Acid Row (25 page)

“Hi, Jimmy,” said Ken now, squeezing his eyes ruefully at Jenny Monroe “PC Ken Hewitt.”

Jimmy's voice came clearly over the loudspeaker. "I remember you.

You're one of the blokes who arrested me last time. Young geezer .. .

dark hair."

“That's me. You damn nearly broke my arm.”

"Yeah, well, no hard feelings. Listen, it's not that easy to hear you .. . there's a hell of a racket going on around me .. . so speak loud and slow, OK. Tell me what you want. Gaynor talked about opening up some other exits."

"I need you on a landline, Jimmy. Can you go into Mrs. Carthew's house and find her upstairs? She's in her bedroom. We'll tell her you're coming. Just don't let anyone else follow you up. She's not very strong. Understood?"

"Sure. I'm getting pretty good at this stuff. But I reckon the frailer they look the tougher they are inside."

“What did he mean?” asked Jenny as the mobile lost his voice to pick up the noise of the crowd.

Hewitt shook his head. “Search me.”

Inside 9 Humbert Street Mrs. Carthew had rather vacant blue eyes and pinkly tinged cheeks. She was sitting in an armchair by her window and smiled sweetly at Jimmy when he appeared in her bedroom doorway. She held out the telephone to him and gestured happily towards the scene outside. "Is everyone enjoying themselves?" she asked, as if she were presiding over a street party.

“Some of them are,” he agreed, putting the receiver to his ear to tell Ken Hewitt he had arrived. He found himself thinking that here was another old lady who seemed to be living in poverty. Glimpses through the open doors on the landing when he was trying to find her had shown the extra rooms to be all but empty, so why she was living alone in a house that was big enough to house a family was inexplicable. Most of her possessions seemed to be packed into this one room, though there was nothing of value Jimmy's automatic assessment on entering someone else's house just utilitarian furniture, an old television and some ornaments and photographs.

“Don't mind Mrs. Carthew,” Ken Hewitt was saying. "She lost the plot about half an hour ago .. . thinks it's the end of the war .. . VE Day.

She obviously comes and goes because she was compos mentis at the beginning .. . but we think it's better to agree with her so she doesn't get frightened."

“She's all on her own in here,” said Jimmy, turning away slightly and masking his mouth with the large hand holding the receiver. "I'm not surprised if she comes and goes. There's no furniture in any of the other rooms and it doesn't look like she has many visitors. I guess memories are all she's got .. . and that's pretty sad."

"She told us her children emptied the house two years ago when she went on a waiting list for sheltered accommodation, and she hasn't seen any of them since. But it's best to keep off the subject. It was talking about her kids that made her regress."

“No problem,” said Jimmy, giving Mrs. Carthew an encouraging wink.

"Like I say, I'm getting used to it. They're all at it. I've got an old geezer out the back guarding the fence with a tin helmet on his head, yelling about the war and waving a machete around."

Hewitt promptly reverted to being a policeman. "I don't think you should have encouraged that. It doesn't sound very safe."

“It's not supposed to be safe. He's a deterrent.”

"He could find himself in court if someone gets hurt ... so could you for '

“Cut the crap,” Jimmy hissed angrily, turning his back on Mrs. Carthew so as not to alarm her. "Do you think I care a fuck at the moment what you sods are gonna do after this is over? It's you rozzers' fault this is happening. I'm only here because I want my lady out. And I'll tell you this for nothing ... we ain't got many choices here .. . and a guy who's willing to persuade people home strikes me as a better bet than having people trampled to death back and front of this sodding street. So don't start laying your responsibility on me. I'm not the sodding police .. . and I'm not taking any of the blame because you idiots couldn't see this war coming. My old geezer's guarding some kids and doing his best to keep the exit flowing .. . and if anyone gets sliced because they go too near him, then that's their sodding fault. Capeesh?

A woman's voice came on the line. “Jimmy, this is Jenny Monroe,” she said calmly and evenly. "I'm the receptionist at the Nightingale Health Centre. Your Mel and her kids are patients here ... so is Gaynor and her family. May I explain to you why the Health Centre's involved and what we're doing? We're trying to use a network that one of our doctors set up to find people in Humbert Street who might be prepared to open their doors as Mrs. Carthew did. Unfortunately, Mrs.

