Hurt (DS Lucy Black) (26 page)

‘Maybe you’d talk us through it again,’ Lucy offered. ‘Just in case something had bubbled to the surface of your memory between then and now.’

Tara glanced at her, incredulously. For his part, affecting an air of boredom, Fallon ran through a description of the incident that was, in fairness to Mickey, very close to the cut and paste job he’d done on all the witness statements.

‘Do you drive?’ Lucy asked, when Fallon was finished.

‘What’s that to do with anything?’

‘I’m just wondering,’ she offered, nonchalantly. ‘I noticed there’s no car outside, even though you have a licence.’

‘Got repossessed, didn’t it,’ Fallon said, glancing across at the girl who stood watching proceedings, sipping from the beer can while the child hefted against her side reached out to try to take it from her.

‘I told him not to buy it. It was too dear for us. Now I have to take the bus everywhere, wi’ a pram and everything.’

‘We’d have kept it if you’d stayed working,’ Fallon snapped.

‘I had to have me baby, didn’t I?’ the girl retorted.

Aware that long-simmering tensions had been brought quickly to air by the comment, Lucy changed the topic. ‘Who were you with when you saw Kay’s arrest?’ she asked.

‘A couple of people from work,’ Fallon replied, glancing quickly at his partner again.

‘Can you give us their names?’ Lucy asked.

‘Fiona Doherty, Sharon McMenamin, Kayley Gallagher.’

Though he said nothing further, Lucy could see from the looks they exchanged, that at least one of those named was not someone Fallon’s partner was happy to have sharing lunch with him.

‘Did any of them have their children with them?’ The man in the image had been sitting at a table with a woman and child.

‘They’ve not got kids. Any of them,’ Fallon replied.

‘Yet,’ came the muttered comment from the corner.

‘No car,’ Lucy said as she and Tara climbed back into their own, having left the couple to whatever fight was brewing between them.

‘No hope either,’ Tara commented. ‘That poor kid.’

They drove down through the town to head across to the Waterside. The streets were busy, people heading to staff parties, some already stumbling along in a manner which suggested that the party, for them at least, had started some hours earlier. Part of Bishop Street was closed off by a police cordon.

‘That must be where the beating happened,’ Tara said.

They cut down Shipquay Street and waited, halfway down the hill, while a girl tottered across the road, her arms stretched outwards to help her maintain balance on a pair of shoes several inches too high for her own safety. Her dress, meanwhile, was both several sizes too small and several inches too short for her not inconsiderable frame. She held, in one hand, a tiny clutch purse, in the other a bottle of WKD. Despite the cold, and the paucity of material on her dress, she did not carry a coat.

‘Jesus, there’s someone who got dressed without the three Ms,’ Tara said, watching her cross. ‘No mother, no mates, no mirror.’

Lucy tried unsuccessfully not to laugh. The girl, glancing up mid-crossing, saw them doing so and loosened the grip on her clutch bag enough to offer them a one-fingered salute.

‘Pure class,’ Tara commented.

They reached the address listed for Bell a few minutes later. He lived on Bond’s Hill, a steep incline running towards the railway station in the Waterside. While most of the buildings along it were businesses, the lower few were residential. The house they stopped at was in darkness. They knocked several times, without response. Finally, Lucy knocked at the door of the neighbouring property.

‘We can come back,’ Tara said.

‘He clearly didn’t answer Mickey’s call, nor is he answering his door. We don’t even know if this is his real address.’

‘In that case, we don’t even know if Peter Bell is his real name.’

‘I think it is,’ Lucy began, but was interrupted by the shunting of a dead bolt of the door at which she now stood. The neighbour who answered was an elderly woman. She opened the door a fraction, a thick security chain obscuring a clear view of her face.

‘Yes?’ she asked.

Lucy held up her warrant card for the woman to see. ‘My name is DS Black with the PSNI’s Public Protection Unit. We’re looking for your neighbour, Mr Bell. Have you seen him lately?’

‘What’s he done?’ the lady asked, the door not moving, Lucy’s warrant card clearly not sufficient to engender trust.

‘Nothing. He witnessed an incident a few days back and we wanted to check some details on his statement.’

The woman nodded, the gesture clear only through the slight rise and fall of the wisps of grey hair Lucy could make out.

