To Catch a Rabbit (4 page)

‘So it was definitely here?’ Donald followed him.

‘You can check my notes, if you can read my writing.’

The same break in the fence, the trodden grass, even a shred of incident tape caught in the hedge, told Sean he hadn’t imagined it. There was a rectangle of yellow-brown grass and four matching dents where the stands had been. If the soft tyres had left a smudge, last night’s hard frost had covered it over.

Back at the station Barry King shrugged it off.

‘The farmer probably moved it. I‘ll get someone to ring him. He won’t have been too pleased about having a mobile brothel on his land.’

‘We’ll have to find it,’ Sean realised he’d spoken out of turn as soon as King fixed him with a pointed stare.

‘Oh, we will, will we? Well sunshine, I think you’ll find it’s not in your job description to tell me how to allocate this department’s meagre resources. We had a major burglary last night, violence to the person and kiddies in the house. No, I’m not putting any more manpower into a dead junkie. Let’s get on with protecting the public from real criminals.’

After work, Sean walked up through the estate as it was going dark. He stood and looked across the ring road. The air was heavy with exhaust fumes and the scent of frying onions was coming from one of the blocks behind him. Eventually there was a long enough gap in the rush-hour traffic to risk crossing. There was still no trailer, just a flicker of blue and white tape from the hedgerow. It had been a crime scene, his crime scene, and now some idiot had moved the evidence and nothing more was going to be done about it. Su-Mai was dead and nobody except Sean gave a tinker’s cuss.

Bonfire Night: 6.45
am

Phil rammed the van into gear and pulled away. The engine ground against itself, then roared with the effort. When Mackenzie told him the van had seen better days, he hadn’t been wrong. But it still had a cassette player and Phil reckoned he had time to stop off and grab some sounds. The light was on in the bedroom and the dog greeted him with a thud of his tail against his legs. Upstairs, Stacey was sitting up in bed with Holly curled around her.

‘Sorry, did I wake you?’

‘No. This one did. Said you’ve gone a-hunting. Don’t squash me, Holly,’ Stacey shifted her daughter off her legs.

‘Johnny Mac’s got a job for me.’

‘Good. He’s going places, you know?’

‘Yeah?’ Phil rummaged in a box on the top shelf of the wardrobe.

‘He might have something permanent soon. He’ll need someone to run the office full-time.’

‘Here it is. I knew I put these tapes somewhere.’

‘Are you listening, Phil?’

‘I can hear you.’ He turned and looked at her. Stacey was prettier when she didn’t frown, but it seemed to be her default expression these days. ‘I can’t see how answering the phone for Mackenzie is a fantastic career move.’

‘The bills don’t pay themselves,’ she said. ‘Maybe I should apply for it.’

‘Maybe you should.’ He bent down and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I need to go. I should be back before you have to be at the pub. Bye, little chicken.’ But Holly rolled away and stuck her thumb in her mouth.

As he left Moorsby-on-Humber, the sky was growing lighter. Phil reached over to the passenger seat and grabbed a tape from the carrier bag. The delicate percussive opening of Betty LaVette’s ‘Let Me Down Easy’ made him smile. Any second now the vocal would kick in with a swift boot to his guts. It was one of those tunes that landed him back at another time in his life, over a decade ago. A girl called Katie, kissing him goodbye at the airport on Ibiza, the salt still on her lips from her morning swim. She said she’d wait for him, wished she could come with him, but he was on his way home for a funeral. His mother was dead and he had to face it on his own.

He hit eject and failed to catch the tape. It skittered across the floor under the pedals. He grabbed another. The call and response of Chris Kenner’s ‘Land Of A Thousand Dances’ shuddered through the speakers. Rewind to six months before his mum died. Chuck Everett’s Soul Bar in Playa d’en Bossa. Chuck made him some of these tapes so he could get a decent band together for the bar. For a blissful few months they’d played in paradise to packed houses, Phil on trombone bigging up the brass sound. But when Phil got back from that wet, English funeral he found that his so-called mate had moved in with Katie. No. Chris Kenner had to go too. Phil managed to get the action right this time and caught the tape. He dug a little deeper in the bag, finally settling with Beverley Knight. Good driving music, ‘Moving On Up (On The Right Side)’. Phil laughed, the van wasn’t moving up on anyone. A few bars in to the song, he was overtaken by a hearse. When the Humber Bridge came into view, his heart lifted. You really felt like you were going somewhere on that bridge, even if it was only Hull on the other side. People knocked Hull, but Phil liked it. A port was always full of possibilities; it was a way in and a way out.

