Nameless Kill (22 page)

He nodded at Brian, still standing at the door, his eyes skipping around the room. “How’s the patient?” he said, in a detached, totally unfriendly manner that only Brad could manage.

“I’m er, I’m good. No fast food, no long walks, no fun, basically.” He pointed over at the television. “Got Jimmy Karl for company though, so all’s good.”

Brad didn’t even break a smile.

“How about you?”

“Yeah,” Brad said. He widened his eyes and scratched at his nose, twitching away. “Yeah I’m‌—‌I’m good. Just getting on with things, y’know.”

“Back at work?” Brian asked.

“Um, Tuesday,” Brad said, half-smiling. God, this was like a really bad speed-date. Forced questions. Heffer of an elephant in the room.

“Tuesday,” Brian repeated after Brad. He plucked some fluff from the white bed sheet on his legs and nodded. “Good. Good.”

A silence came down on the room. A silence that lasted way, way too long to be comfortable. Not that any silence
could
be comfortable, not to Brian’s ears.

But he knew this was the moment. He knew he had to break the silence with an apology. It had to be now or never.

“Brad, I just wanted to‌—‌”

“Don’t apologise for anything,” Brad said, sternly.

Brian felt his cheeks flushing. “I feel pretty shit for‌—‌”

“I put myself in the position I was in,” Brad said. He scratched at his neck some more, eyes flicking all around the room, unable to keep still. “I dunno. I made some bad decisions. Maybe what happened to me was a wake-up call. But I…‌I don’t want you to think you tipped me over or anything like that. It was always going to happen at some point, the way I was going.”

Another silence. Another few seconds not making eye contact. Brian instead stared at his coffee table harder than he’d stared at it his entire time of living here.

“If you ever need to…‌well. I’ve‌—‌I’ve been somewhere similar. I know…‌I know it isn’t easy.”

Every word Brian spoke felt like a pin pricking into his skin and releasing his masculinity into the air. And yet he knew they were the right words. The right things to say. The words he should’ve said all along.

“You too, Brian,” Brad said, focusing on Brian and not twitching so much for the first time in their entire exchange. “You too.”

Brian looked Brad in the eye. He forced a smile at him and nodded.

Brad nodded back at him.

“Anyway,” Brad said.

“Right,” Brian said. He turned away from Brad. Shuffled around to detract from his warming cheeks, did a manly cough into his fist. “See you back at work?”

“Back at work,” Brad said.

They looked at one another once more. One more look of understanding.

And then, Brad walked around the doorway of Brian’s lounge and disappeared into the hall.

As the front door creaked and another breeze came through into the house, Brian knew Brad wasn’t going to have it as easy as he perhaps thought. Recovering from depression, taking a stand, that was the hardest part. But people with depression couldn’t be told that. If they were, they wouldn’t have the strength to fight the battle.

The front door slammed shut, and Brad’s footsteps echoed down Brian’s driveway.

They’d be back at work again soon, both of them. Back to how it was.

Except it was never going to be the same for them. Not really.

Brian rolled onto his right and looked at the television screen.

Jimmy Karl barked away at another scrotey guest.

Chapter Thirty Seven

It was a few days before Brian was really back on his feet again, and he picked the location for his first proper walk in almost a month very wisely.

He walked down the simmering hot path that led alongside Avenham Park. The path smelled of freshly laid tarmac, a reminder of the unusually warm early summer that Britain was enjoying. He planned to just go on one walk around the park. One loop, along the path, down the steps at the end, then a nice leisurely walk back beside the River Ribble afterwards. He might’ve been breaking a sweat already, his head burning with heat, but it’d do him good.

Besides, he wasn’t back at work yet. He could take all day.

He tried his best not to look at the simmering green leaves from the trees to the left of him as he approached. Tried to ignore the fact that that was where Elise Brayfeather’s body was discovered a month ago. The dental records had come back and confirmed it as Elise eventually. Turned out she was afraid of all things medical, and she’d been ill an unusually few number of times in her life. Add on to the fact that matching dental records when you didn’t know who you were looking for was like looking for a good looking whore in a Preston backstreet, and you pretty much get the picture.

