Taking Pity (13 page)

“The snooker hall belonged to Mr. Nock?”

“No,” says Tom, shaking his head. “It belonged to a city councillor. On paper, Nock was nothing to do with the place. But it was clearly under his protection. Mahon was that protection.”

“And the manager?”

“Never did track him down. He’ll have been removed from the picture. Shouldn’t have allowed trouble in a place under Nock’s supervision.”

Pharaoh takes another puff on the electronic cigarette. “So we’re not giving up a saint if we give the Headhunters what they want,” she says.

“But you must know why they want it.”

“Of course I do,” says Pharaoh in a hiss of temper. “They want to find the old bastard. They’ve tried to have him removed politely. They sent one of their boys to turn Lloyd’s head and he’s gone AWOL. Lloyd’s dead. They’ve got internal problems and they like things to run smoothly. Now they want to get rid of him the old-fashioned way. They just don’t know where to look.”

“And you’d give them a place to start? Truly?”

Pharaoh looks away, angry and frustrated. “I don’t know. It would just be a list of properties. Half of it would be in the public domain anyway. You could ask a few old pals. Tell them you’re doing a book on the time the Geordies turned away the London gangsters, or something. Play to their egos. Get a bit of juice.”

Tom sucks on his lower lip. “Word would get back to him. He’d know people were trying to find him.”

Pharaoh opens her arms, palms exposed. “Exactly! So if we can trade a bit of information for a bust or two and some harder information on the threat to Roisin, we use it. And Nock’s people know to move him somewhere not on the list.”

Tom has bent a few rules in his career. He’s a pragmatist. Doesn’t hold too much of a moral code but knows right from wrong. This doesn’t feel terribly wrong, in the grand scheme of things.

“You couldn’t tell him,” he says gently. “Your prince. If it led to her coming home, he could never know the cost . . .”

Pharaoh looks down into the bottom of her empty coffee cup and gives a sad smile.

“He’d agree,” she says with a conviction she almost believes. “For her, he’d do whatever it took.”

Tom shakes his head, uncertain. “But what about you? You’re the straightest copper I’ve ever met. You’ve never left yourself open like this, Trish. This could cost you . . .”

She returns his stare, then looks away. Thinks of the way her reflection swims in McAvoy’s big, sad eyes and how it would feel to be protected in those huge arms.

“I’d do whatever it took as well, Tom.”

“For her?”

“For him.”

M
C
A
VOY
ARRIVED
EARLY
for his chat with John Glass. Early enough to be considered rude. Left his car on the opposite side of the wide, green space and walked, as slowly as he could, toward the swings and slides at the far end of the park. Spent a minute watching a squirrel fighting a magpie at the base of a knobbly tree. Managed to step in a puddle that soaked his left foot up to the ankle. Watched as a Polish family sat and shivered in the rain; the children slipping from the wet climbing frames into the soaking wood chips as their parents silently passed a sandwich back and forth.

He leans against the railing. Shakes more water from his sock. Pushes his damp hair back from his face and looks up at a sky that looks like muddy snow.

He’s still got a few minutes to kill. Doesn’t want to hang around the park for too long. It’s a nice enough area, on the edge of the Avenues. It’s the sort of place where residents will ring the police to report a suspected pedophile rather than just chase him down the street with a stick, but McAvoy could do without having to deal with either option.

He walks around the duck pond. He was last here a year ago. The water was frozen over and a group of teens were daring one another to run across it. Fin had asked Daddy whether he was going to tell them off. McAvoy had been mulling over whether it was his duty to save them from themselves, when Roisin sprinted across the surface of the ice without leaving a footprint. She gave a bow as she put her feet on the concrete. Got a round of applause from the teens.

McAvoy plods past the little brick hut that sells ice cream in the summer months. Watches leaves fall from the high sycamores. Kicks through a carpet of gold and brown to the gray footpath and checks his watch.

Pearson Park is only a mile from the city center, in an area that prides itself on being a little more sophisticated and cosmopolitan. It has wine bars. Some nice restaurants. The pubs sell olives and nibbles and put together charcuterie platters on big wooden chopping boards. It’s an area where people take their recycling seriously and dinner parties are competitive things. The Liberal Democrats do well here. Students and immigrants take the flats in the grand Victorian properties that line the nearby streets. Web designers and marketing consultants take the houses. Children with names like Emily and Frederick sit down to evening meals of tagliatelle in homemade pesto.

McAvoy looks around him. At the properties that ring the park. No two are the same. They’ve been adapted and extended, pulled down and redesigned. Some have been turned into apartments and others remain detached properties, hiding behind leylandii trees and big, gravel drives. The poet Philip Larkin lived at number 32 while a librarian at the University of Hull. He wrote of the “palsied old step-takers” and “hare-eyed clerks” who jerked erratically around the park as they shrugged off the toad of work. McAvoy fancies that the great poet would have something equally unpleasant to say about those who inhabit it today. He wonders what Larkin would make of him. Mincemeat, probably.