He had the instructions in Mackenzie’s wobbly handwriting: pick up the stock from a warehouse on the industrial estate and take it to an address in Doncaster. Easy money. He thought Stacey would be happy for once that he’d got some work. But somehow it was never enough. She didn’t seem to understand that he needed to be flexible in case any bookings came in. And whatever else Johnny Mackenzie was, he was certainly flexible. He always had something on the go and was good for a bit of cash in hand.

Phil sang along, drumming the wheel with his index fingers. Driving jobs were all right. Even in this old heap of junk he could get into the music, be with his thoughts and get paid for it. He’d done his fair share of bar work but he hated it, it was all too rushed. That was how he met Stacey. He’d come back from playing a stint with an Abba cover band on the Hull-Rotterdam ferry. He’d been trying to hitch south; thought he might stay with the old man until he got straightened out. The ferry company had fired him for smoking spliffs in the staff rest room, but he was ready to leave anyway. The playlist was driving him nuts. He’d hitched a lift with a Dutchman in a refrigerated tulip truck. Just the other side of the Humber Bridge, the driver decided he needed a pie and a pint. The Volunteer Arms in Moorsby-on-Humber was warm and the jukebox played Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin. As the Dutchman was coming to the end of his third pint, Phil saw the sign above the bar: Staff Wanted. The barmaid had a wide smile and a great laugh. Her name was Stacey. He decided to stay.

She swallowed the last of her mouthful. ‘He’s getting some lunch. Do you want to come up?’ He nodded and followed her up the wooden stairs. ‘He won’t be long. Take a seat.’

DCI Moon crossed the room and sat down on the rattan garden chair that usually had Jaz’s coat slung over it. One big hand ran through his hair, leaving it just as messy as when he’d come in.

‘Nice place.’ He looked around, taking in the beamed ceiling. ‘Small, but perfectly formed.’

She wondered about sending him into the boardroom, to sit at the oval table where they’d interviewed the Moyos in the morning, but she felt like keeping an eye on him. Watching the detective. He looked like he was prepared to wait; took out his Blackberry and checked his messages. Even sitting down he gave the impression of height.

‘Charlie!’ Jaz bounded into the room, his coat half off, looked for a place to put it and decided the floor would do. The two men shook hands then pulled together in a backslapping, man-hug. Jaz seemed to disappear into DCI Moon’s arms. ‘Has Karen given you a coffee?’

She hadn’t. Somewhere between curiosity and a lingering irritation at having her lunch break interrupted she’d forgotten that part of her job description. She asked Moon how he liked it.

‘Strong, and a tiny bit of milk.’

There was an upward inflection in his voice. Not local. Welsh maybe. Another ‘blow-in’. The city was full of them, people like her and Max and Jaz. He looked like he’d want the good stuff, so she went into the boardroom where they kept the coffee machine. There was an old photograph above the fireplace. Nineteenth century slum housing for Irish railway workers, just inside the city walls. Two muddy-faced children were staring, hollow-eyed, at the photographer. Part of an earlier wave of immigration to York, it must have been even harder for them.

When she brought the coffee through, they were reminiscing about a case they’d worked on. It sounded like Jaz had been defending someone Moon had arrested.

‘I still can’t believe you thought he was legit.’ Moon was saying.

‘I thought he had a reasonable asylum claim. My job was to make sure the law was applied fairly.’ Jaz interlaced his fingers and tried to hide a smile.

‘He was a pimp for God’s sake!’ DCI Moon took the coffee and thanked her.

‘Well at least you can be sure I’m on the side of the angels now,’ Jaz replied. ‘You were saying…?’

‘We need to track down anyone connected to a haulage firm in Grimsby belonging to a guy called Xhoui Li, or anyone who could have come in on one of his trucks.’

‘There’s a girl at HMP Moreton Hall.’ Jaz said. ‘She was picked up in a Chinese restaurant by Immigration. Her solicitor approached me about her grounds for appeal. The dates fit and if I remember rightly, she named Grimsby as her port of entry. Karen could you…?’

She was already crossing the sloping wooden floor to get the file from the boardroom. The sound of her mobile stopped her. It hardly ever rang during the day. The two men watched as she fumbled to silence it. The name on the screen said Dad. In her haste, she hit the screen and realised she hadn’t stopped the call but answered it on speakerphone. The sound of her father’s voice saying, ‘Hello, hello, Karen’ filled the room. She looked helplessly at Jaz, mouthed, ‘It’s on the table, middle stack’, and slipped out through the other door on to the landing at the top of the stairs.