‘He keeps strange hours,’ the woman said. ‘I never know when he’s coming. Sometimes I hear him playing music, but that’s about it.’

‘Do you know what he does?’ Lucy asked. ‘Does he work locally? We could maybe call with him at work tomorrow?’

‘I don’t know,’ the woman said. ‘I think he works with computers.’

Lucy rummaged in her pocket, pulled out the sheet taken from the CCTV footage. ‘Mrs ...?’

‘Sinclair.’

‘Mrs Sinclair. If I hand you in a picture, would you mind looking at it and telling me if it’s Mr Bell? In case we’ve got the wrong person.’

‘What was your name again?’

‘DS Black,’ Lucy said. ‘Lucy.’

A thin hand emerged through the gap, the fingers impatiently flicking at the page, taking it and withdrawing back through. Lucy watched as the small figure, her back hunched over, shuffled to beneath the meagre light being thrown off by the ceiling lamp in the hallway. Lucy could understand the woman’s reluctance to open the door even to two girls. She was less than five feet tall, her arms narrow, her calf muscles carrying little flesh. Lucy imagined the fear that each knock on the door at night must produce in the woman.

Finally, she shuffled back towards the door. The page was pushed through the gap.

‘It could be him,’ the woman said. ‘It’s hard to tell. It could be.’

‘If it is our guy, what makes you think it’s his real name?’ Tara asked, as they pulled away from the front of the house.

‘When we raided the restaurant, he was online. He’d been using each of his accounts, updating things. When we arrived, if he did think we were after him, he couldn’t be sure which identity we’d uncovered. Working on the assumption that the only identity he hasn’t used online is his real one, it would make sense that that would be the only one he’d give to police. Besides, that was the only name he had an ID for, if it was needed: his driving licence.’

‘I think that’s logical,’ Tara said. ‘You lost me at “online”.’

Lucy raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘I’ve one other stop I want to make,’ she said. ‘There’s a young lad in care, he was with Karen and saw her with someone in the weeks before she died. I want to check this picture with him. Are you in a rush to get back?’

Tara looked at the clock on the dashboard. ‘I’m on shift till ten,’ she said. ‘You have me for another hour and a half.’

‘You’re a star,’ Lucy said, patting her leg. She took out her phone and called through to the unit.

‘Robbie,’ she said when he answered. ‘Is Gavin there? I wanted to call up and see him for a moment.’

‘Sorry, Lucy,’ Robbie said. ‘Gavin’s not come back to the unit yet. The grandparents don’t know where he is either.’

‘We’re in the Waterside,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ll take a quick check around the shops, see if he’s hanging around there again. I’ll let you know.

‘Is that OK?’ she asked Tara, who had overheard the conversation. ‘It’ll only take a few minutes.’

‘Is that the boyfriend?’

‘Ex,’ said Lucy.

‘What happened?’

‘He snogged one of his co-workers on Hallowe’en night.’

‘You broke up with him for that? That’s a bit harsh,’ Tara said. ‘Mind you, he must be a dick, cheating on you,’ she added, glancing across at Lucy, holding her gaze.

‘I don’t take well to people messing me around,’ Lucy said.

They pulled up in front of the block of shops, looking around for Gavin or the gang of kids who seemed to habitually congregate there. Tara stayed in the car while Lucy moved around to the rear of the block, but the place was deserted. Finally, she went into the shop. A different assistant was working, a young girl, a student, Lucy guessed, by virtue of the fact she sat behind the till, a lined notebook on her lap, filled with neat blue copperplate script, a copy of ‘The Pardoner’s Tale’ in her hand.

She placed the books on the stool and stood as Lucy approached.

‘Sorry,’ Lucy said. ‘I’m just ...’ She scanned the sweet selection in front of her, lifted a bar and offered it to the girl, hunting through her pockets for money. ‘No youngsters hanging around tonight,’ she asked, handing the girl a pound.

‘You get three for one fifty,’ she replied. ‘The bars. They’re eighty pence each, but you get three for one fifty.’

Lucy glanced down to the sign, which stated this, hanging off the shelf. ‘Of course. Great. I’ll do that, then.’ She lifted the other two bars and handed them to the girl. ‘Thanks.’

The girl waited while she hunted again for fifty pence. ‘No kids ...’ she repeated.

‘They’re all in the local youth club tonight. It closes at ten.’

