Taking Pity (8 page)

“Stay close, Ben. Get what you can. But don’t spook him. He might be doing this because he knows you’re there.”

Pharaoh sighs and wonders if it would be wrong to have another cigarette. She feels tired. Feels like she’s carrying too much weight on her back. Too much weight around her middle, too. Feeling flabby and old. She has started leaving a few extra days between shaving her legs and armpits. Can’t see the point anymore. Can’t see her bikini line, either. This job was supposed to be the one where she made a difference. She’s been a full detective superintendent for less than a year. Has overseen some key arrests and made significant progress in the scuffles with organized crime. But her days seem to be filled with spreadsheets and budget plans, report writing and signing of expense forms. She doesn’t feel like she has a chance to catch crooks. Isn’t enjoying any of it anymore. Hasn’t since McAvoy went off sick. She wonders what he’s doing right now. Hopes he’s sitting in a coffee shop somewhere, using a highlighter pen and a ruler to check timelines and evidence logs. Doubts very much that he is.

“Guv?”

Pharaoh realizes she has been lost in her own thoughts. Daniells looks at her expectantly, gesturing at the exercise equipment Bruno has recently vacated. There is a low buzzing sound emanating from the base. Pharaoh crosses the asphalt and squats down. A cheap, white, pay-as-you-go mobile phone is ringing. On the screen, the caller’s name is displayed. It says
Answer me.

Eyes closed, heart slowing, Pharaoh takes the call.

She recognizes the voice immediately. Feels light-headed as her memory floods with images. The mock-up of Roisin’s corpse. The words of warning. The promise of further cooperation, provided she was a good girl and did what she was told.

“Detective Superintendent. How wonderful to hear your voice again. Might I ask that you hold the line? Thank you.”

Pharaoh listens as some muffled words are spoken. She fancies she hears the word “now.”

Before she can respond, Ben Neilsen’s voice is buzzing on the radio.

“. . . big bloody car, guv! Fuck, there’s blood coming out of his head. He’s dead, guv. It just splattered him and took off . . .”

Andy Daniells starts to run toward the road. Runs toward the screams and the sound of screeching tires.

Pharaoh turns and walks away across the grass. She already understands. Already knows.

“One last job, was it?” she asks. “Bet he thought he was back in your good graces. And all he was to you was a demonstration.”

There is silence, then the softest of laughs.

“No, Detective Superintendent. He wasn’t the demonstration. He was a way for you and I to be alone. I have a proposal for you. It seems that life is being a little unkind.”

In her handbag, Pharaoh’s own phone beeps. She retrieves it and looks at the image on the screen. It is, unmistakably, a photograph of the room where Breslin’s symposium took place. The projection screen at the end of the table is filled with an image of a severed arm.

“Impressive,” says Pharaoh, grinding her teeth. “Do you want me to give you a round of applause?”

Pharaoh is rewarded with a quiet laugh. “No, Detective Superintendent. I want a favor.”

“You’re fucking joking.”

“One favor, and perhaps Roisin McAvoy can come home.”

Pharaoh can contain herself no longer. She lashes out with a boot, aiming a kick at nothing.

“After what you made Bruno say? After what your man did to her home? After everything you put Hector through? You want me to help you?”

The man at the other end of the line seems to be digesting all of the questions.

He sighs into the phone.

“Detective Superintendent, I am merely asking you to provide some information. And in return I may be able to redress some of the damage caused to yourself and the good sergeant these past few months.”

Pharaoh chews on her lower lip until she tastes blood.

“What do you want?” she asks, hissing the words through locked teeth.

“A location. A little background. Some suggestions.”

Pharaoh shakes her head. “And who exactly can you and your bloodhounds not find?”

“A man past his prime. A man who should have taken the offer that was made.”

Pharaoh chuckles. “People not cooperating?”

“Not yet. But he will. Once his monster is put down, he will listen to reason.”

Pharaoh narrows her eyes. “His monster?”

“Yes,” says the man in a voice somehow laced with both respect and disgust. “Francis Nock. A certain Mr. Mahon. We need to find them. And our regular sources are proving, shall we say, unhelpful.”

“You mean, people are as scared of them as they are of you? Delighted to hear it. So what makes you think I know where they are or want to tell you?”

“Check your phone,” says Mr. Mouthpiece. “And allow me to apologize in advance for the crudeness of the image.”

Pharaoh looks at her mobile and watches the picture fill the screen. Looks at Roisin McAvoy. Bandaged. Bruised. Pale. Peering out the window of the second-floor flat where she has been staying with plainclothes officers for the past twelve weeks.

