Psycho Alley (24 page)

He was sitting on an armchair next to Kerry's mother, who was sunk into the settee. She had short, blonde, spiky hair, studs through her nose and left eyebrow, and a lot of empty holes in her pierced ear lobes. She was caked with a layer of badly-applied make-up, which had run into little rivers as her tears fell down her cheeks. She had sobbed uncontrollably since his arrival, and had chain-smoked through it all. Other members of the clan were doing the same thing, and the air in the room was thick with an unmoving cloud, making Henry fully appreciate the dangers of passive smoking.

She was called Tina, and she was twenty-six years old. Next to her on the settee, holding her with dramatic tightness, was Callum Rourke, the boyfriend. From the huge craters and pimples on his face, Henry guessed he was about nineteen. The missing girl's grandmother, Tina's mother, a woman with a harsh cheese-grater voice, aged about forty, sat in the armchair opposite Henry. She must have had Tina when she was about fourteen, Henry thought bleakly. She was wearing a far-too-short denim skirt, which rode up to reveal an overweight expanse of chubby thigh which she was not trying to hide.

Tina glanced at Henry. Not much had been said for a few moments, but now that gap of silence was filled with a roar of anguish as she stood up, her thin body juddering with sobs. She pushed Callum out of the way as he stood up with her, and rushed to the door, exiting and running upstairs, howling as she went.

Callum made to follow. Henry was up quick, stopping him with a hand to the chest. He looked at the grandmother and with a twitch of the head, gestured for her to go and see to Tina.

‘I'd like a word with you, Callum,' he explained and encouraged the woman to go with another jerk of the head. ‘Sit down, mate,' Henry said when she got the message and went.

He was no more than a spotty beanpole of a lad, not someone who looked capable of being the guardian of a nine-year-old kid. He sank back into the settee slowly at Henry's request.

‘You're the love interest?'

‘Yep – you know that.' There was a big, yellow-topped pimple on the young man's chin, fit and ready to erupt.

‘So what's the crack? You here all the time? You look after Kerry?'

‘I live here, yeah – ever since the shit who says he's Kelly's father left 'em in the lurch,' he spouted defensively.

‘You work then?'

‘All the hours God sends. Down at Tesco.'

‘When did you last see Kerry?'

‘When she went out to the shop. We were havin' tea and we needed some bread, so Tina sent her.'

‘When I got here, you weren't here,' Henry said. ‘Where'd you been?'

‘Lookin' for Kerry.' He gave a short laugh. ‘You fuckin' think I did it, don't you?'

‘Did what?'

He shrugged. ‘Whatever happened to her … I dunno.'

‘Did you?'

He slumped back, shaking his head. ‘You're all the friggin' same, you set o' twats. Well, I'll tell you.' He sat upright, tense, and pointed at Henry, angry. ‘I love Tina, she's my world, and I love little Kelly. We've made a go of things since shit-face pissed off and left her, and I wouldn't hurt a hair on that little girl's body, or God strike me down.' His speech was impassioned, impressive. A tear formed in his eye, and the cynical Henry thought, ‘Doth he protest too much, or would I think that anyway – or am I just being cynical, even though I know I'm not cynical?'

‘OK,' Henry said, easing off, ‘but get yourself ready to be questioned closely, because if Kerry doesn't turn up alive and well, you'll be in our sights just so we can eliminate you from the enquiry.'

Callum nodded glumly, accepting the inevitable. ‘You'd better look at Kerry's dad, though … he was always makin' threats about no one else could be her dad, how he'd kill her rather than have someone else being her dad, even though he was the one who buggered off.'

‘We will,' Henry promised. ‘No stone unturned.'

He did a walk through of the route Kerry would have normally taken from home to the shop. The evening had gone cold and his suit provided him with no real protection from the chill of Blackpool.