The girl stood patiently, waiting for Lucy to continue. Something in her features, the sharpness of her nose, thin and aquiline, made Lucy think she had seen her before.

‘Are you looking for Gavin again?’ the girl asked and Lucy realized why she recognized her: she had been standing with Gavin the night she had first picked him up from behind the shops.

‘Yes.’

‘Is he in trouble?’

Lucy shook her head. She glanced at the girl’s name badge, which read ‘Elena’. ‘I needed to ask him something, Elena. Are you and he ...?’ She left the question open-ended.

Despite this, the girl blushed. ‘Kind of,’ she said.

‘You’re not at the club, then? Too busy working?’

Elena nodded. ‘I miss all the
craic
. They all went away paint-balling a few weeks ago to Magilligan for the weekend and I had to work then, too. They stayed over and had a party and everything.’

‘It’ll be worth it in the long run,’ Lucy said, suddenly aware as she said it that it was the typical platitude that an adult might come out with. ‘Though it’s crap missing stuff like that. Where did they stay?’ she added, for she did not remember Gavin being away. Of course, she reasoned, she and Robbie had broken up by then; there was no reason for her to know.

‘Jackie has an old house there. They all stayed there, in sleeping bags and that. The youth club supervisors went too, but they were sound about them partying.’

‘I’ll take a run down to the club and see if Gavin’s about,’ Lucy said, taking the bars and turning to leave. She turned back and handed one of the bars to the girl. ‘For when you’re having your break,’ she said.

The girl flashed her a smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Exam tomorrow,’ she added as explanation for the books.

‘Good luck,’ Lucy offered.

* * *

Tara agreed to take her to the Oaks Youth Club in return for the other chocolate bar. The youth club was actually an annex off one of the local factories, a low, stucco block, flat roofed, with metal grilles on the walls. While the grilles were marked with dried splatters of various colours of paint, the walls of the building, though not freshly painted, were clean of all graffiti.

Two younger lads stood in the entrance way, one trying to strike a match to light their cigarettes while the other sheltered him, his coat a makeshift windbreaker.

Beyond them, Lucy saw a figure appear and advance towards the double doors in front of which they stood.

Jackie Logue pushed open the door. ‘Not in front of the door, lads,’ he said. ‘Go on off the grounds if you’re going to insist on smoking.’

One of the lads straightened and, for a second, Lucy expected him to challenge Logue. Instead, hiding the cigarette behind his back, he said, ‘Sorry, Jackie. We can’t get a light out in the wind.’

Logue nodded, signalling that they could continue. ‘You shouldn’t be smoking at all, you know that. It stunts your growth.’

The boy, now successfully puffing on his cigarette, standing almost a head higher than Logue, laughed good-naturedly. ‘Is that what happened you, Jackie?’ he asked.

‘Bugger off, you cheeky git,’ Logue laughed. Then, he must have seen Lucy standing on the pathway to the club. ‘Let the lady through, lads. And no smoking on the grounds. Off you go now.’

Logue stepped back, holding open the door, which Lucy took as an invitation to come in. To do so, she had to pass by the two smokers who stood, almost as a guard of honour, on either side of the doorway. Lucy passed so close to one she could smell the stale sweat off his football top, ripe beneath the cigarette smoke.

‘Mr Logue?’

‘DS Black, isn’t it,’ Logue said. ‘Gavin told me about you. What’s he done now?’

‘Vanished. He wouldn’t be in here, would he?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Logue said. ‘Come on in. We’ll go through to the office.’

The city had a number of such youth clubs, set up in community centres by the local people to keep the youths off the streets and out of trouble. Lucy followed Logue through the building, which was mostly a single open-plan area. The centre of the room was dominated by two snooker tables. A handful of fellas stood around them, stacks of twenty pence pieces sitting on the cushioned ledge of one showing that they would be playing for sometime. The crack of the balls carried in its wake a collective groan at a missed pocket.

In the far corner was an old-style TV. Another group sat around it, two at their centre gripping the controls of a games console as they steered the two cars racing each other on screen.

As she passed through, Lucy saw a small tuck shop, being staffed by one of the teenagers and, against the back wall, a row of PCs, all of which were in use. At the furthest end of the block was a small room partitioned from the rest of the building. Though it was this that Logue had called his office, it was, in fact, a small kitchen, leading off to a toilet.