The Faceless (5 page)

“What do you think?”

A
THIN WOMAN
in her early twenties: narrow face, small dark eyes. Gold hoop earrings, fake tan, bleach-blonde hair. Too much makeup, streaked down her face by tears. She scrubbed her cheek with a tissue; the skin beneath was sallow.

Stakowski froze the image. “Stacey Trevor. Twenty-one, no steady partner. The dad’s called Andy Kirkland. Did a runner when he heard Stacey was pregnant.”

“Real prince among men.”

“Aye. Lives in Bradford now. Local fuzz picked him up.”

“And?”

“Clear alibi. Plus he’s shown no interest in the kiddie since she were born. Still checking, but doesn’t look like he were involved.” Stakowski pressed play.

“Took our Roseanne down Dunwich Park.” Stacey Trevor’s voice; sullen even through the grief.
All coppers are bastards
. “She’d been acting up. Pushed her on swings a bit, then she wanted to go on roundabout. So I let her.” Her lips wobbled. “Could hear her laughing. All’s I did... all’s I did were get me
Take A Break
out for a second. Just a minute. I kept glancing up to look at her.” She was crying again. “I’m not some slag. I’m not a shit mum. Just wanted a minute to meself, just that. Could hear her laughing. Kept looking up. Then I heard summat, behind us. Bushes. Rustling. Looked round. Case it were a Spindly. There were
someone
. Fuckin’ swear, mam’s life. Then they were gone. But there
was
someone. Fuckin’ tellin’ tha.” Her voice had risen. Now it faltered. “And then... took us a couple of secs to realise. Couldn’t hear Roseanne.” Her breath hitched, became sobs; she flapped her hands to ward the camera off. “Looked. Roundabout was still spinning, but our Roseanne were gone. Screamed for her. Ran round an’ round that fuckin’ park. But there were nothin’. Nothin’.” She pursed her mouth, stuck out her unformed chin. “So – rang you lot and here we are.” A muffled keening, then her mouth buckled, her face crumpled and the keening became a wail that raised the hairs on Renwick’s arms.

“Christ, Mike.”

“Soz.” Stakowski switched the video off.

“Think she’s on the level?”

“If she’s not she should be on bloody stage.”

“Skeletons in the cupboard?”

“No serious debts – well, nowt worse than anyone else on the Dunwich. No involvement in owt dodgy. No signs of drug abuse.”

“Ransom?”

“She’s on benefits. Council accommodation. No rich relatives. Nowt worth a kidnapper’s while.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

“Aye. Sorry boss. Most likely explanation’s some bastard paedo.”

“Or more than one. Very convenient, those bushes rustling when they did. Team effort? One distracts the mum, one grabs the kid?”

“Or some sick bastard saw an opportunity and took it. Either way, doesn’t look good for the kiddie.” A moment’s pause. “You’re thinking on the Baldwin lass.” It wasn’t a question.

“Baldwin didn’t mean to kill his daughter. He’d been abusing her for years
–
went too far one night, panicked... But this looks planned. Deliberate.”

“Aye.”

“So what’ve you done so far?”

“Pulled in every known sex offender in the Kempforth, rung CID in Blackburn and Accrington about theirs. SOCO did a fingertip search of the scene. Background checks on family.”

“But?”

“Nowt. Whoever took her knew what they were about. Only chance of catching them is finding summat.”

Renwick breathed out. “Like a body.”

“Or summat. Plenty of other things–”

“Chances are we’ll never find her. Or she’ll turn up in a shallow grave ten years down the line and the killer’ll be long gone. Even if he’s not, he’ll have worked his way through a dozen other kids first–”

“We can’t afford to think that way, Joan. You know that.”

He didn’t often call her by name. When he did, she listened. “Yeah,” she said at last, “I know.”

Stakowski frowned. “You shouldn’t need me to tell you that, normally. Everything all right with you?”

“Oi. Sergeant. We’re working here.”

“Sorry, ma’am. Another coffee?”

“No. Yes.”

Stakowski put the kettle on. “Best thing you can do for the kiddie is keep your head clear and do the job, boss. Cross the t’s, dot the i’s. Don’t miss owt. Best chance we’ve got.”

“Yes, al
right
.”

“Sorry.” Stakowski waited. The kettle boiled.