Kerry's house was on Cloister Parade. He stepped out of the front door, down the garden path and along the Parade. Fifty metres later he turned into Song Thrush Walk, otherwise known as Psycho Alley. Suddenly, from the brightly-lit Parade, Song Thrush Walk was all darkness, no lighting whatsoever, even though there were lampposts. He looked up. Smashed lenses told the story. He walked on, high walls either side of an alley about eight feet wide. His foot scuffed a bottle, he felt broken glass underfoot, crunching as he walked, like stepping on garden snails. The alley dog-legged, first right, then left, then twenty metres further opened out on the car park at the rear of what used to be a row of shops – a chippie, a hairdresser and a convenience store and beyond them the pub on Preston Road. Only a heavily-defended convenience store now existed in the row, the other businesses boarded up and empty. The car park was unlit and, emerging into it from the walk did not make you feel secure. There was a burned-out car, lots of fly-tipping – a discarded three-piece suite and a large mattress – and signs of substance, drug and alcohol abuse, discarded needles, bottles, cans and glue tins.

Henry shook his head.

A young girl coming through the alley to go to the shop. The Figgis family needed berating for sending her alone. It was no wonder the alley was the scene of assaults and muggings. It was ripe for them, a bad place where bad things happened. He resolved to get something done about it as he walked across the car park.

He stopped in the middle, the spot where, allegedly, Kerry had been seen getting into a car. What did that mean? ‘Getting into?' Willingly? Unwillingly? He needed the witness to be spoken to in some detail. He considered it was his job to do that, but realized he would have to delegate it to someone else, but someone he trusted. There was only so much he could do personally.

It was the fundamental question, though.

Willingly, unwillingly?

Someone she knew? Or a stranger?

Henry carried on towards the shop, nostrils flaring.

Eleven forty-five p.m.

‘What've we not done?' The question was thrown out to Jane Roscoe and the other detectives and uniformed officers crammed into the MIR. There was a distinct hum of body odour and everyone looked creased and worn out. It was Henry who had barked the question, asking it in a defiant way which almost dared anyone to suggest that something had not been covered or at least considered. ‘To say that we've got an abduction on our hands, a nine-year-old girl missing, what have we not done that we should have done in the last five hours?'

The sea of tired blank faces told its own story. Henry experienced a slight tinge of regret for the challenging way he'd posed the question. Anyone who came up with something now would expect to be treated with hostility, and he realized he would have to be careful. Just because he was knackered and under pressure did not mean he had to alienate the people he depended on, people who had been run ragged for the whole of the evening. They were all as exhausted as he, all as dedicated and professional. He needed to keep them on board. He tried to soften his tension-raged face, opened his arms and said, ‘Any ideas warmly welcomed.'

Nothing.

He checked his watch: ten to midnight. ‘OK folks, back for a seven-thirty a.m. briefing.'

‘Why not seven?' someone chirped.

‘I'm already breaking working-time regs by asking you to come back at half-seven. But if anyone wishes to trap at seven, I'll be here.' From the nods and the looks on the faces, he knew that to a man and woman they would all be back. A missing girl, added to everything else that had happened since Friday, meant that everyone in that room thought it obscene to be even going home, let alone going to bed. The reality of it was that there was little to be done at that time. Every possible lead in terms of friends, relatives, acquaintances had been followed up. They hadn't yet traced Kerry's true father, which was a bit unsettling. Searches had been done, would be redone in the cold light of dawn. The night duty inspector was staying in touch with the family and all night patrols had been briefed … and Henry was feeling nauseous because he feared the worst. Kerry Figgis was probably dead now, and he felt a fraud too for even thinking about going home.

The team sauntered reluctantly out, leaving Henry and Jane in the MIR.

‘Need a drink,' Jane declared.

‘Me too, but not alcohol.' He stretched, bones cracking. He touched his injured eye, now a rather putrid shade of yellow, and rubbed his sore leg, injured by Uren's car so, so long ago. ‘Definitely not alcohol. I'm knackered and if anything happens overnight, I want to be at least half-compos to deal.'

‘Mineral water, then,' Jane announced. ‘Down at the King's Arms. They've got a late licence.'

‘OK, see you down there. Just need to check my e-mails first.'

‘And call in?'

‘And call in,' he confirmed. They stared uncomfortably at each other, Jane bristling that Henry wanted to call home and speak to Kate.