Brian slowed down as he reached the indentation in the tall, uncut grass leading down to the stream. He stood there for a few seconds, the wind brushing against him. It was silent. Ridiculously silent, the only sounds from cars miles away. Usually, on a hot day like today, Avenham Park would be full of kids, teenagers kicking footballs around and being “too clever” to wear sun cream.

Not anymore. Not since Elise Brayfeather.

Brian sighed and moved on, his legs already growing weak with the walk. He could smell bacon frying in the distance at one of the cafes just up the large concrete steps on the left. Maybe he could stop off there and grab a bacon butty before he moved on. His stomach churned with the thought. He could taste the brown sauce and the crispy bacon fat swirling around his mouth already.

He reached the bottom of the tall set of steps and planted his hands on his knees, panting worse than he ever had before the heart attack. Bloody stupid, really. Doctors had had him sitting around for weeks. And then they expected him to take up exercise again all of a sudden. No wonder he was knackered‌—‌he’d been lying on that uncomfy sofa for the best part of a month.

He puffed out his lips and planted his right foot on one step, his left on the next.

Already, he felt out of breath again.

This was going to be tricky.

As he climbed the steps one by one, the smell of sweet warm air in his nostrils, Brian couldn’t help his mind wandering to the Elise Brayfeather case. He’d gone over it in his head time and time and time again while lying on his sofa in his living room, but there, his thoughts didn’t have the clarity they needed. Every time he
started
to think about it, he got a twinge in his chest, or he smelled his toast burning in the kitchen. There were too many distractions.

But out here, climbing these damned awkward concrete steps, closing in on the bacon-smelling sandwich shop, the thoughts of the case spun around Brian’s head like they hadn’t done in weeks.

Elise Brayfeather had left home at sixteen to be with a man who was nicknamed “Stag.” Stag was some kind of dealer‌—‌a street-loving scrote. Wayne Jenkins had said he was black, but he kept himself well under wraps and secrecy. Stag had some kind of connection to the Avenham area as well as African Connection‌—‌or more specifically, to the deceased Yemi Moya. He had to be one of the “associates” Price had referred to.

But who was he? And why was he so elusive?

Brian’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of shouting across the road.

He looked over the road and tried to figure where it was coming from. His first instinct was that some people were scrapping over by the run-down, red-bricked terraced houses, but he couldn’t see anything over there. No, this was to his left. Across the street, and to…

Then he saw them. Three hooded kids, running out of the flower-filled garden of a posh, grey-bricked house just across the road. Somebody was chasing them. Chasing them down the garden path with a sharp knitting needle in hand, prodding them on the back, shouting as loud as she could as the first kid clambered over the tall, metallic black gate and sprinted down the street.

It was then that it clicked in Brian’s mind whose house this was, and who the woman chasing the kids was, too.

Mrs. Delforth. The old, nighty-wearing widow from 22 Rawlinson’s. The one that gave him the strange-tasting tea when he’d been doing his HtoH runs with Carter.

The third kid clambered over the gate. Mrs. Delforth prodded him harder and harder on his backside with her knitting needle, before the kid escaped and ran down the street in pursuit of his friends.

When they left, Brian observed Mrs. Delforth, dressed in her pink nighty and with knitting needles in her hand. Her mouth was shaking. It looked like she had tears in her poor old eyes. Her hands were shaking too, as she stumbled forward, backwards, and eventually leaned with her head against the black steel gates.

Brian got another whiff from the bacon butty shop to his right, making his stomach churn even more. But shit‌—‌poor Mrs. Delforth. Silly old bint must be frightened out of her life. Least he could do was go over there and check on her.

He tried his best to blank out the tang of bacon on his tongue begging him to make a right towards the little shop, and he walked across the street towards Mrs. Delforth’s front gates.

He approached slowly. She was still leaning against the gate with her knitting needles in hand. And they were pretty long and sharp, glistening in the sun. He didn’t want her to mistake him for one of those bastard kids. Couldn’t blame her for popping one in his neck if she did.

“Mrs…‌Mrs. Delforth?” Brian said, keeping his voice down and making sure there were still a few feet of pavement between him and her gate.

She looked up. Tilted her head up and looked at him with bloodshot, tearful eyes. Her dry lips were shaking, and Brian could hear the sound of her breathing rattling through her chest.

