand with these.’

The young man peered at Phil from under the over-sized brim of his baseball cap.

‘What’s your business with her?’ he said.

‘I offered to take her a sandwich for her lunch.’

‘That foreign lass?’ His eyes seemed fixed on a point somewhere inside Phil’s head. The way he said foreign was like someone saying turd or filth.

‘Yeah. She’s foreign.’

‘Hang on.’

The young man seemed to have forgotten there was some kind of deal here and rode off on the bike, standing high on the pedals. Carole shrugged and took the first case of drinks out herself, leaving the rest for Phil. She was locking up the garage and Phil was about to get back in the van by the time Lee reappeared.

‘Here,’ he thrust a padded envelope at Phil. ‘Give this to your little friend by the quarry. Something to cheer her up. If she likes it, there’s more what that came from.’

Once he was in the van and Carole and the boy were out of sight, Phil looked in the envelope. Five years ago he might have asked the boy for a quarter of blow or some cocaine to tide him over, but he was finished with all that now. He let out a whistle between his teeth. So, the girl was a potato picker who didn’t drive and was about to have her lunch delivered with a couple of wraps of heroin.

The sun had risen just enough to filter through the tops of the trees, melting the last of the frost on the lane up to the quarry. Phil parked the van and knocked on the caravan door. She opened it straightaway, with her long coat wrapped tight around her.

‘Oh. Hello driver boy. You came again.’

‘With lunch, as requested.’ He held up a pink and white plastic bag but she was looking at the envelope. She took the package and turned it over in her hand, frowning.

‘You better come in.’

Phil stooped under the low doorway and stood up again carefully, taking in the neat interior, the carefully made bed at one end and the tiny table with its upholstered seats to the right of the door. He put the plastic bag on the table.

She tucked the envelope in the back of a locker above the small sink and took out two plates. A gas heater was doing its best to warm the damp air. Phil folded himself into one of the seats and watched her unpack the picnic. He broke the silence first.

‘So you said you work for Mackenzie.’

She nodded.

‘On this farm? Potato picking?’

If she hesitated, he didn’t notice.

‘Yes. Yes, you have it right. It is to do with vegetables.’ She laughed and put her hand up to her mouth to stop a tiny piece of cheese escaping. ‘And what about you, driver boy? You Mister Mackenzie’s right hand man?’

‘No. I’m a musician. I play trombone, a bit of guitar too, when I can get a gig.’

‘Of course. Naturally you are poor musician and take any job. I understand.’

That was nice. Simple. She said it like she meant it. There was none of the
are-you-going-to-be-famous-have-you-made-any-records
nonsense he usually had to put up with.

‘So. You meet skinny boy? You like him? I do not like him. He is pig. So, driver boy. You have name? I think, also, you are lunch boy now.’

‘Phil. Short for Philip. And no, I don’t know the skinny boy, I met him for the first time about ten minutes ago.’ He noticed she had nearly finished her sandwich and he’d barely started his. He pushed the iced danish towards her. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but a little gratitude wouldn’t have gone amiss.

‘Okay. And normally you work for Mr Mackenzie, Philip?’ She exaggerated the ‘f’ sound. It was nice, like someone playing a flute that second before the note kicks in.

‘Sometimes. I paint his properties or I work in the office. Nothing like today. Today’s not normal.’

‘Not normal to have lunch with pretty girl? Shame!’

‘Not normal to deliver drugs to pretty girl in caravan. No.’

She didn’t register any surprise but took a large bite of her sandwich and looked out of the murky plastic window towards the field. There wasn’t much to see. It was a mess of stubble stalks and stones between muddy furrows.

‘Mr Mackenzie doesn’t like to get hands dirty. I am here two weeks and he does not come to see I settle in, like he promise. Look!’ She turned her gaze back into the caravan, as if it were a palace, which Johnny was missing out on. ‘I clean everything. New sheets, nice candles, but Johnny Mackenzie does not even bring pretty girl cup of coffee. Always someone else to do work.’

He looked towards the bed and noticed that the quilt cover had an Aztec pattern in reds and blues. Like she said, it looked brand new. A mobile phone let out a text alert and she checked her pocket, reading the text with a frown.