McAvoy’s steps take him toward the far end of the park. A squat, rectangular building looms to his left. It’s an ugly construction, at odds with the faded Victorian splendor of its surroundings. It looks like it was built in the 1960s and designed by an architect on a tight deadline. It’s been John Glass’s home for the past twelve years. He’s lived alone since his wife died.

McAvoy presses the buzzer on the outside door. Waits until a dry voice crackles through the intercom.

“You the copper?”

“Yes, sir. Detective Sergeant—”

McAvoy is buzzed in before he can finish the sentence. Makes his way to apartment two. The door wings open as he approaches.

Glass is still tall, for his age. He’s withered a little but still stands with a straight back. He has one knobbly and liver-spotted hand on the doorjamb. His thin wrist protrudes from a wool cardigan with a harlequin pattern, which he wears over a plain shirt and vest. He’s wearing gray trousers with a neat seam and comfy Velcro sneakers. He still has some hair on top, but it is thin and perfectly white and looks as though it will stand up on a light breeze. He’s not smiling, but his expression is far from aggressive.

“John Glass,” he says as McAvoy approaches. “Christ, you’re a big bugger.”

McAvoy takes the man’s hand in his. He’s careful not to crush it. Enfolds it like he would a frightened mouse. He’s surprised to feel Glass’s grip is harder than his own. Feels strength in those old, bony fingers.

“Come away in, then. I’ll get the kettle on.”

McAvoy follows him down a short corridor and past the entrance to a neat and tidy kitchen. Glass shows him into the living room and tells him to make himself comfortable.

“Have a snoop, if you like. I know I would.”

As Glass disappears into the kitchen, McAvoy crosses to the window. The view is mostly of the hedge at the bottom of the garden, though he can see a little of the circular road that rings the park. The view back into the room is better. It’s a comfy, homely place. Blue cord carpet and cream walls. There’s an imitation log fire against the far wall and a soft, suede-effect sofa against the other. A rocking chair, complete with a doughnut-shaped cushion, is angled to face the boxy TV that sits on a glass unit beneath a large framed print of a racehorse. The other decorations in the room are pastoral in theme. Landscapes and haystacks, tumbledown farmhouses and ducks on a rippling pond. There are no photos on the walls, but a stack of leather-bound albums are at the side of the rocking chair. McAvoy considers picking them up but decides it would be too invasive. Better to wait.

“Mug okay?” asks Glass, handing him a tea brewed strong. “Not really a cup-and-saucer person, me. And you couldn’t get thon big fingers into a cup handle, could you?”

McAvoy sips his tea. It’s got sugar in it. The old man guessed right.

“Is that a hint of Geordie in your voice, Mr. Glass?” asks McAvoy, sitting down on the sofa as Glass lowers himself onto the rocking chair.

“Aye. Longbenton was the old stomping ground. Haven’t been back up for years, but you can’t shake an accent, can you? Listen to yours! You sound like that fella. The one that used to sing about the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond. You’re further from home than I am, I’d say.”

McAvoy finds himself liking John Glass. He’s got character. Seems to still have more than a trace of copper about him in the way he controls the conversation.

“Mr. Glass, as I explained on the phone, I’m here to talk to you about—”

Glass shushes him with a wave of the hand. He sips his tea and looks at McAvoy with blue eyes that swim on rheumy, yellowed lenses.

“I’ve not been a copper since 1983,” he says conversationally. “That’s a long time to get used to being a civilian. You know how many times a detective has been to see me about some old case I worked on? None, that’s how many. I left the job without any unfinished business. Nobody could say I left loose ends.”

“Nobody’s suggesting that, Mr. Glass . . .” begins McAvoy.

“Shush, lad. Let me speak. I’m saying that it was always a surprise to me that nobody came asking about Peter Coles. I always expected a judicial review or some charity busybody stirring up the press. I always thought it would come back and cause me a headache. But it never did. Thirty years since I retired. Fifty years since it happened, near as dammit. It was almost a relief when you called. Another couple of years, I’ll be struggling to remember my own name. Or dead, like as not.”

McAvoy waits a moment to see if it is his turn to speak. Gets a tiny nod from the old man.

“You do remember that night, then, Mr. Glass? I have your original statement here. It would be very helpful if you could run me through your events of that night to see if they still tally with the written record after all this time.”

Glass sucks in a mouthful of breath. Seems to be thinking. Taps his hands on the arms of the chair and jiggles his left leg.

“I said I was home, didn’t I? That’s crap for a start.”

McAvoy sits back in the sofa. Decides to just let the old man talk.

“We had a new boss, you see. Stickler for the rules. Made up a few of his own as well. Ran us like it was the army, and plenty of the lads responded to it well. For me, I reckon he lost sight of what we were really there to do. Got caught up in worrying about how shiny our shoes were. But he had the power to make our lives miserable if we didn’t do what he wanted, so a fair few statements got a little bit of a polish. I’m sure you understand.”