Pharaoh ends the call. Lowers herself down onto the damp grass.

Puts her head in her hands.

She wants to stay here. Isn’t sure she can face wandering over to the road and looking on the broken body of Bruno Pharmacy.

She makes the call she knows she must. When it is answered, she wonders whether she is acting out of goodness or ambition.

And, for a second, knows how McAvoy must feel all the time.

Softly, under her breath: “Poor bastard.”

A
UTUMN
HAS
COME
EARLY
in this part of Holderness. A patchwork quilt of mottled browns and golds obscures the neat lawn and carefully tended borders at the front of Audrey George’s home on Bydales Lane in Winestead. The road that winds past her front door is moldy with mushed foliage and tire-grooved mud. The last of the summer nettles are folding inward and dying in the shadow of a field maple, its roots stretching far under the compact, pebble-dashed property.

Acer campestre,
thinks McAvoy. He screws up his eyes, thinking of his dad, and the lessons they used to share at the kitchen table. His father would know a use for the tree. How best to cut it back and what color smoke it gives off under flame. Roisin would know how to use the nettles. Would have a recipe for an ointment or a tea. He has a sudden flash of memory, picturing her chewing on a nettle leaf, oblivious to the stings, then spitting green gunge onto Fin’s red-rashed legs. Taking the pain out of his stings. Shrugging off her own pain with a kiss and a cuddle: her lips fuller, redder, like crushed fruit.

He sits on a high-backed floral sofa and watches the birds flit and flutter to the wooden feeder in the center of the lawn. He’s already had a good look around the living room. Drank it all in. Ornaments behind glass. Magazines stuffed in a pink, well-upholstered footstool. An ornamental gas fire sitting unlit in the space where a real fire should be. Pictures of country landscapes and a pleasant pencil sketch of a church in Lancashire. It’s a nice room. As nice as the old lady, busy pottering about in the kitchen and promising she doesn’t need any help with the tray.

McAvoy stands. Ignores her protests. Stoops as he enters the kitchen and takes the tray from Mrs. George’s hands. She aims a playful slap at him, then her cheeks twitch, showing two sets of perfect false teeth.

Audrey George has lived in this area all of her life. She’s seventy-eight years old. Was born in an old farm cottage that used to belong to the manor house and has called this neat semidetached her home for the last few years. Lived here with her husband, Anton. Scottish, she’d told McAvoy as he’d introduced himself. You might have known him . . .

“Sugar, I presume,” says Audrey, settling herself on a chair and beginning an elaborate dance with teacups and saucers. “The flapjack’s homemade.”

McAvoy is feeling more comfortable than he has in some time. Mrs. George had welcomed him like a favorite nephew. Had already known what he wanted before he got to the end of his explanation for being here. She lives alone and doesn’t get many visitors. A chance to chat to a nice young detective represents a good day.

“Horrid day again,” says Audrey, nodding at the window. “I know they say us old buggers always look at the past through rose-tinted glasses, but it seems like it’s been miserable forever, doesn’t it? I try to keep the gardens nice, but my son plays merry hell with me for it. My back, you see. Aches if I do too much bending. And he won’t come and do the weeding, will he? He’s a busy man. The grandchildren could do it, but it’s a bugger to get to Winestead if you haven’t got a car. That used to be its biggest asset, of course. Out-of-the-way kind of place. Just seems a bit lonely now. There’s only a dozen or so houses and I don’t know half the people other than to say hello. Shame, really. Still, there’s the senior center in Patrington, and I still get days out now and again. Life’s what you make it, isn’t it? That’s what I always say.”

McAvoy is coming to the conclusion that Audrey always says a lot of things. She has barely stopped talking since he arrived.

“That’s wonderful flapjack,” says McAvoy, after demolishing a slice in two bites. “My son would love it.”

“Oh, you take some with you,” says Mrs. George enthusiastically. “Will just go to waste if not.”

McAvoy is about to outline which part of the ACPO guide prohibits him from accepting gratuities. Then he realizes it’s just a flapjack and tells his conscience to grow up.

“I would have called first,” says McAvoy apologetically. “But I was in the area and the computer said you were still local.”

“Don’t you worry,” says Audrey, brushing crumbs from her neatly seamed navy blue trousers. “I don’t get scared answering my own doorbell. We don’t get many door-to-door salesmen up here. And the Jehovah’s Witnesses haven’t found me yet.”

McAvoy drains his tea. He pulls his notepad from his pocket. Audrey exclaims as she sees the shorthand squiggles that line each page.

