Chris Collett - [Tom Mariner 01] (37 page)

‘I’ve got to go,’ he said to Anna, hoping that his tone didn’t betray the emotions raging inside him. ‘Please stay here now. We’ll find Jamie. I promise you.’ Pressing a wad of tissues to his nose, he hoped to God that they hadn’t already.

‘How can you be so sure?’ She was scathing. ‘You have no idea. He could be anywhere. He could be…’ But she couldn’t bring herself to complete the sentence. ‘You should have stayed away,’ Anna told him.

‘I’m sorry. I did what I thought was right.’ Christ, how many times in his life had he said that?

In his car, Mariner patched back through to Knox. ‘Let’s have the details.’

‘It’s at the Bristol Road, the junction with Lee Bank Middleway. It doesn’t sound good.’

The nightmare was escalating. With blues and twos to speed him, Mariner was at the scene in minutes. The roadside was chaotic, lit by the strobing blue lights of the emergency vehicles. The HGV involved had swerved into the crash barrier and was blocking the carriageway.

Uniforms were diverting the traffic around it. Mariner parked some distance away and walked towards the melee.

As he approached he could hear the remonstrations of the van driver.

‘I didn’t stand a chance, he just ran out in front of me!I couldn’t have done anything!’ A WPC was trying to calm him.

A small group of green-clad paramedics was huddled over something at the side of the road. As Mariner headed towards them, one sat back on his haunches. ‘What a waste,’ he said. There were murmurs of assent around the group.

Getting nearer, Mariner saw the crumpled and twisted body on the ground, its upper half now respectfully covered by a blanket awaiting a stretcher. He took out his warrant card and waved it at the nearest paramedic.

‘I’m DI Mariner. I need to get a look at him. I may know him.’

The man appraised him warily, taking in Mariner’s dishevelled appearance, the bloodstained clothing. ‘Go ahead mate, you might save us some bother,’ was the almost indifferent reply. With incidents like this commonplace, it was pure self-preservation.

As Mariner got nearer, the commotion seemed to fade away into the background, leaving only the sound of his own heart punching at his ribs and pulsing the blood in his ears. He knelt down beside the broken figure and gingerly raised the blanket. He closed his eyes as an express train roared its way around his skull. The boy had bleached hair and a single gold hoop in his ear. It wasn’t Jamie.

‘Any luck?’ asked the paramedic.

Mariner felt weak enough to pass out. ‘No, sorry. It’s not who I thought.’

Somehow Mariner communicated this to the senior officer at the scene, who also seemed to study him too carefully, before lurching back to his car, nauseous with relief.

He called Tony Knox. ‘It’s not him. Keep looking.’

‘Thank Christ for that,’ said Knox. ‘All that leaves is the muggers and perverts then.’

Mariner studied himself in the rear-view mirror. He wasn’t a pretty sight. Pale and unshaven, there was a thin crust of dried blood around his nose, and looking down he saw that more blood had stippled his tie and shirt. He should get cleaned up. Knox would contact him if there were any developments. He also felt an urge to wash away the nasty taste left by Knox’s words. His first port of call was the Boatman, where Beryl didn’t even bat an eyelid.

In Mariner’s estimation the biggest threat to Jamie out there wasn’t from perverts, but that wasn’t to say that it didn’t exist. Back when he was living in the squat there were several occasions when Mariner had woken up to find unwelcome hands pawing at him. He’d been strong enough and aware enough to fend them off. Jamie Barham wouldn’t have that advantage.

Suddenly he realised he hadn’t eaten much today and the two pints and whisky chaser were starting to make his head spin. He walked home while he still could. The house was dark, but for the comforting glow of the wood-burner. He didn’t bother with the lights.

‘Bad day?’ said a voice as he crossed the room.

Christ! He hadn’t noticed Jenny sitting there, curled up in the armchair.

‘Hideous,’ he said recovering from the shock. ‘Couldn’t get much worse, but I won’t bore you with the details.

Couldn’t even if I wanted to.’

‘Anything I can do to help?’

Jesus, what an offer. ‘No, I’m fine,’ Mariner slumped on to the sofa. ‘Anyway, what are you doing up and about at this hour?’ he asked, eventually.

‘I couldn’t sleep. Tony’s gone. Back to his wife.’

‘Ah.’ That explained a lot.

‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘It was only a fling. We both knew that.’ She said it with the worldliness of a forty-year old. ‘Thing is,’ she went on. ‘I was wondering if you’d let me stay on. I really like it here. I’d pay rent and everything, and Tony said you were looking for a lodger.’

A young, pretty, female lodger; never in his wildest dreams had Mariner imagined— ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Why not?’

‘Great,’ she said. ‘You won’t regret it.’

That settled, Mariner, closed his eyes. After a while, out of the darkness, Mariner heard Jenny get up and pad over to him and felt the warmth from her body as she plopped down beside him, very close. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing I can do?’ A hand snaked over him, finding its way inside his coat, opening up his jacket, and moving down to massage his crotch. ‘I’ll do anything you like,’ she whispered, close to his ear, her hand moving harder and faster.

Mariner groaned in response. ‘How about something special?’ But as she enunciated the last word, Mariner exploded, his orgasm rushing uncontrollably through him.

‘Oh God, I’m sor…’ But when his eyes snapped open the sky was lightening to a pale grey, and he was completely alone, Jenny an illusion manufactured by his overactive brain. The fire had died, leaving the room icy cold as rain lashed against the windows. The same rain that would be beating down on Jamie Barham wherever he was.

Mariner didn’t dare think about where the boy might be now, or in what condition. A statistic flashed unbidden into his mind; 200,000 people go missing in Britain every year.

Three thousand of them are never found.

And, reasonably enough, Anna Barham blamed him. It was the biggest monumental fuck-up of his career.

Heaving himself out of the chair he hung up his coat and dragged himself upstairs where he stood under the shower for twenty minutes trying to get warm. Afterwards he lay on the bed, waiting for dawn to break.

When it did, nothing had changed. Mariner slipped out of the house early before Jenny surfaced. Even though it was only a dream, he couldn’t face her after their moonlight encounter.

As Mariner turned the car ignition the radio came on too, tuned to local station BRMB. He caught the end of the news bulletin, ‘…growing concerns for the safety of twenty-nine year-old James Barham, who went missing in the city yesterday. Mr Barham, who has autism and severe learning difficulties, is described as being of medium build with short blond hair and green eyes. He was last seen in the vicinity of Birmingham Central Library. Police are appealing to anyone who may have witnessed anything unusual in or around the library at around midday.’

Mariner was certain Anna hadn’t slept much last night either.

At Granville Lane a shake of the duty sergeant’s head told him all he needed to know. Mariner went straight to his office, but it wasn’t long before Tony Knox pursued him there. ‘I thought I should let you know, boss,’ he said, sheepishly. ‘I’ve…’

‘Moved back home. I know thanks.’

‘You’ll be able to rent the room out,’ Knox said, helpfully.

‘I already have,’ said Mariner. ‘Jenny’s staying on.’

Knox’s face was a picture: almost enough to make Mariner crack a smile. ‘That’s great, boss,’ he said, recovering.

Inevitably, a sly grin crept over his face. ‘You two should get to know each other, boss. She goes like the…’

‘Have you made any progress with that bank account?’ asked Mariner, hoping to wipe the smirk off Knox’s face.

But the look just turned to smug. ‘As a matter of fact, that’s what I came to tell you. It belongs to an organisation called the Queensbridge Trust.’

‘Which is what, exactly?’

‘I don’t know, yet. It’s not listed in any of the UK businesses directories I’ve looked at so far. But it sounds to me like a charity,’ said Knox.

Mariner wasn’t so easily fooled. ‘Just because it sounds like it, doesn’t mean it is.’

Knox was hesitant, as if aware that he was on sensitive ground. ‘If it was though, it might mean that those payments into Eddie Barham’s bank account were legitimate, and not relevant to his murder.’

But after all that they’d been through, it wasn’t a possibility Mariner was prepared to entertain. ‘They are,’ he said, firmly, fixing his gaze on Knox. ‘Keep looking.’

Weller’s brief had arrived in the city from Newcastle and turned up at Granville Lane mid-morning. Mariner didn’t hold out much hope of it changing anything and he returned to the interview room with a heavy heart. His fears were borne out, and before long they were going round in the same old circles, so that Sergeant Reilly’s interruption, soon after the interview commenced came as a welcome relief. ‘There’s a Colin Lloyd on the line, sir,’ Reilly said, once they were out in the corridor. ‘From Charles Hanover, the law firm. Wants to know if he should still come in to see you.’