‘So why does it still bother me?' she said. She shrugged. ‘See you in the pub … don't be long.'

H
e called Kate using the work phone on his desk. She sounded sleepy but concerned, and promised to keep the bed warm for him. A pleasant thought which made him fleetingly consider cancelling the mineral water with Jane.

He spun in his chair and glanced at the shark. A dark figure hovered in a doorway below the model, but Henry thought nothing of it. Doorways in Blackpool abounded with dark figures. He sighed and forced himself to his feet, everything aching, everything weary, everything needing a warm bed and lots of sleep.

He wended his way down through the police station using the stairs. He crossed New Bonny Street and headed towards the King's Arms, unaware his progress was being monitored by the figure in the shadows. Henry had completely forgotten he was there.

In the pub he found Jane at a table clutching something that looked remarkably like a gin and tonic and munching from a ‘Big Eat' bag of crisps, which was torn apart on the table. He sat opposite – after nodding to a couple of other detectives at the bar – and lifted the long, cool, iced mineral water Jane had bought him. He said cheers and had a sip. It was nice, but it wasn't Stella.

‘Contact made?' she asked coolly.

‘Contact made,' he confirmed.

She looked sad and a little frustrated, but said nothing. Carefully she selected a large, corrugated crisp, and folded it into her mouth, chomping meaningfully into it.

‘So, have we done everything?'

‘Yes we have,' she said. ‘You feeling a bit vulnerable?'

‘A wee bit.'

‘Don't worry, you've done good – but what about tomorrow?'

‘Find the missing dad for a start, interview Mum properly, and spotty Callum … keep looking.' He sounded a little hopeless.

‘Think she's dead?'

‘My gut feeling …' He paused. ‘Hm, gut feeling: I know she is.'

‘Uren's mate?'

‘Doesn't fit the pattern as such, but it could be. Could be Daddy, could be anybody, could be Callum. Keeping an open mind. Need to get the press on board big-style.' He took another ice-against-the-teeth drink of water. ‘One dead girl, another abducted, similarities with other missing girls, inter-force working … it's going to be a feeding frenzy, and I don't want anything going wrong, like Soham,' he said. He was referring to the abduction and murder of two young girls a couple of years before, which exposed police procedures and information-sharing protocols as a joke. ‘All interested parties need to get together tomorrow, and we need to start talking.'

He sat back, the enormity of the task daunting him, making him wonder if he was up to it. There was going to have to be a lot of political game-playing from now on and the spotlight would be firmly burning his eyeballs out.

Tearing his eyes from the pub ceiling, he found Jane staring at him. He instinctively knew the subject was about to be changed. Call it a hunch. There seemed to be no escaping past misdemeanours. He was beginning to feel some sympathy for felons who were tarred for life by a moment of madness.

‘Go on,' he said suspiciously.

‘Nah, nothing really.'

‘Go on,' he ordered her this time.

‘I was just wondering how many people would send you texts and damage your car. I'll bet there's more than just my husband. Correction, my ex-husband-to-be.'

‘You've made that decision then?'

‘Oh yeah,' she said passionately

‘I'm sorry.'

‘One of those things.' She shrugged stoically. ‘Even if you hadn't come along, him and me would've ended up in this position at some stage, I guess. Me and you were just a symptom of an underlying problem … so don't avoid the question. You're too good at that, deflecting attention. How many people have you driven to hate you so much?'

He contemplated this, then blew out his cheeks. ‘Lots of villains, of course, but I don't mind that so much. Anyone who hates me because I'm a cop doesn't bother me, goes with the territory, but I get unsettled when I think someone hates me on a personal level.' He screwed up his face. ‘Does that make sense?'

‘You don't really want anyone to dislike you, do you?' she observed. ‘You're not terribly good at relationships, are you?' She smiled sadly.

‘They frighten me,' he admitted, wishing he had a double JD in his hand instead of a poxy mineral water.

His mobile rang, attracting stares of derision from other punters because of the ring tone.

‘Henry Christie.'

‘It's me, Debbie, sorry I'm late calling, but I'm only just back from Harrogate.'