Random Acts of Unkindness (31 page)

‘Yeah, well, that’s one less dead boy to worry about isn’t it? For you, anyway. Was there anything else? I need to find somewhere to stay.’

Mike intervenes.

‘Won’t Sal put you up for a bit? Till all this is sorted out.’

I stare at Jim, to see if he flinches, to see if he knows anything. He doesn’t bat an eyelid.

‘I can’t contact him. I’ve been trying to phone him.’

Instead, he fixes me with his gaze. He touches his head and points at me.

‘Oh yes. There was one more thing. That woman, the one in Ney Street who you found, did you know there’d been a baby’s corpse found in the house? The forensics came through and said it’d been moved recently, probably the same day. And there was something about some forensics being there. Did you search the house? It’s just that there’s also been some neighbour claiming that she was loaded. Claims she saw the old woman with a bundle of notes in her shopping bag but we looked at her bank account and we didn’t find much. Any ideas?’

‘Mmm. Jack told me about the human remains. Anyone could have got in, though, the back door was wide open when I tried it.’

Mike interrupts.

‘But wouldn’t anyone who went in call us?’

I nod.

‘Yeah, unless they were after . . . something. You know, a thief.’

Jim shakes his head.

‘Sad business, this day and age, old people lying dead in their homes for who knows how long. Bloody hell.’

‘God job I found her then, isn’t it?’ More than they know. Without Bessy, I’d never have been able find out about the Gables. ‘And before you ask, I got the info on the Gables from the archives. Put two and two together. And when I was up at the reservoir last night, I remembered something else I’d seen, when I was up at the community centre, a picture of old Connelly outside the Gables gates, with what appeared to be a grid with a furnace underneath it. Could that be how, you know . . .’

Mike nods.

‘Yeah. Yeah. There is a huge brick crater, set quite far back, leading to some corrugated iron doors, looked like a strange area but . . .’ I see the horror spread across his face. ‘You don’t think . . . ?’

I nod.

‘Yes, I do think. I also think that they only burned the bodies every bonfire night, so as to not attract attention at a derelict building. That’s what I heard one of the guards say.’

Mike shakes his head.

‘This is fucking unbelievable. Too horrible for words. It’s something you would never think would happen.’

I nod again.

‘Exactly. And that’s how they got away with it. They relied on us being good people. On us, hardened police, even us not believing that someone could be so evil.’

They both stare at me. Jim scratches his head.

‘Are you sure you got this from research? Just from reading the archives?’

Yes. Yes. I did. But not the police archives. The archives of someone’s life, someone who needed to let another person know their reasons. They passed it on.

‘Yes. I got it all from reading the archives. You know, it’s like old time detective work, before computers. Now we’re just sitting at desks watching CCTV. Reading peoples’ phone messages, checking bank accounts. Obviously you need the backup and the evidence, but it doesn’t hurt to think about it and do a bit of background.’

Mike nods, but neither of them agree. Mike looks around. The forensics team is here and it’s obviously time to go.

‘Look, just try Sal again and if he doesn’t reply, come back to the station and we’ll sort something out.’

I go upstairs with a forensics guy, who marks down exactly what I take from my room.

‘Anything missing that you have noticed? Not that it’d be so easy to see. But anything valuable gone?’

Yes. Yes. Something valuable has gone. My son.

‘Not that I can see. But I’ll try to think once, you know . . .’

‘Yes, of course, Mrs Margiotta.’

‘It’s DC Janet Pearce, for the record.’

He pulls his hood down.

‘Oh. Right. Sorry, only Jim Stewart said . . .’

‘OK. My name is not Margiotta. It’s DC Pearce. Got it?’ I pick up a letter from my dressing table and show him. ‘See? DC Janet Pearce.’

He holds his hands up in mock dismay.

‘Right. That’s fine. No need to get upset.’

I walk downstairs with my overnight bag. I slip out the side door and grab the archived cases and Bessy’s notes out of my bike box before Jim and Mike leave the house. No. No need to get upset is there? Dead bodies everywhere and my son taken away by his father.