Renwick sighed. “Split up with Nick.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m not. Better finding out now before it got serious.”

“Thought it already was.”

“So did I. Not like I didn’t tell him how it was gonna be.”

“I remember. Late nights, broken dates, having to dash off at any minute. Nearly had tears rolling down me face by the end. Did you actually start playing the violin or was that my imagination?”

“In your case I’d say senile dementia. He said he understood.”

“Probably thought he did. You can know summat and not know it.”

“Very profound.” Renwick raised her cup in a mock toast. “Least I won’t have to spend it in Yorkshire with his whole bloody family. All ninety-six of them.”

“Now you’re exaggerating.”

“Felt like ninety-six when I was there. All gawping like I was a circus freak.”

“You were in Yorkshire. They’re not used to fingers that aren’t webbed.” Renwick laughed. “So what are you doing for Christmas now? Seeing your Dad?”

“No.”

“Just asked.”

Renwick sighed. “Expect I’ll be too busy anyway, with all this.”

“Still not much of a Christmas.”

“I just don’t fancy scooting off to the Wirral to hear Dad banging on about me getting ‘left on the shelf’ again like I’m an alarm clock. That’s
Morwenna
talking. Not my idea of fun. Downright embarrassing, in fact. Dad and his new child bride.”

“She’s older than you.

“Just.”

“If he’s happy...”

“He’s my
Dad
.” Renwick sighed, shook her head. “Sorry. Forget it.”

Stakowski shrugged. “I wouldn’t panic about the shelf thing yet. You’re still young.”

“Thank you, old-timer.”

Stakowski smiled, tipped an imaginary hat. He thought of the duck he’d bought from Kempforth Market for his lonely Christmas dinner, the rest of it, like as not, lasting him the week. More than enough for two. He almost said something. Then didn’t. There was always enough for two, and only one to eat it. Ever since Laney. “Got him owt for Christmas?”

“Didn’t have time. Had a shufti round Waterstone’s in Manchester, but I couldn’t move for pictures of Allen Cowell.”

“That
prick
.”

“Whoa. Easy Mike.”

“Sorry. Can’t stand his sort. Bloody parasites, feeding off people’s grief.”

“OK.”

“Sorry.” There was silence between them for a spell; Stakowski broke it. “Joan...”

“What?”

“Why do you think you’ve got this case?”

“They’re short-staffed.”

“The real reason.”

“Enlighten me.”

“Think it’s a coincidence you get this one after damn near working yourself into the grave on the Baldwin case? Right before you’re due to go on leave? Banstead’s not stupid. He knows this kind of case pushes all your buttons. So he gives you this.
This
one.”

“There’s the other one, too – Dave McAdams’ case.”

“But he makes sure this is the one you hear about first. Get briefed on first. Another Julie Baldwin.”

“Mike...”

“Look – what state were you in when you got posted here?”

Renwick looked down. “You know better than anyone.”

“Yeah. Bloody mess would be putting it kindly. Pissed every night, hungover every morning, and towing some real specimens back home with you at the end of the night.”

“Do you mind?”

“Stop me if I’m wrong.” No answer. “You were going great guns back in Manchester – transfer to CID, recommended for promotion to DS within a year of
that
– cos of your work on another case involving kiddie-fiddlers, as I recall–”

“Yeah.”

“And then...”

“And then Mum died and I went off the rails. Thank you for reminding me.”

“There’s a point.”

“Then make it.”

“Look... lot of people had written you off back then. But look at you now.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“You’ve done bloody well. But sooner or later the ones like you all bugger off back to big city. ’Cept you didn’t. Even when you made DCI . You’ve already turned down one post back in Manchester. Plum job too, I believe.”

“How the hell did you find out–”

“I’m a detective, boss. You should try it sometime.”

“Piss off.”

“Point I’m making is here you are going up, up and away, and you’re not leaving Kempforth. There’s only one more rank between you and Banstead.”

“He thinks I’m after his job?”

“Or that the powers that be’ll start thinking it’s time he hung his boots up. But there’s a reason the Bedstead’s been Divisional Commander this long.”

“Age and treachery will always defeat youth and idealism?”

“Summat like that, but I wouldn’t use all those long words.”

“There’s a surprise.” Pause. “You think he’s trying to set me up.”

“I know the bastard.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Pull a sicky? Say I’ve got this flu that’s going round?”

