Bright Spark (39 page)

“But
if you happen to see them, well, you’re family; you’ll read them better than we
ever could. Your mum may open up. Look, I should just stop. I’ve crossed a
line.”

That
much was true, he reflected; he was satisfying his need for evidence and his
need for love with this one young woman and tainting all of it in the process.

       “We
both have.” She turned onto her side to face him and he mirrored her, clasping
her delicate hands in one of his own. “Does she know?”

       “Not
everything. But she knows enough.”

       “What
will she do?”

       “You
needn’t worry. There’ll be no doorstep argy-bargy.”

       “What
about you?”

       “I
just don’t know. I guess I’ll be on my own again, one way or another.”

       The
silence opened and beckoned a response and she gave none. Perhaps she didn’t
want to be the home-wrecker or the quick-fix girlfriend, offering him a roof
over his head and blundering into cohabitation out of a misplaced sense of
responsibility. Nor perhaps did she want to expressly refuse him, as he
answered a need she wasn’t quite ready to relinquish.

       “I can
go. It’s no problem.”

       “It’s
too late for that. No point bolting the barn door when the horse is being
ridden hard towards the finish line.”

       “Speaking
of ridden hard…”

       “Stop
it.” She punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Bad dog. Just stop talking about
work. It doesn’t belong here. In fact, we should both just stop talking.”

       He
squeezed her hand, kissed her fingers and joined her in a silent study of the
stippled ceiling. For twenty minutes, they both sealed their eyes shut and
marvelled at how completely their polarities had shifted. The need to
physically possess, to immerse and be immersed, had switched in a heartbeat of
tumult and clarity to a simple need to be clean, alone and apart. Harkness
opened his eyes then waited for them to dilate and show him as much as the
shadows ever would.  Then he stealthily retrieved his clothes and crept out of
the bedroom, respecting her pretence of sleep.

       The
convoy straggled out of the Beaumont Fee car park far later than Harkness had
planned. The pro-active search team had rolled up for the briefing an hour
late, bacon baps and styrofoam coffees in hand, having finished late the
previous night and insisting on their regulation eleven-hour break between
shifts.

Then
the DI had insisted on being briefed separately, intent on asserting whatever
authority he thought he’d lost when Harkness had approached Brennan directly.
Finally and inevitably, a search had to be mounted for the car keys, the pool
cars assigned to CID having been claimed as a precautionary measure by the first
officers through the door at 0630 that morning.  

       Not
that Harkness was duly troubled by the fact that their two unmarked cars and
one caged van didn’t arrive at 9 Marne Close until shortly after nine o’clock.
They needed to arrest Kevin Braxton, who was highly unlikely to be out of bed
that early. Keith Braxton’s rust-bitten old flat-bed Transit was absent from
the driveway, leaving its profile in parched weeds, scuffed gravel and sump
oil. He’d presumably left for work, and while he’d need to be interviewed
sooner or later, the grounds were lacking and arresting him invariably led to a
bloody scuffle and grumpy custody staff.

       Harkness
stood on the pavement scanning the front windows for movement and flying
projectiles while two of the pro-active team in body armour, football shirts
and jeans approached the front door with a metal ram. Slowey tagged along with
the other two team-members who approached the side gate to the rear garden
wielding the dog-shield – essentially a full-size riot-shield with battery-powered
electrical contacts on its front surface and a trigger on one of the hand
grips. They’d yanked the item from the van’s crew compartment to deal with the
bull terrier that eyed them hungrily through the garden fence, growling and
straining at its chain.

       The
front team waited for the dog to be pacified; there might have been other dogs,
or that dog could have the free run of the house. Slowey tried the handle to
the side gate, found it unlocked, waited for the team to fill the space with
their shield then allowed them to push it open. The dog spouted noise and drool
at the intrusion, lurching on its hind legs, chain wrapped taught across the
bulked sinews of its chest.