As we walk toward Jim Stewart’s car, I try to resist it but I can’t. I try to resist fighting against the inevitable, that Aiden has chosen to go. And not even taken a photograph. It’s still not right. Aiden would never go voluntarily. He would never leave like this. And that’s why I almost forget my instinct to duck when the first bullet is fired.

It glances my cheek, but I manage to push Jim to the ground as the second one hits the garage door. Mike is lying beside me and for a moment I think he’s hit, but he rolls over and speed dials tactical. I hear him speaking gently but clearly.

‘Two gunmen in a car. Opposite Jan’s house, where the others were killed earlier on.’

I put my hand on Jim’s arm and he moves it to one side, just to show me he’s OK. Mike’s still got his phone to his ear, waiting for the next move. He rolls back toward me slowly.

‘Jan. Can you crawl to the edge of the car and see if those four who were over there are OK? And get Jim’s phone. Mine keeps going dead. All the phone masts are out. You need to keep a line open with tactical if you can. Apparently it’s getting a bit rough out there, some comms are out, probably to let Connelly escape undetected. Oh, and intelligence says there’s a contract out on us. That’s what they’re here for.’

I nod. Then I roll. I can just see under the car, over to the other side of the road. One of the uniformed is trying to get my attention. He’s making the sign for one man down, and I give him a thumbs-up. I roll back and Jim hands me his phone. I open the address book and scroll down past all Jim’s relatives and friends, scrolling to reach T. But I stop at S. Salvador Margiotta. Why has he got Sal’s number? I didn’t realize they were such good pals.

Time and a place, Jan, time and a place. I scroll down and call tactical, and the line’s no better on Jim’s phone. Minutes pass without anything happening at all and then I hear a car door open and the crunch of gravel, closer and closer, up my drive, stopping for a second. I can see his feet. Vans. White socks. Thick ankles. I can feel Mike staring at me, his eyes wet with fear. He takes my hand and whispers quietly.

‘If this is it, I want you to know I always believed you. I get it. I always did. I was just worried about you.’

Closer and closer, until he’s nearly on top of us. He’s at the other end of the car, opposite us. I hear him take the safety catch of the weapon and I think I hear him take aim. Then I hear a shot. We all tense. Ready for the impact, and I wonder which one of us it will be.

I see the starlings on the roof beyond the trees scatter and reform in a swirl, and then I hear a crash as the gunman crumbles to the ground. More footsteps, turning into a run, this time getting quieter then, further away, a single shot and they stop.

We all lay quietly for a moment, until a black figure lowers his gun.

‘Get up. Up. Go, go, go. Into the van.’

We all somehow get up and make a run for it, over the dead gunman, away from his dead friend. I see three policemen carrying their injured colleague into their car and speed off. I didn’t wait to see if they avoid the body in the road, but I suspect they don’t by the dull thump of tyres hitting tarmac. We make it to the van and the doors are slammed shut. There are two armed policemen inside, and one of them takes off his helmet.

‘Is everyone all right? Sir?’

Jim nods.

‘Yes. Yes. Just take us to ops. And I want an armed guard to pick up my family and take them to Point C. Mike?’

Mike shakes his head.

‘I suppose I’ll have to. Yes. Can I phone my wife and let her know?’

Jim nods.

‘Yeah. You can if you can get a signal. It’s like the wild fucking west out there. Jan? What about you?’

I stare at him. Has he suddenly forgotten that my son is missing and my ex-husband is a bastard?

‘Just me, sir. Just me.’

He frowns.

‘What about Sal?’

In some ways I’m glad he’s saying it. It kind of proves that he’s not in league with him, not unless he’s very clever and bluffing. But I doubt it.

‘Why would Sal have anything to do with this? Sal is nothing to do with me.’

He nods now.

‘Yeah. I know. I do know. But he’s got your best interests at heart. Me and Sal, we’ve become kind of close, you know. He does care about you.’

Again, this would have been an ideal opportunity to tell him that Sal had killed three of his officers and skipped the country. But again, I don’t. I can’t. So I don’t say anything. I reason with myself that there’ll be plenty of time later on to put all the pieces together, when I know what really happened.

We sit in silence until we get to the station. I guard my bag as if it was my life, and as we make a dash from the van to the door, and finally behind the bulletproof glass we can breathe again, I still wonder where they are now. Where they have gone?

