No Name Lane (Howard Linskey) (16 page)

‘At least,’ mumbled DS O’Brien.’

‘Wasn’t the Ripper a lorry driver?’ asked someone and Trelawe looked at them as if he couldn’t be sure whether they were joking or not. Here they were, trained detectives, and all ruminating on the weirdness of lorry drivers per se versus the rest of the population. Thousands of men out there all day, every day, driving lorries, delivering the goods that kept British industry afloat and the nation’s larders stocked and they’d all just been dismissed as sickos and perverts.

‘Come on, Sir. Let us sweat him a little?’ urged Skelton.

Trelawe shook his head, ‘No, nothing official. No formal questioning.’

‘At least let us take a look around the house,’ urged Skelton. ‘Who knows what we might find?’

The detective superintendent thought for a moment.
All eyes were on him. Finally he said, ‘no,’ and the sighs from the men were audible. They didn’t even bother to hide their disgust. Trelawe looked rattled but he held up his hand to silence them. ‘There will be no warrant to search the household, not without any evidence linking either of them to Michelle’s disappearance. If we do that the press will find out about it in a heartbeat …’

‘Is that all we care about, Sir?’ sneered DS O’Brien, ‘what the press think?’

The detective super appeared on the verge of rebuking O’Brien for the tone of his question but he obviously thought better of it, ‘if the press report that we casually searched their home, and they have a nasty habit of finding that sort of thing out, the family will be tried and convicted by a million armchair jurors whether they are snowy white or not. You know that. Now let’s get back out there, people,’ he urged them as he abruptly terminated the briefing.

Bradshaw was last to shuffle out of the room. As he followed the departing detectives he was surprised to see Vincent Addison hanging back, as if waiting for the younger man. By the time Bradshaw reached him they were alone.

‘What?’ he asked, not expecting much in return, ‘what is it, Vince?’

To Bradshaw’s surprise, Vincent looked eager to confide in him. He first checked that no one was in earshot then lowered his voice.

‘We don’t need a warrant to look round their house.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Helen
was sitting alone in a quiet corner of the Greyhound, with her head down, feverishly scribbling on a notepad, and he knew what she was writing. She didn’t notice Tom until he placed a fresh glass of wine on the table in front of her. Without even looking up at him, she slid the glass away from her with an outstretched hand. Tom reasoned she was either massively preoccupied, incredibly rude or both.

‘I bought that for you,’ he informed her.

She stopped writing then and glanced up at Tom, ‘Oh, I thought you were one of the locals,’ she said, but her face did not soften.

‘I am,’ he said.

‘Unlike me,’ she bridled, ‘I was parachuted in, remember?’ Then she regarded the drink he’d bought her. ‘What’s this?’ he opened his mouth to reply, ‘and don’t say it’s a glass of wine.’

He closed his mouth again, for that was exactly what he was about to say. Instead he shrugged, ‘A peace offering,’ and when she said nothing in reply, he explained, ‘Look, I’m sorry. I was a prat. I’d had more than a couple of beers and I was showing off but I didn’t mean a word of it. I don’t even know you.’ She was watching him with what seemed like interest. ‘There, I’ve admitted it. I’m an idiot. Can we start again?’

‘Apology
accepted,’ she said stiffly. She used the same hand to slide the wine glass back towards her, then carried on writing, leaving him standing there. He realised the regulars would be watching this encounter from the bar by now and he felt a little foolish.

‘Busy?’ He was determined not to be thrown by her indifference.

‘Very.’

‘If I guess what you’re doing, can I join you for five minutes? There’s something I want to ask you.’

Helen sighed, covering her notes with an arm as she did so. She was pretty sure her spidery scrawl, all squiggles in boxes, with arrows pointing to random, supporting notes, was indecipherable to anybody but herself. ‘Go on then,’ she challenged him.

‘You’re writing up your district page,’ he told her confidently.

‘How could you possibly have known that?’ she asked. ‘I could have been writing up any story.’

He took the seat opposite her. ‘You’re sitting in the Greyhound on your lonesome, which is unusual for a woman. Don’t give me that look. Women don’t normally sit in pubs on their own, especially boozers like this one,’ he told her, ‘you’ve got my old patch and it’s Monday, which is the usual day for panic about the district page because you’ve only got forty-eight hours till the next edition. All week long we worked on the big stuff, well biggish stuff, it’s all relative after all.’

‘All right mister hot-shot tabloid man. I know you think the
Durham Messenger
is crap.’

‘No, I don’t,’ he assured her, ‘I worked on the
Messenger
for six years, remember. I was a lot older than you before I managed to take the next step up.’

‘Well, you took it so good for you.’

‘I recognise district page panic when I see it. We always left it till the last minute because it’s so damn dull and difficult to fill.’

She looked down at her scrawl of notes and let out a long sigh. ‘You’re right,’ she admitted, ‘I am panicking. This happens every week and it never gets any better. How did you do this for six years?’

‘The district page is a Catch 22,’ he explained, ‘once you understand that, you’re halfway there.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed eagerly, ‘that’s exactly what it is.’ The district page was the bane of every reporter’s life on the
Messenger
. As well as reporting on general news, each journalist was assigned a territory, comprising a few villages and expected to fill a page devoted to news solely from that patch, ‘if your story isn’t good enough, it won’t get on the district page but if it is good enough …’

‘The editor nicks it for his news pages?’

‘Exactly!’ he was amused by her frustration at the newspaper’s defiance of logic, ‘every week I spend hours on it. It’s driving me mad.’

‘Like I said, it’s a paradox. You’ve just got to find stories that occupy that middle ground.’

She shook her head, ‘you make it sound easy,’ she said. ‘Maybe it was, for you,’ and she took a sip of the wine. ‘Anyway, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?’