Mariner had completely forgotten about Lloyd. He shook his head. ‘No, just tell him that things have…’ He stopped mid-sentence. What he was about to say was right, things had moved on. The Powell family had been cancelled out of the equation long ago. But, on the other hand, Colin Lloyd was a lawyer specialising in compensation claims. It was just possible that he might have something to contribute regardless of that. Mariner reversed his decision. ‘Tell him I’ll be out to see him in about half an hour.’

‘Right you are, sir.’

The offices of Charles Hanover were located close to the old Birmingham law courts and constructed from the same red brown sandstone imported from the Welsh borders nearly two hundred years ago. The leaded, stained-glass windows gave the place a monastic feel and, inside, the polished wood floors and oak panelling smelled of old money. Colin Lloyd wasn’t your average ambulance chaser. Ancient portraits gazed down on Mariner from the walls as he followed the short-skirted secretary to Lloyd’s office.

‘Good morning Inspector.’ Colin Lloyd stood up from behind his desk and extended a hand in greeting. It was a firm, no-frills handshake and accompanied by a genuine smile. Unusual for a lawyer and Mariner liked him immediately.

Tall and athletic, Lloyd had the healthy glow of a man who’s just spent a relaxing fortnight in the Seychelles.

‘Our first child was conceived there,’ he explained, sitting down again opposite Mariner. ‘We try and go back when we can. Sentimental reasons, I suppose.’

On his salary, Mariner thought, wryly, it would be no more of a commitment than a weekend jaunt to France.

‘I was stunned to hear about Eddie Barham,’ Lloyd was saying. ‘He was a good man.’

That surprised Mariner. ‘You knew him?’

‘Mainly it was by reputation, I must admit. A colleague on the criminal side of the business, the one who referred him to me, spoke highly of him. That view was substantiated by the one meeting we had.’

‘Regarding Mr and Mrs Powell.’

Lloyd’s face creased to a mystified frown, but presumably he couldn’t be expected to remember a case that had never materialised.

‘Mr and Mrs Stephen Powell versus the Birmingham Health Authority,’ Mariner elaborated, to help him out.

‘Expecting a baby post-sterilisation.’ But already a creeping realisation was making his spine tingle.

‘No, Inspector,’ Lloyd corrected him calmly. ‘Eddie came to talk to me about some research his father had done, into a drug called Pinozalyan.’

Of course he had. Now that Lloyd had said it, it was so glaringly obvious. So why the hell hadn’t Mariner made that leap before? It was he who had made the assumption that Lloyd and the Powell family were connected, and in his head that connection had lingered. ‘Shit!’ he said out loud, at his own stupidity.

‘You know about all that?’ Lloyd asked.

Mariner gave a sardonic laugh. ‘Yes. I know all about it.

It just hadn’t occurred to me that you would, too. I thought Eddie had come to talk to you about something altogether different.’

‘So you’ll know that Eddie felt that his father had uncovered some pretty conclusive proof that Pinozalyan had caused Jamie’s autism. Eddie came to me for advice on whether what he’d got would stand up legally, and on how he should proceed.’

‘And what did you tell him?’

‘Unfortunately, I think, not what he wanted to hear. On the plus side, I felt that with his father’s notebooks, the testimony from all those other parents, he probably had a strong case against the drug company. On top of that of course he had the backing of one of the clinical researchers, Andrew Todd. Todd had actually published a paper on the harmful effects of the drug back in the late sixties. He’d also informed the company management, yet they had failed to act.’

‘They circulated a warning to GPs,’ Mariner reminded him.

‘A drug alert, yes. But post-Thalidomide there would be a powerful argument that it wasn’t enough. Not when there were such clear indicators that Pinozalyan was unsafe.’

‘But surely all this was exactly what Eddie did want to hear?’

‘Oh yes, that part was. The problem was that Eddie was in a hurry. Of course he wanted justice, but I gather he was also under some financial pressure and, as you know, these things can’t be resolved overnight. At best the legal process moves at a snail’s pace, and that’s without all the obstacles that a company as large as Bowes Dorrinton can throw in the way.

And running alongside that are the costs of bringing a case like this. It could amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds. Sure, there might be a massive payout at the end, but you have to have the money to finance it to begin with.

Regretfully, I think by the time Eddie left here I’d successfully discouraged him from taking any action at all.’

Mariner shook his head. ‘Not at all, Mr Lloyd. I think what you did was divert him from the legitimate legal path.