“You could.”

“No I couldn’t.”

Stakowski smiled. “No.”

“What then?”

“Watch your back.”

“How about you watch it for me?”

“Did you really think I wouldn’t?”

Renwick nodded, sipped her coffee. “So... what’s a Spindly?”

“Eh?”

“On the interview. She said she thought it was a Spindly, in the bushes. The hell’s one of them when it’s at home?”

“We had a report, Monday afternoon. Between three and six individuals faffing round the playground at Primrose Hill Primary, looking in through windows, banging on the glass. Scared hell out of the kids.”

“And?”

“Kids started calling them the Spindly Men. And it’s caught on. Since Monday there’ve been reports flying about left and right.”

“Any actual criminal offences?”

“Nowt we can pin down.”

“So? Older kids pissing round. Students home for the Christmas break. Get up to all sorts of stupid shit, that crowd.”

“Speaking from personal experience, ma’am?”

“Yes.”

“I’d have said same, except for one thing.”

“Don’t spin it out, Mike. Come on.”

“Sorry. Just remember me Mam telling me about them once. Her Dad used to tell her when she was a kid – they were a sort of bogeyman. Don’t go into the woods after dark or the Spindly Men’ll get you.” Stakowski’s father had fled to England after the war, but the farmhouse he still lived in had been home to generations of the Pidwell family, up to and including his mother.

“So they’re what, a local legend?”

“Pretty old one, I think. But you’d be hard put to find anyone under the age of seventy who’s heard tell of them.”

“Explains why you’d know, then.”

“Cheeky madam. They were supposed to live in the woods above the town, and – well – prey on the unwary. Not much more to the story than that. No real meat on the bones. But it’s pretty obscure. I only know cos me Mam told me. Whoever it is, they’re even dressing the part: long, tall and thin, tatty black coats, masks.”

“Masks?”

“Aye. Mam said it was cos they had no faces of their own, so they’d steal yours off you if they could.”

“Ugh.”

“Aye.”

“So someone’s acting out an old local legend. Still sounds like some sort of prank.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Was thinking I might pop down the library tomorrow. See if they’ve any books on it.”

“What good’ll that do?”

“Might shed some light on why they’re doing it. Maybe some sort of weird cult. And maybe see if anyone’s checked those books out lately.”

“Not bad thinking for an old geezer.”

“You’re all charm and grace, lass. Now how about a Chinese dinner?”

“Best idea you’ve had all night.”

THE TESTAMENT OF PRIVATE WOLFIE JACOBS gather round and hearken to my tale brave boys for i can say few soldiers paid a price throughout the war as grievous as mine for as you can tell brave boys i was a smooth talker and by such dint did loosen the stays and skirts of many a fair maiden in my native london town for much to the head shakings of my greybearded father oi vey and the tears of my dear old mother hear o israel my cock was well seasoned with the drippings of an thousand cunts ere a boche bullet blew it off in nineteen sixteen oh i was a right one brave boys well valued by my platoon for twas i could always get you a smoke a drink a knife a gun a willing woman all so long as you were not of too choosy a persuasion and then i was shot a bullet wound sustained in the act of storming an enemy trench the wound was caused by a 9mm pistol bullet striking at the base of the penis and severing it except for two or three connecting shreds of musculature before tearing through the scrotum and

T
HE
G
OOD
L
UCK
Restaurant. A faded print of a misty mountain range. Electric light filtered through paper lanterns. Faux-traditional Chinese synth music piped from speakers, fighting with the Salvation Army band’s rendition of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen from further down the High Street.

Stakowski rubbed his hand together. “Hot and sour soup to start, I reckon–”

Sizzling Beef Szechuan with a dish of Peking ribs
.
Dunno why you even bother with that menu.

“And then Beef Szechuan, and some of them Peking ribs. What about you, ma’am? I know how tough it is for you lasses to mek your minds up.”

Renwick raised two fingers without looking up from the menu. “Made mine up while you were still trying to remember where you were, Sarge. They shouldn’t let you out on your own at your age. Crab and sweetcorn soup, steamed pork dumplings–”

“– and king prawns in black bean sauce with stir-fried noodles?”

“Amazing. You read tea-leaves as well?”

“No, but I do a great routine with balloon animals. I’m all the rage at kiddies’ parties.”

“Whatever.”