‘We keep meeting.’

‘And you’re worried people will talk?’ she answered drily.

‘No,
I’m worried we’ll get in each other’s way.’

‘I believe I was here first,’ she waived a hand airily.

‘Today, yes, but technically I beat you to it by years.’

‘Want me to leave?’

‘This isn’t about the pub.’

‘I gathered that.’

‘I’m talking about the way that whenever I go to see someone you’ve just been there.’

‘We are both journalists,’ Helen said, ‘I assume we are covering the same stories?’

‘Perhaps but people are less likely to open up if we are both door-stopping them.’

‘It used to be your patch, now it’s mine. Maybe you resent that?’

‘He won’t let you run with them,’ he said. ‘Malcolm will either spike your articles or tone them down so much people will fall asleep on the bus reading them.’

‘You speak from experience?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Maybe so but I have to at least try, otherwise I might as well pack up and go home and I’m not about to do that.’

‘I wasn’t going to ask you to stop. You are reading me all wrong, Helen.’

‘What did you want then?’

‘I figured, since we keep on bumping into each other that we might as well use this to our advantage.’

‘How?’

‘By working together.’

‘Together?’ she surveyed him for signs he might be mocking her. ‘You’re serious?’

‘Totally.’

She
took a long sip of wine while she was thinking. ‘What would you get out of it? You’re the whizz-kid journalist who works for the famous tabloid, I’m just the girly cub-reporter.’

‘That’s not how I view you. You’ve got a brain on you, you’ve only been here five minutes and you’re already speaking to the right people, contacts it took me six years to accumulate, and I’ve read your stuff. It’s good, you can write, not everybody at the
Messenger
can. Plus you’ve still got the local-paper credentials.’ When she appeared unconvinced, he added, ‘I do work for the biggest tabloid in the country but that’s a double-edged-sword; sometimes it opens doors, sometimes I get them slammed in my face.’ The memory of being thrown out of Betty Turner’s house mid-interview was still a fresh one.

‘Okay, so what do I get out of it?’

‘I know the area and I know people, particularly around here. I’ve been doing this a while. I figure we have different strengths and I’m suggesting we share what we find. There are two big stories here and a lot of doors to knock on.’

‘The police are already doing that.’

‘They won’t get very far round here.’ She wondered why he was so certain about that. ‘It wouldn’t be such an ordeal would it? We could make a pretty good team.’

‘I’d be taking a risk,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘If my editor found out I was teaming up with the infamous Tom Carney he’d hit the roof.’

Tom smiled, ‘How I have missed Malcolm. Well I won’t tell him if you don’t. Tell you what; if I write your district
page for you in two minutes will you spend some time looking at these stories with me?’

‘Two minutes? How could you …’

‘Trust me,’ and when she gave him a look that clearly indicated she did not trust him, he added, ‘or you are no further forward. I could solve your problem like that,’ and he clicked his fingers.

‘I don’t see how you can,’ she informed him.

‘Okay, well, there are a series of staple local non-news stories you can run again and again with subtle variations.’

‘Like?’

‘Grass verges.’

‘What?’

‘The county council used to cut the verges once a week. About four years ago they changed it to once a fortnight to save money and the parish councils have been up in arms ever since.

‘Then there’s dog fouling,’ he told her.

‘Are you serious?’

‘Perfectly and be sure to mention toxocariasis.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A disease caused by worms that live in a dog’s intestines. When they crap, on playing fields and the aforementioned grass verges, they can leave eggs that contaminate the soil. If a kid is playing nearby and he touches the dog shit then accidentally puts his hands in his mouth, eggs can hatch in the child’s intestines and the larvae then head for the brain, liver and eyes, which can cause blindness.’

‘Oh my God, that’s disgusting,’ she said. ‘Has it ever happened?’

‘Not
to a kid on the
Messenger
’s patch thankfully, no, but it’s a theoretical possibility that dog fouling can cause blindness in children in Great Middleton.’

‘But it is
unlikely
to,’ she said.

‘But it
could
,’ he laughed and pointed to her notes. ‘Phone the bus company and ask them if they are planning to increase fares or alter services. If they answer no, truthfully, you can run with “Bus Company denies plan to increase fares”.’

‘But is all this ethical?’ she sounded exasperated again.

‘Most newspaper editors think ethics is a county near Hertfordshire.’

‘I don’t know.’

He folded his arms and looked at her. ‘Well, that district page isn’t gonna write itself.’

She thought for a moment. ‘You’re right,’ she admitted, ‘it won’t and I don’t have anything else.’

‘Precisely,’ he said, ‘write that all up and you’re almost there.’

Helen realised her first impression of Tom Carney had been wrong. He may have exhibited a certain cockiness but he knew his stuff. ‘Thanks, I didn’t know any of this before you told me,’ she admitted, ‘nobody ever tells me anything at the
Messenger
.’

‘Well, they won’t,’ he said matter-of-factly.

‘Why not?’

‘Because knowledge is power and if they tell you everything they know you might turn out to be much better at the job than they are – and where would that leave them?’

‘But that’s stupid.’

‘It’s the way some of them are,’ he said. ‘Listen, Helen,
don’t waste your time like I did, just get the experience you need and move to a bigger paper as soon as you are ready.’ He took a deep breath and smiled at her. ‘Here endeth the lesson.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘I think.’

‘Now come and have lunch.’

‘What? I can’t.’

‘Sure you can,’ he said. ‘We had a deal, remember? I just wrote your district page and now I get to talk to you for a while. I don’t know about you but I’m starving, so I figured we could talk and eat.’

‘Can’t we eat here?’

He lowered his voice, ‘I know a much better place and it’s cheaper. What’s the matter?’ he asked her. ‘It’s not a date.’

‘I know it’s not,’ she said firmly.