“Ooh, that’s fancy! I always wanted to be a secretary. No opportunity for it up here, though. You didn’t get the same chances then as now. Never known a man who could do it, though.” She claps her hands, delighted. “Aren’t you a man of many talents!”

McAvoy doesn’t quite know what to say. Just smiles and tells her it’s a useful skill. Then he reads through his notes.

“Mrs. George, I understand—”

“It’s Audrey, Sergeant, please.”

“Audrey,” says McAvoy a little more firmly. “As I explained, we’re making a general review of a sample of old cases, and as part of that review, we’re examining the deaths of the Winn family in 1966. I have a witness statement you gave the police at that time. Now, I appreciate it’s a long time ago, but I just wondered if you could recall precisely what you told the police on that day.”

The old lady gives a conspiratorial little snigger. “You mean, you want to see if I’m some crazy old bat who will look silly giving evidence if Peter Coles ever comes to trial?”

McAvoy colors. He’d been quite pleased with his cover story. Hadn’t expected to be shown up by his sweet companion.

“I’m sure nobody could doubt your faculties, Audrey,” says McAvoy with a dusting of charm. “It’s just that anybody’s memory would be questioned after all this time.”

Audrey sits forward and puts her cup down. “I don’t think I’d be your star witness,” she says thoughtfully. “But I can tell you what I said. And as much gossip as you fancy!”

“Please do,” says McAvoy. “If my math is correct, you’ll have been around thirty years old at the time of the shooting.”

“And quite the looker,” says Audrey happily. Then her face falls a little as she looks inside herself and begins to remember the night of the killings. “We lived in one of the farm cottages at the manor house. My dad had worked for Winslow Royce, you see. His family had farmed the land for nigh on a hundred years before he sold it to Mr. Winn. We were all a bit concerned that when Mr. Winn bought it, he’d boot out all the men and women who had worked there before, but he barely got rid of a soul. Kept everybody on. We kept the house.”

“And you lived there with your mother, father, and husband, yes?”

Audrey nods. “Cozy rather than cramped. Anton was away quite a lot. Worked on the barges, you see. Was a sod for him to get home. Had to cycle as far as Hedon, then get two trains just to get to work. Amazing we had time to start a family. But he got on well with my dad and there wasn’t as much fuss then about needing your own space. I was happy enough, and Anton was happy if I was.”

McAvoy enjoys the look on Audrey’s face as it fills with pleasure at the recollection of her husband. He wants to ask her what happened to him but fancies it will take him an age to steer her back to answering his questions.

“You knew the Winn family?”

“Well enough,” says Audrey. “Nice lot, for incomers.”

“How old were you when they bought the house and farm?”

“Maybe ten,” she says. “War hadn’t long finished. Mr. Royce was no spring chicken anymore. Mr. Winn had made some money making things for the army. Don’t ask me what. Could be bullets or Spitfires for all I know. His wife, Evelyn, was a Hull woman, as far as I can remember. You know how badly Hull got it during the war, don’t you? Second most bombed city in the UK behind London. Knocked the stuffing out of the place. You can still see the scars. I think it affected Mrs. Winn’s nerves. Word was that Mr. Winn bought the farm to give her somewhere peaceful to lay her head and start a family. I didn’t get the impression he had much desire to be a farmer and landlord.”

McAvoy’s pen scratches at the page. He finds himself recalling black-and-white photographs of Hull during the Blitz. Crumpled homes and blackened beams. Fallen stones and smoking craters. Finds himself suddenly hot beneath his clothes as the images merge with his own more recent memories. Digs his fingernails into his legs and tries to concentrate.

“How well did you know the family?”

“You get to know most people around here pretty quickly,” she says. “Was a small place. Didn’t look like it does now, neither. The copse of trees at the back of the church was bigger. The manor house and the cottages were all still there. Did you know there used to be another manor house on that spot, centuries ago? Belonged to the Hildyard family, if you’ve ever heard of them. Great old sprawl of a place. Medieval times. Lord of the manor had the place demolished after his son died in the moat. Sad, really. Sometimes it seems like even the prettiest places have seen too much tragedy. Didn’t stop us playing there, mind. If you look at the back of the church you can still see the moat. Cross over that and you’re in the woods. Beautiful, it was, when we were kids. Used to be some rough lads from Patrington and Withernsea would cycle there now and again, but my little gang loved it. And when we were a bit older, it was a popular place for courting couples, if you know what I mean.”