‘I may be out of my depth here, but you seem,’ he tried not to sound judgemental but she met his look with those incredible green eyes and he faltered. ‘I don’t know…what I mean is, you seem too together. To be a smackhead.’

‘Me? No. It’s not for me, it’s for a friend.’ She put her slim hand over his and left it there for a moment. ‘Look it’s long story. I tell you another time. But you have to go now. I have to get ready for work.’

‘Will I see you again?’ He didn’t mean it to sound like a chat-up line, but it was too late, the words were out there, hanging in the air between them.

She smiled. ‘I hope so. But I don’t know.’

When she leant forward to kiss him on the cheek, he smelled her cigarettes and perfume, a tang of sweet and citrus that left him feeling about fifteen years old. Other women didn’t normally have this effect on him. He thought he’d become immune with age and with parenthood, but, as they’d established, today wasn’t a normal day.

‘Wrap up warm,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be cold in the fields.’

‘Goodbye, fffillip.’ He thought she was about to laugh then, but the door closed and he was walking back to the van, trying to shrug off the feeling of the kiss burning a guilty little hole in his cheek.

‘Whatever.’

She raised an eyebrow behind Lizzie’s back and let the door swing shut behind her.

‘What’s up?’ he said. ‘I daren’t keep Carly waiting.’

‘I asked Rick Houghton if he could get me the original charge sheets for Flora Ishmaili. You know Rick? He’s a DI in Drugs. Anyway Vice are supposed to have picked her up three times, but one of them’s missing.’

‘The overdose vic in Balby? Why would anyone take the charge sheet?’

‘I don’t know. It could just be a mistake. But there’s something else, she was picked up on the street two years ago, then nothing else until two weeks before she died. Most of the street girls are in and out all the time. I want to know where she was in between.’

‘Is that actually part of your remit?’

‘Not really, but I’m beginning to feel like nobody’s actually bothered about these girls except us.’

Us. That was nice. He could have kissed her. A second later, he couldn’t believe he’d even thought it and blushed to the roots of his hair.

The nearest pub was round the corner from the police station. It had two snooker tables in a large room at the back. Carly had brought a couple of mates along, Rick Houghton and another DI called Steve. Sean recognised him as the second Drug Squad detective he’d overheard in the gents, the day of the briefing after Flora Ishmali had been found dead.

‘Been helping old ladies across the road then?’ Steve said, looking at Sean.

‘Fuck off!’ Carly stood her ground, snooker cue at the ready. ‘You need us PCSOs and you know it. We’re your eyes and ears on the ground.’

‘Eugh! Sounds nasty,’ Steve said.

‘Course we need you, don’t take any notice of Steve,’ Rick said. ‘What you having?’

Sean went with him to get a round from the bar. While they waited, he looked at the pictures on the wall, vaguely familiar from the art room at school, dingy things with smeary paint to show the sky was full of weather.

‘You work the Chasebridge Estate?’ Rick asked.

‘Yeah, with Carly.’

‘You know a lot of people down there?’

‘I grew up there, so yeah, some, by sight.’

‘We arrested a guy up there about a few months back. Major dealer but we think he’s been replaced. I wondered if you’d seen anyone new around.’

From somewhere behind him a fruit machine paid out. The clattering of coins seemed to go on forever.

‘Lee Stubbs.’ Sean said.

‘Sorry?’ Rick paid for the drinks, but Sean was still staring at the paintings beside the bar.

‘A feller I keep seeing on the Chasebridge. I knew him at school. Right headcase. Got chucked out for sniffing the oil paints in Art. Goes around on a BMX. I think he knew the third victim. I saw her with someone who looked very like him.’

‘Nature abhors a vacuum.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘We had a feeling someone had taken over the business when we pulled our guy,’ Rick said and took a long drink from the top of his pint. ‘Either one of his associates or a smaller player could be exploiting a gap in the market. If he’s an amateur, it could explain why such strong gear’s getting out there. Are you on duty tomorrow?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’ll get you detailed to ride with us. See if you can point him out.’

‘Okay.’ Sean picked up two pints of lager. ‘We’d better get these drinks back to Carly and Steve.’