“Mrs. Delforth,” Brian said, feeling a wave of sympathy overcome him as he stood there in the beaming hot sun, sweat running down his head. “Brian McDone. Detective Inspector McDone. You…‌you made me tea a few weeks ago?”

Mrs. Delforth’s eyes wandered. She moved her lips, muttering a few inaudible words like she was prompting herself to remember Brian.

Then, her eyes shot back up at Brian, a slight smile tugging at her chapped lips. “Made‌—‌made you tea. Yes. Yes, I remember. Brian. I remember.”

Brian nodded as the woman came to her senses. “Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat and looking down the road to the left, towards the thick trees. No doubt the kids would be hiding around there waiting to pick on the poor old lady again. “Yeah. I…‌Those kids. Are you okay?”

Mrs. Delforth sniffed, her fingers wrapped so tightly around the black metal gate posts that they were going even whiter than Brian originally remembered. “They…‌Always walking in my garden. Always‌—‌always kicking my‌—‌my lovely flowers and‌—‌and‌—‌” She sniffed again. Her bottom lip turned.

“Mrs. Delforth,” Brian said, hurrying to stop the woman crying on him. He wasn’t great with tears. Made him feel a bit funny inside. Besides, where did tears ever get anybody? “Why don’t…‌why don’t you let me inside? I can‌—‌I can put the kettle on for us and we can talk about…‌about how we’re going to handle those kids for you if they come again.”

Mrs. Delforth looked back at Brian, smiling at him, eyes filled with tears. “You’d do that, officer? You’d‌—‌you’d help me like that?”

Brian smiled. His stomach sank though, as a spicy smell from the bacon butty place came drifting into his nostrils. “Yep. Come on. Let go of the gate and we…‌we can have a chat.”

Mrs. Delforth held her whitening, skinny fingers onto the gate for a few more seconds, knitting needles still wedged between her fingers.

Then, she let go and turned the lock on the gate, metal screeching against metal and making Brian cringe. He got a whiff of fresh paint as the gate moved. In fact, to his memory, the gate had been green the last time he’d visited.

“Come on,” Mrs. Delforth said, holding her frail, skinny arm out in the direction of her garden path, lined with yellow flowers, purple flowers, red flowers.

Brian walked down the pathway towards the crumbly old wooden door of Mrs. Delforth’s house.

From a distance, he watched the officer very closely, and hoped he wouldn’t have to make another bloody mess on a pretty day like today.

He’d only just managed to shut the other one up. He wasn’t in the mood for another prisoner.

Not yet.

Chapter Thirty Eight

It had been a month since Brian had last stood in Mrs. Delforth’s gloomy, clammy lounge, and it had certainly not got any cleaner since his last visit.

Mrs. Delforth slouched down on her sickening green sofa and started to knit the pink material together with her shaky, veiny fingers. Brian stood up in the middle of the room, as the chair that he would have opted for was filled with dusty old cardboard boxes and dubious looking empty packaging. The smell of age was ripe in this living room, especially with the warmth of the sun creeping through the unclean windows. Brian made a vow to himself right there and then that he’d never let himself become smelly and old. Never.

“Would you like me to make you a brew, Mrs. Delforth?”

Mrs. Delforth’s mouth twitched as she blindly knitted at the material. “Them kids,” she said. “They…‌Why me? Why an old lady like me?”

Brian looked down at the green carpet, a similar shade of mouldy green to the sofas. If Mrs. Delforth needed one thing, it was definitely a redecoration. “Kids can be cruel. But I’m a police officer, remember? I can help you if they’re causing trouble.”

“My family doesn’t care,” she said, her knitting getting more and more shaky. “They…‌they don’t care about their old mum anymore. None of ‘em, no.”

Brian looked around the room. Looked at the stacks of old clothes, of bagged-up items of various shapes and sizes, at the discarded shopping carrier bags floating around in the corners of the room for insects to nest in. Certainly didn’t look like she got much help from her family. Poor woman. Brian saw this far too often‌—‌people ditching their family the second they didn’t suit their needs. It was the ultimate betrayal, really. A mother spends a lifetime raising her kids, nurturing them, giving them the world, only to be stuck in a nursing home or left to struggle on her own.