McAvoy nods. Smiles. Doesn’t endorse the policy but it doesn’t cause him offense either.

“I weren’t at home when I heard about the shots being fired at the church. I were in the pub. Having a few jars. Don’t ask me how many because I don’t remember. I know the last thing I wanted was to have to go out on another call, but that’s a rural copper’s life. Wasn’t easy, fitting in out there. Not with an accent. You’d know all about that. Marks you out as an incomer every time you opened your gob. But I reckon they warmed to me and the missus. And people knew where to find me if I wasn’t in the police house.”

“You were in one of the pubs in Patrington?”

“Aye, usual routine. Was always the same faces and a few strangers. People would come to see the church or visit the air base or stop in on their way to a caravan in Withernsea or whatever. It wasn’t the Wild West. We didn’t stop playing the piano when an out-of-towner came in. That’s what the bloke was. Definitely an out-of-towner.”

“The bloke?”

“Big man. Good-looking. I reckon he was from the same part of the world as me, though I couldn’t tell you the exact words he used. Just asked me if I was the local bobby and apologized for interrupting me. Said he’d heard shots fired out at Winestead. Knew it was a rural community and it probably didn’t mean anything, but he felt it was his duty to pass it on.”

“I don’t think I saw a statement from that person in the file,” says McAvoy, reaching down for the bag at his feet.

“We never got one,” says Glass. “I went home to get changed into uniform. Got Big Davey to give me a lift out to the church. That’s when we found them. And after that it went crazy. By the time I had my wits about me and we were doing things properly, he’d moved on.”

“Were efforts made to find him?”

Glass puts his head to one side, a little pityingly. “We didn’t have CCTV and traces on people’s phones in those days, lad. It would have been nice to have a statement, but we already had a man in custody and the four dead bodies were the priority. And after the first night, I was pretty much excess baggage anyways. Len Duchess oozed his way in and my job was little more than fetching and carrying and apologizing to the locals for the fact he was a dickhead.”

McAvoy pulls his notes from his bag. Finds what he’s looking for.

“Len Duchess was the detective inspector who led the investigation, yes? I saw his name on several statements. I’ve requested his personnel file and run some checks to see if he’s still on the scene, but nothing’s come back.”

“It won’t have,” says Glass with a dry little laugh. “Wasn’t exactly a poster boy for policing after the crackdowns in the seventies. Always was a slick bastard and it caught up with him in the end.”

McAvoy puffs out his checks. He realizes his knowledge has gaping holes in it and gestures to the old man that he is willing to be led by the hand until the situation is remedied.

Glass takes a final sip of his tea, wetting his mouth to talk.

“Len Duchess was a southerner. London lad. Not exactly Mr. Popular with the lads who worked for him, but very much a star in the eyes of the men at the top. Strictly speaking, he should never have been anywhere near the investigation. The inspector from Beverley CID should have got the nod. But Len Duchess happened to be having a drink with the assistant chief constable when the calls started coming through about what had happened and the ACC graciously told Beverley they could borrow the expertise of his specialist murder squad detective. Len was on the scene before the Winn family was cold. Stamped his mark on it and took over. Until then, Peter Coles was playing nicely. Wasn’t saying much that made any sense, but he was sitting quietly and willing to give us what we wanted. Len steamed in and wound the kid up. We were sitting in one of the cottages on Clarence Winn’s estate at that time. Can’t remember who it belonged to. I still had the lad tied up with my tie. I’d forgotten my cuffs, you see. Silly of me, I know, and believe me I paid for it. But it was all I could think of to do at the time. Len came in like a bloody demon and started screaming in the lad’s face. Pushing him about. Scaring him half to death. Peter just clammed up. Didn’t speak again. Len was always one of those coppers who leaned on people. He did it to everybody. Was the same with every witness he went to see. They signed their statements just to get him out of their houses.”

“Do you think anybody signed anything they would no longer consider to be entirely truthful?”

Glass broods and rubs one hand with the other. “They’d have sworn they had two heads if he was looming over them. He wasn’t a big guy but he had that look. Even the farmhands and men like Big Davey were a bit intimidated by him.”

McAvoy looks at his notes and the statements poking from his bag. He’s beginning to wonder how he should start his letter to the Home Office.
Dear sirs, following detailed investigation I have concluded that the sixties was a great time to be a criminal . . .

“
Are there any statements or particular witnesses who suggested to you they had given false information? Anybody you think may have been in two minds about the guilt of Peter Coles?”

Glass falls silent and squints out the window at the damp hedgerows and miserable sky.

“Len ended up on Nipper Read’s squad. Did you know that?”

McAvoy mulls this over. “The man who took down the Kray twins?”

“Very same. They went in hard, did Nipper’s boys. Len was a perfect fit.”

“But you mentioned the seventies . . .”