‘Yep. Steve’s nasty when he’s thirsty,’ Rick grinned.

At eight-thirty the next morning, a black Ford Focus was parked opposite Chasebridge Community Primary School. Steve and Rick were up front, with Sean in the back watching families walking their children up to the school gates. Some kids ran ahead, others were being tugged along, a few were yelled at to
get in that school or I’ll batter you
. A shouting match broke out between two mothers. Sean would have preferred to be out there, hovering nearby, not intervening yet, but just letting them know someone was in the vicinity in case it got any uglier. But he was trapped behind tinted glass, watching, waiting. By ten-to-nine, the tide had turned and the adults were walking away.

‘Follow her.’

Sean pointed out the woman he’d seen after his talk at the school. He had a hunch he knew who she was meeting. They waited for her to go round the corner, then moved the car forward. In Darwin Road, she stopped to lean on a lamppost and took out her phone. Then she carried on walking as she sent a text, struggling against the slope in high heels. She turned towards a block of flats, next to the one where flowers for Taneesha McManus were already beginning to wilt. Across the top line of brickwork, large white capital letters spelled out EAGLE MOUNT TWO. They didn’t have to wait long before the thin frame of a man on a tiny bike appeared on the crest of the hill. He plummeted down the grassy slope, skidding sideways as he hit the tarmac. Even from a distance, Sean was sure.

‘That’s Lee Stubbs.’

‘Delivery boy.’ Steve dropped the Mars bar he’d been eating on to Rick’s lap and put his foot down. ‘Let’s go.’

Stubbs must have sensed that a shiny new motor, clean and undented, could only mean one thing. As the car began to move, he lifted the front wheel and turned his bike, like a rearing horse, on to the pavement. He set off across the grass towards the slabbed path between the housing blocks. Steve drew the Ford level, just as Stubbs slipped round a bollard between the buildings. Rick jumped out.

‘Get the car round the back!’

Sean shouted directions to Steve, but he didn’t think they had much hope. The blocks, Eagle Mounts One, Two, Three and Four, were arranged around a square patch of grass and paving. Stubbs could take any one of four exits and each opened on to a different street. It was impossible to get a car round faster than a bike because each road had a barrier to stop joyriders. They spotted Rick running out through the gap between Eagle Mounts One and Four. He waved them away and turned back to the centre. On the second entry road, facing Eagle Mount Two, they had better luck. Stubbs was coming straight towards them. He leapt on to the pavement and whizzed past, as Steve swore and turned the car around.

‘Bloody genius, whoever named these. The postie must have a right job.’

Out of the rear window, Sean could see Rick running down the hill, away from the blocks. He jumped the low fence around the recreation ground and cut a diagonal path through the children’s play area. A woman pushing a toddler on a swing didn’t even look up. Then Rick was back on the street, forcing Stubbs into a U-turn.

‘He’s gone left. We’ve got him now! There’s a row of lock-ups by the shops, it’s a dead-end.’ Sean was thrown back in his seat as Steve took the corner.

When they pulled up at the far end of the entry road, Lee Stubbs was leaning against a metal garage door. He spat on the ground and waited.

‘I’m saying nowt without a solicitor.’

Stubbs stared out of the car window with his baseball hat and hood pulled low over his face, silent until they got back to the station. Only when Rick bundled him out of the car, did he finally make eye contact with Sean.

‘I’ll see you,’ he said, before he was led towards the custody suite downstairs. Sean went in the opposite direction to find Carly. He heard raised voices behind him and looked back over his shoulder. Burger was coming through the swing doors at the head of the stairs. He had his hand on Steve’s arm.

‘Leave it with me, son,’ Burger said. Steve didn’t look like he appreciated being called son or having his arm touched, but he was keeping his mouth shut. ‘I know the lad. I’m sure we can sort it out without needing to get into too much paperwork.’

Sean would have liked to hear more but the vibe between Steve and Burger told him to make himself scarce. Half an hour later, Sean passed the interview room. Through the one-way glass he could see Stubbs on the other side of the table. He seemed to be talking quietly to someone who was standing, just out of view. There was no sign of a solicitor and the lights on the tape recorder were off.