Carthew's very hazy about names '

Jimmy broke in. “What's this network called?”

'“Friendship Calling”."

"OK. I know about this. There's a lady in Glebe Tower called Eileen Hinkley, flat 406. She's one of the people who holds the numbers. If she's not listed, the ambulance service knows how to get hold of her.

She'll be able to help you."

There was a brief pause while Jenny passed the information to someone in the background. “That's fantastic,” she said warmly. "One of my colleagues is calling her now. Thank you so much,"

“Is that it?” said Jimmy, surprised to be let off so lightly. "Because I'd sure as hell like to find out what's happened to Mel and the kids.

Get them out, if possible."

“No,” said Jenny sharply, afraid he was going to hand her back to Mrs.

Carthew, 'please don't go! We're so desperately in need of help." Her voice rose. "Someone has to take a lead out there .. . make them see sense. We need marshals on the exits. We need Are you still there?"

“Yeah.”

He heard the policeman murmur away from the speaker: "You need to think about how much you're prepared to tell him .. . she could end up dead if they decide to storm the house."

“What's he talking about?” Jimmy demanded. "Who's she? Who could end up dead?"

“Please wait, Jimmy.” Jenny half muffled the speaker by placing her hand over it, but she was close enough for her higher, very agitated tones to carry. Nothing of what the policeman said was audible.

"This is crazy .. . We've got to trust someone .. . Yes, but the police aren't doing anything .. . Oh, for God's sake! .. . Of course she'll feel more confident if we can get a message to her .. . anyone would ..

. No, I couldn't give a tuppenny damn about his record ... If Gaynor approves of him then so do I.. ."

Her voice came back so suddenly and so strongly that Jimmy jerked the receiver away from his ear. "Can I trust you? Gaynor seems to trust you. She said over and over again, “If only Jimmy was here.”

"You don't need to shout, lady. The volume's on bellow, so I reckon Mrs. Carthew's deaf-' he saw the old woman looking at him 'as well as a house without an attic if you get my drift.“ He paused. ”You'll have to tell me what you want before I'll say whether you can trust me.

I'm not doing nothing that'll take me back to the nick."

Jenny made a supreme effort to bring her fluctuating emotions under control. "I'm sorry. Everyone's so worried here. I need an assurance that you won't repeat what I tell you to anyone, Jimmy .. . not even to Melanie or Gaynor. Ken's worried that if word of it leaks out, then the crowd will go mad and attack the house .. . and that'll make the situation even more dangerous. Apparently some kid has already set himself ablaze with a petrol bomb and the police helicopter says there are more lining up. According to them, it's only a matter of time before the house goes up ... and that means everyone inside will go with it ... including Sophie."

Jimmy struggled to make sense of this by superimposing the knowledge he already had. “I thought the kid's name was Amy,” he said.

A baffled pause. “I'm talking about Sophie .. . Sophie Morrison.” He heard Ken Hewitt murmur again in the background. "Oh, God, no! This has nothing to do with the missing child, Jimmy. Sophie's one of our doctors. She's the real reason we became involved. She made an emergency call to me saying the men at number 23 had taken her prisoner. She sounded incredibly frightened talked about being' she paused as if selecting a word 'attacked then switched off her phone."

"Is she the one getting married in a couple of weeks? I'm sure that's the name on the invitation Mel and me've been given."

“Yes.”

"Mel's always going on about how great she is ... Sophie this .. .

Sophie that."

"Almost all her patients are in Bassindale, and a lot of them are elderly. She's the doctor that started “Friendship Calling” because she recognized how lonely some of them were. I know you're probably thinking I'd say anything to make you help her, but she's a truly good person, Jimmy, the kind that makes a difference to other people's lives.“ Her voice wobbled. ”She wouldn't be in that house now if she didn't care about her patients. She was supposed to clock off at midday but was running late because she thinks talking's more important than handing out pills. Then I asked her to do that one extra call because the man was panicking Her voice broke completely.

“I guess you're pretty fond of her.”

There was the sound of nose-blowing at the other end. "I can't bear to think of anything bad happening to her."

“You said she'd been ”attacked“,” he reminded her. "Was she talking about the men in the house or the people outside?"