We are rushed through to ops, armed guards on every door, and finally we meet with the rest of the team who have rigged up a huge TV screen. Naturally, there are already news crews around. They’ve been there since yesterday, since the first police car arrived at Old Mill, and would have followed to the Gables.

No doubt they would be outside my house right now, and at key points on the estate, which in a way, we’re all glad of, because it gives us some idea of what’s going on. Jim’s telling ops that he won’t risk the lives of any more men. He’s telling everyone that we need to keep calm and wait until nightfall when it should all quieten down.

Jim’s telling everyone that we’ve prepared for this and that we’ll have it under control within twenty-four hours. I tune back into Jim’s briefing.

‘So, as we can see, word’s got out about the Gables and the goings-on there. Connelly’s not the most popular bloke around here right now. But, like us, he’s got a plan B and him and the top tier of his organization are long gone. Even so, we’ve put an All Ports out and also notified other forces of his potential involvement. Our long-term goals are to find them and bring them to justice. He’ll still be surrounded by people he trusts, maybe abroad, but he’s obviously left a legacy here, part of it being to assassinate several members of this team. So, as a result, we’ve temporarily moved their families to Point C.’

I’m sitting at the back of the room, holding my bag between my legs. I glance at the computer in front of me, which is alternating between the blacked-out CCTV cameras in the area, occasionally finding one that Connelly’s thugs have missed.

Now and then there’s a glimpse of a road on the estate or a park, or a road junction. I watch the serial numbers of the individual cameras as they trip over, making a mental map of exactly where they are, and what Connelly’s escape route would be.

I jot it down on some scrap paper for later, confirmation that he headed for the airport. Jim’s still talking about what will happen next, and I zone out and press ‘Escape’ on the computer. I reset it to a certain time and a certain route.

There’s a camera outside Sal’s flat, and one just around the corner. There’s a great one at the traffic lights on the high street, then one on the roundabout. Then they turn onto the motorway, and there are cameras on every bridge until the turnoff for the airport. Naturally, the airport is full of cameras. So I plot the route and scan the first camera, frame by frame, for any sign of Aiden and Sal. I start at 3.30 and fast forward, scanning every frame.

Nothing for a while, then at exactly four o’clock, two grainy figures emerge from Sal’s flat and walk toward a BMW that pulls up as the door opens. I slow the frames down, and I see Aiden’s face clearly for the first time in months. He looks the same. Except he’s smiling. He’s carrying the travel bag and he’s smiling at the driver, who high fives him.

He and Sal nudge each other, like a father and son who are excited about going to a football match, not skipping the country like criminals. No. Not
like
criminals. They
are
criminals. They get in the back of the car, like celebrities, and I wonder what they are to Connelly. Like Jim said, Connelly’s top tier would be removed, sent far away to regroup.

I track them to the traffic lights and freeze the frame as they pass, the camera on Aiden’s side. He’s smiling widely, looking out of the window. No one has captured him. No one is leading him away against his will. My sixteen-year-old son is going on a criminal adventure with a man who, it turns out, I hardly know.

I follow the car through the various cameras as it speeds down the M60 and turns off at the airport. Then at the entrance to the airport, they get out of the car and take their travel bags. I watch their backs as they approach the double doors, and then Aiden turns around and looks back at Manchester.

Is this the bit where he momentarily thinks about me, about his mother? About his room, and where he lived? About Ruby and the bedtime stories? He stands there for a while, then, as if to prove me wrong one last time, he spits on the ground and follows Sal.

I persevere. Through the airport, over to departures, harder to track now. But eventually I find them at the American Airlines desk. Sal takes out his phone and hands it to Aiden, who takes a photo of him. I silently will Aiden to turn around, come back, come back to me. There’s not even an All Ports call on them because only I know they have gone.

Even now I hold a hope that he won’t go through to the gate, that he won’t leave. But he does. As they check in and immediately go through to catch their flight, to Cuba, it seems, Sal puts a protective arm around Aiden’s shoulder. Then they’ve gone.

I roll back the footage until they’re there again. This will probably the last time I ever see my son. I save the whole of the footage into one file, then open the desk drawer and rustle around for a blank disk. It draws Jim’s attention, but I’m ready for him.