       “Down,
boy!” shouted a cop, pulling the trigger. The air crackled and snapped in an
explosive convulsion, blue light arced; then the dog was peering at them over
drooping shoulders from the furthest corner it could reach, abject and trailing
moist excrement.

       A few
more seconds passed then the front door team were given the all-clear. They
wasted a second knocking and announcing themselves then the ram swung against
the door handle until it deformed, splintered and yielded. The fact that the
door lacked extra locks or reinforcement suggested that either Braxton kept
nothing of interest here, or believed he was untouchable.

       The
first team secured the ground floor, allowing the second team in through the
back door to move upstairs. Within a minute, they’d established that the house
was empty or the occupants were carefully hidden.  Slowey took charge of the
scene log, satisfying his need to keep order and keep his hands clean. Harkness
picked up the dog shield, propped next to the back door, and explored the back
garden while the dog darted furtive glances at him from its shameful corner,
trembling and whimpering. He suspected its spirit had been broken long before
it had seen an electric shield.

       Twice
the length of the house, the garden nonetheless seemed truncated, half of it
given over to a hoary apple tree that had spread upwards, outwards and then
downwards to mesh with a wild profusion of rowan and bramble. A few minutes of
jabbing and probing with a broom handle and the shield yielded nothing and it
seemed unlikely that anyone could have quickly penetrated it and then shinned
over the towering leylandii borders planted by the neighbours on either side to
hedge the Braxtons in.

       A
fire-pit for barbecues had been dug and scorched into the scrap of lawn and
ringed with half-bricks. Broken and faded toys, footballs in various stages of
deflation and empty lager tins crushed by hand and under feet littered the
piss-burned grass. Harkness picked a path through a minefield of dog turds and
considered the garden shed, the garden’s one neat and new feature, its sides
freshly planed and varnished, its black roof not yet blanched by the sun. The
hasp hung loose, the door not secured by any means. Inside, an assortment of
old bikes jostled for space with power tools so new they could have been stolen
to order only yesterday. Harkness found no obvious hiding place for drugs nor
any hint that the Braxtons had any use for garden tools.

       The
search team had flung open every window to aerate the house, sweeten its odour
of dog and stale beer and broadcast the clatter of their ungentle search across
the length of the street. The drugs dog was en route and would perform a sweep
of the premises, but Harkness wasn’t confident it would find much. Braxton was
too old and jaded to keep his merchandise behind an inch of plywood on a street
alive with twitching curtains.

       “Ta
da!” announced Slowey from the kitchen door, brandishing a clear plastic
evidence bag containing a slender black box punctured by various ports and
sockets for cabling.

       “You’re
sure?”

       “I’m
sure,” said Slowey, gleefully. “Dumb bastard. Kevin, I mean. I assume it’s
Kevin, sleeping in the box room with strippers and gangsters on the wall. Kept
it under his bed. It’s still got blood on it. Probably mine.”

       Harkness
snatched the bag from Slowey, compelled to touch it before he could believe in
it. He held it before his eyes, studying the gold lettering on its casing and
the long serial number etched under its USB ports. The numbers matched the ones
he’d typed into the briefing document hours earlier. He was looking at the hard
disc recorder stolen from the Friars’ Vaults on the night of the fire.

       “The
fact that he’s got it is manna for us. Can’t wait to see what’s on it.”

       “Dad
won’t be pleased that junior kept a trophy from a burglary they should have
walked away from clean.”

Voices
spiked from the street, cutting across the background noise, in the gathering
tempo of a confrontation. Slowey and Harkness nearly wedged themselves together
in the side gate in their hurry to see who’d arrived.

At
the end of the driveway, a middle-aged woman clasped a mobile phone to her face
while one outstretched hand remained firmly planted on the chest of a burly
member of the pro-active team. Her hair dyed to the sheen of brass and her skin
parboiled by the sun, she faced the policeman with chin jutting and flesh
spilling from her slight and tight summer wear. By her side, a girl of around
eight years-old idled, studiously bored and twisting and untwisting shopping
bags around her skinny legs.