McAvoy returns Audrey’s happy, wide grin. Makes a note.

“The night of the killings, Audrey. Please, tell me what you remember.”

Audrey looks down at her feet. She is wearing slippers and begins pressing one toe into the carpet, as though digging for something troublesome.

“It was never any surprise to hear shots,” she says. “This is a farming community. Was then, anyways. The sound of a shot just meant a rabbit for the pot or somebody practicing for a pigeon shoot. We wouldn’t look up. Didn’t this night, neither. Just heard a few shots. That was that. Sounded close, but sound carries on flat land like this, so we didn’t think nothing of it.”

“You were all at home?”

“No, just me and Mam. Dad will have been in Patrington having a pint or two. That’s why I was a bit surprised to hear the knock at the door. Big Davey. Standing there all soaked through and white as a sheet. I thought something had happened to Dad. Felt faint, I did. But then he got his words out. Said there had been an accident. Or worse. Bodies, up by the church. He wasn’t making any sense. I got him a drink of water and then he said John Glass had told him to go phone for help. He remembered Dad telling him we had a phone. Had a piece of paper with a number on it. He was gabbling, and a right mess, but we showed him where the phone was and I got my boots and coat while he phoned the police or the ambulance or whoever it was. Then he was begging us for a drink and we had to give him some of Dad’s best bottle.”

McAvoy continues to write. Looks up and nods, telling her she can go on.

“He said he didn’t want to go back there. But I told him he couldn’t stay. Told him he needed to sort himself out and show me what was going on. I bullied him out the door. I don’t really know what was going through my mind. I suppose I thought somebody had had an accident with a gun. Shot themselves or a friend. Anton wasn’t due back, but he had surprised me once or twice by wangling a lift from somebody, and maybe I was getting panicky that he’d taken a shortcut across somebody’s land and scared the landlord into firing a warning shot. I don’t know. But Davey drove us back to the church. Snow was falling heavy by then. Coming down thick. John Glass was waiting at the gate of the church. He had Daft Pete with him. Had him tied to the gate with his tie, if you can imagine that. Hadn’t brought his cuffs, had he? Had to tie him up with his own tie! Next thing, John’s telling me not to go into the churchyard. Says there are bodies in there. He’s looking like death, and there’s a shotgun leaning up against a gravestone and it’s too dark for me to see anything, but first thing I asked him was who it was. He looked all shaken up and scared. I mean, he was a policeman and all that, but he hadn’t been prepared for anything like what he saw. And he came out with it all of a sudden. He recognized the clothes. Was the Winn family. Man, wife, and two bairns.”

McAvoy finds his right leg jiggling as he writes. Has to slow his breathing as he scrawls blue ink on the page. Feels like he can see the whole scene in front of him. Can smell gunpowder, blood, and snow.

“I asked what Daft Pete was doing there,” says Audrey, her face flushed. “Why he was tied up. I don’t know why I asked, really. Looking back, it seems obvious. But I was in such shock that I was gabbling too, like Big Davey. I asked Pete if he was okay. If he’d been hurt. He didn’t reply. Just looked on like a dead fish.”

“You thought Pete might have been a victim?”

“It didn’t cross my mind he was the one who’d done it. He was just a big daft lump. Everybody knew Daft Pete. He was a bit of an odd one, but it never seemed there was any harm in him. So when John Glass told me Pete was under arrest for killing them all and that he’d just confessed, my feet just went from under me. Was a night I’ll never forget. Wasn’t long before it was all ambulances and blue lights and coppers asking questions and tires getting stuck in the mud. But in that moment, it was just the four of us and it didn’t seem real.”

McAvoy pauses. Rubs a big hand over his face.

“What did you know of Peter Coles before that night?”

Audrey shrugs. “He lived in one of the other farm cottages with his gran. His mum had been a silly, flighty soul who kept falling in love with every bloke who showed an interest. Went off with an airman, if I remember. Left little Peter at home. He was never a bright lad. I suppose you’d have to say, looking back, the other kids were a bit mean to him. He was years younger than me, so I’m probably not the best one to ask, but I got the impression school wasn’t much fun for him. He was happiest on his own, I think. Used to walk miles, away in his own little world. Loved those woods behind the church, I remember that. I think it was when he was a teenager and he started getting those, you know,
urges
, that he went a bit off the rails. His gran got a few knocks on the door from local blokes who said he’d been watching their wives. I would love to stick up for him, but I know for a fact he was a bit of a Peeping Tom. Definitely had a good ogle through our bathroom window a few times. And stuff used to go missing.”