“Hang on.” There was a long silence before she spoke again, and he suspected that this time she had pressed the 'mute' button. "She said one of the men wanted to rape her," she told him, 'and she's not the type to imagine a thing like that."

Jimmy frowned to himself, remembering his conversation with Melanie earlier. "I thought these guys were paedophiles, so why would they want to rape a woman? Plus, they must be scared shitless themselves with half of Acid Row screaming for their blood?"

He waited for an answer that didn't come, because the policeman's voice spoke again in the background.

Nightingale Health Centre Jenny muted the loudspeaker, and glared angrily at Ken. "Don't keep telling me to watch what I say to him,“ she snapped. ”At least he's there. At least he's listening. What are the police doing to rescue Sophie? Nothing .. . except sit on their backsides and keep a watching brief because they're afraid of making the situation worse. Well here's what I think' she jabbed her finger at him 'if Harry explains to him the sort of danger he's likely to face .. . and if he agrees to help .. . then we should all get down on our knees and be grateful that someone in that godforsaken place has more courage than the bloody police have."

Inside 9 Humbert Street Jimmy pulled a face at Mrs. Carthew as the receiver came live again.

“Listen, I'm not trying to knock the doctor,” he said by way of explaining his scepticism to Jenny. "I bet the poor lady's scared out of her wits, but it doesn't make much sense whichever way you look at it. I mean, you'd have to be a fucking moron to rape your hostage when the reason you're under attack is because you're a deviant. You'd do the opposite .. . you'd be nice to her .. . get her to speak for you ..

. persuade the acid-heads you were framed. That's something everyone in Bassindale can relate to."

A man's voice answered. "This is Harry Bonfield, Jimmy. I'm the senior doctor at the Nightingale. Believe me, we've been having these same thoughts ourselves, so we took advice from a psychiatrist. What you're describing is a reasoned reaction to a problem .. . and that isn't necessarily the way these men will behave. We're getting some feedback from the police helicopter and they're telling us there's no sign of anyone at the windows .. . which is the opposite of what we'd expect if the men wanted Sophie to plead for them. They'd make her very visible, encourage her to call out and say who she is, use her as a deterrent your word against petrol bombs."

“Maybe she's too frightened to do it.”

"We don't think so. Sophie's an intelligent woman, and a tough one too. She knows that a lot of people in that crowd will recognize her or have knowledge of her, particularly if she talks to them. It makes no sense that she isn't being allowed to negotiate. She's one of the few people who might be able to take some steam out of the situation."

Jimmy couldn't fault his argument. "So what do you reckon's going on?"

"It's a guess, but we think the older man is running the show. He's not the convicted offender that's the son but there's evidence that the father is a serial sexual abuser. Both his wife and his son suffered at his hands he wields a whip, which suggests he has a strong sadistic streak. He's also an habitual user of prostitutes he's been arrested and fined in the past for kerb-crawling, and questioned several times after women were admitted to hospital and gave a description matching his. There was never enough evidence to convict he uses false names and none of the prostitutes would face him in court but he's definitely not the kind of man you'd want as jailer to a pretty young woman."

Jimmy was reminded of Eileen's remark about her friend being prone to exaggeration. The doctor was making this guy out to be a full-blown psychopath, but if that were the case, then why the hell wasn't he behind bars? Jimmy had a strong suspicion that these people in the safety of the Health Centre were manipulating his sympathies to make him do something he wouldn't want to do.

“You sure you got this right, Doc?” he asked cynically. "I mean, one minute you're telling me he likes tender boy meat .. . the next you're saying he's trawling the streets for Toms. That don't add up. Why would he fancy his little son, if his real taste's for full-grown bitches?"

There was an amused laugh at the colourful language. "Do you want the three-year course or the one-minute sound-bite? Don't answer that Jimmy. I'll do my best with a sound-bite. Someone with the kind of personality disorder that this man seems to be suffering from has no forward thinking and can't anticipate the negative consequences of what he does. Also, he never blames himself. It'll be the victim's fault for triggering his aggression or frustration. If, as we believe, his particular paraph ilia that's a sexual disorder is sadism, then other people's fear is a major turn-on for him, and, once aroused, he won't be remotely interested in them as people, only in his immediate gratification. This would have meant that his son, who must have lived in permanent terror, was both the reason for the father's arousal and the satisfier of it. Does that sound logical to you?"