“You
don’t come in ‘til I know who you are,” said the policeman with the exasperated
air of repetition. “And no phone calls either.”

“You
ain’t got no right to be in my house, we ain’t done nothin’. This is
harassment, I know what this is. An’ I’ll phone who I like, I got my rights.”

“Just.
Tell. Me. Your. Name.”

“No.
Fuck. Off.”

“Then
you stay out there.”

“I’m
ringing my solicitor. I hope you brought your chequebook for when I sue your
arses.” She thumbed a button on the phone as her eyes alighted on the evidence
bag in Harkness’s hands with a squint of irritation.

“Ring
who you want, duck. Fill your boots.”

“No!”
shouted Slowey, moving forward.

“Keith?
Val. Yeah. I know you’re working. And cops are tossing the house.” She span
away from the burly cop as he lunged for the phone, hunching her shoulders over
it. “Found that fuckin’ computer that Kev kept under his bed. Don’t you fuckin’
swear at me. I didn’t know. Ain’t my fault. Sort him out yourself. Just you
get….”

The
burly policeman wrapped his arms around the woman in a bear-hug and dropped her
backside-first onto the pavement as he jerked the phone from her grasp, blood
welling from scrapes on his hands left by lacquered fingernails. He studied the
display and tried to lift it to his face but the woman rolled back onto her
feet, spitting and clawing at his hands and face.

Harkness
wedged himself between them, straightened to his full height, bunched the
meagre threads of her t-shirt in his fist and dragged her upwards to meet his
face. “Stop!” he shouted, unsure whether she’d flinch and acquiesce or head-butt
him. The eight-year old chose that moment to burst into gasping sobs. Torn
between two instincts, the woman sank to the ground in a daze.

“Cuff
her,” said Harkness to the burly cop whose hand now dripped blood onto the
pavement. “Attempting to pervert the course of justice. Oh, and police
assault.” 

“What
about this one?” said the cop, ratcheting his cuffs and gesturing to the child.

“Who
can look after your kiddie while you’re with us? Oh, and where are Kevin and
Keith? Tell me and save me the bother of turning your house inside out.”

Harkness
squatted to glare at the woman, just out of slapping or clawing distance. She
shrugged and raised her right middle finger as the left hand was pulled behind
her back and cuffed, face trembling between tears and laughter, faint bruising
around one eye blossoming like blotted ink as her blood cooled.

“Damn.
Slowey, where’s this allotment?”

“They
ain’t there,” shouted the woman.

“Looks
like ‘they’ are together then. Thank you, Mrs Braxton.” Harkness unlocked the
pool car and flung the evidence bag into the boot. “Come on, Slowey. Let’s see
how green your fingers are.”

       Kevin
Braxton thrust the rusty spade hard into the soil, enjoying the gliding rasp of
dirt so dry and full of gravel it could have been shale. He crossed his hands
on its handle and propped a trainer on the back of its blade. He frowned
briefly at the permanent tide-mark that had ruined his new Nikes, but knew he’d
soon be able to replace them a thousand times over. He’d made a good investment
with nothing more than the sweat that stained the lining of his baseball cap
and the toil of hands once soft but now blistered and calloused by the hard
grain of the spade.

       It had
taken his dad more years than he could imagine and an appetite for violence to
get into the dealing business and free himself from labouring for a living. 
Kevin wouldn’t be such a slow starter. He could work just as hard if he chose
to, whatever the old man said about him being an idle gobshite and having it
too easy.

He’d
proved he could graft with all his unpaid labour in the school holidays, mixing
cement, swinging a pick, brewing up, being the butt of everybody’s piss-taking.
And he’d done exactly what he was told when his dad got windy about him
bringing Kelly to the allotment; labouring and sweating like his father’s son
to secure the investment. But one day, soon, he’d grab the main chance,
cracking any heads he needed to crack, branching out, using the old man then
getting out from under him.