‘I’ll call you back, Dad. I’m at work.’ 

‘Wait, no, listen. Karen, please.’

It was a tone she didn’t recognise. Later she would say that she knew something was wrong the moment she heard her father’s voice. She stood against the wall, turning her back to the office door.

‘What is it? What’s up?’

‘Is Philip with you?’

‘Phil? Why would he be?’

‘I’m sorry. Yes, it’s a long shot. Stacey phoned. She thought he might be here. But he’s not. I thought he might have come to you.’

‘I don’t understand’

‘He’s gone missing. Didn’t come back from a job yesterday. Stacey’s had no message from him and his phone’s just going to voicemail.’

‘Do you think he might have turned up at our house? I can go home if you like.’

‘Could you? I tried your home number but, obviously, you’re not there.’

Why would her brother come to York? He made no secret of hating Max. She spoke to him on the phone every couple of months, but they hadn’t seen each other since they went to her father’s house in Hertfordshire, just before Christmas. Phil had brought little Holly down, but his wife had stayed at home. It was too near London and London - according to Stacey - was full of terrorists.

‘I’ll call you back when I get home,’ she said.

Karen leaned against the cool plaster of the wall, trying to make sense of what her father had told her. When she went back into the office, the detective was alone again. She could hear Jaz in the boardroom shuffling papers.

‘I’m sorry about that. I don’t normally leave it on.’

‘These things happen,’ the detective said. ‘You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘I’ll be all right.’

‘Got it!’ Jaz emerged waving a manila folder.

‘You know, we haven’t been properly introduced.’ Moon offered his hand and she took it. It was as if he was offering her some of his strength and just for a moment she held on.

‘God, I’m so sorry! Karen, Charlie Moon. Charlie, Karen Friedman. Karen’s my right-hand woman.’ Jaz put the folder on her desk and began to shuffle through it.

‘Karen’s had a bit of bad news,’ Charlie Moon said.

She wondered if he’d heard every word through the door.

‘If no-one minds, I think I need to go, I’ll make up the hours.’

Jaz shrugged. He was reading the file of the restaurant girl.

‘I’ve left all the papers for Mr and Mrs Moyo on your desk,’ she said, as she put her coat on.

‘Brilliant. Did you make another appointment for them?’

‘It’s in the diary.’

‘Right Charlie, mate,’ Jaz said. ‘I can give you ten minutes, then you’ll have to piss off.’

The two men turned their attention to the papers and she said goodbye. As she reached the door, Moon looked up briefly and she caught his eye.

In the doorway to the street, she hesitated. The air outside was cold and the light sudden. She could still smell last night’s bonfires. Philip was missing. She wasn’t sure what that meant or what she was expected to do about it. Missing people were posters in bus stops, appeals in the paper, they weren’t your family. He could be anywhere.
In every face, every body, every passing car, there was the possibility of Philip. Maybe she should have asked the detective’s advice, but she wasn’t sure what to ask. There was no point in causing a fuss if her brother turned up again in a day or two. People wandered off all the time, had rows or went to find themselves.

Around the corner from the office, waiting for the lights to change, Karen noticed several sleeping bags in the porch of the Methodist church. It was hard to see which of the filthy cocoons were occupied and which were empty. These people were missing too, even though they were right here in front of her. Somewhere a sister or a mother might be looking for them, but just didn’t know to look on these particular church steps, in this particular city. They might, even now, be pasting up pictures at bus stops in another part of the country or another part of the world.

Her father’s words, ‘gone missing,’ rebounded in her head. One boy, sitting against a stone pillar with his knees drawn up, looked about fourteen. An old man was bent over, rearranging the contents of several plastic bags, his oversized suit jacket tied at the waist with a bungee. He reminded Karen of Philip at their mother’s funeral. Phil only just made it back from Ibiza in time and she’d met him at the airport. He smelt of stale beer, cigarettes and several nights on the dance floor. He arrived at the crematorium in a suit borrowed from one of their dad’s Party comrades who was Phil’s height, but three stone heavier. Her brother’s brown neck towered above the starched white shirt collar, which circled his throat like the ruff of a buzzard. The jacket hung from his bony shoulders and a tight belt gathered and bunched the extra fabric of the trousers round his waist. He looked like an elegant tramp, a Heathcliff, in that neat, suburban cemetery.

As she watched, the old man on the church steps looked up at her and she turned away towards the bus stop.