Get Cartwright (20 page)

‘Talk to me, Harry!’

‘I drive bloody stock cars! Gould’s dead! What do you want me to say?!’

Sam flung him into a heap of oily engine parts. Harry sprawled about, grimacing, trying to get back on his feet. But Sam was on him, twisting his arm sharply up his back, making him cry out. Gene stood back and appraised Sam’s technique like a judge at a wrestling match.

‘I said talk to me, Harry!’

‘Argh! You’re breaking my arm!’

‘He’s doing it deliberately,’ Gene put in helpfully.

‘Talk, Harry, talk! Where’s Gould?!’

‘Six feet under in a wooden bloody casket!’

This time, Sam sent him crashing head first into a fold-out metal box full of grimy tools. Harry lay groaning on the floor, nursing his arm, trying feebly to haul himself up to his knees.

‘I’m glad to see you’re at last embracing the precepts of progressive community policing, Tyler,’ said Gene, lounging against a wall.

‘We don’t have time to play games, Harry!’ Sam snapped, standing over Earles. ‘This is life and death. This is
more
than life and death! So stop screwing about and tell me where Gould is – or God help me I’ll ...’

Sam grabbed a metal rod and clashed it deafeningly against the floor, inches from Harry’s head.

‘I don’t know nothing!’ Harry howled.

‘Talk!’ ordered Sam.

‘I can’t!’

‘You don’t have a choice!’

‘He’ll kill me, officer!’

‘Not before I do! Now talk, damn you, talk!’

Sam hurled the metal rod against the wall. Harry cringed and whined.

‘Don’t hurt me no more!’ he whimpered.

‘Don’t listen to him, Tyler!’ Gene said. ‘He’s luv-luv-luvvin’ it!’

But Sam had no stomach for beating a grovelling, unarmed man, not any more. His fear for Annie had driven him to attack Harry Earles. He was painfully aware that every minute that passed – every second – Gould would be another step closer to Annie.

Panting, Sam turned away, and looked down at his hands. They were stained with oil and traces of blood. He felt shame.

‘It was all a put-on,’ muttered Harry Earles, still hunched in the floor, braced for more blows. ‘Things were getting hot for Gould, so he arranged his own funeral. God, I even drove the hearse. But it was all for show. He moved out to Liverpool, said he was going to get involved in the music business or something like that. What did I care?’

‘But his past’s come back to haunt him, hasn’t it,’ said Sam.

‘Looks like it,’ sniffed Harry. ‘Some woman copper started asking questions. Awkward questions. Mickey Carroll came to see me. He was frightened. Him and some others, they were all up to their necks in what went on back then. He wanted to speak to Gould, thought I might still have contact with him.’

‘Why did he want to speak to Gould?’ Sam asked.

Harry Earles hesitated, then said warily, ‘You got to promise not to hit me.’

‘God, you’re pathetic,’ scoffed Gene, rolling his eyes.

‘We won’t hit you,’ Sam promised. ‘Why did Carroll want to get in touch with Gould?’

‘There could only be one reason,’ Harry said in a whisper. ‘Him and the other old coppers, they were going to frame him. They knew full well he was still alive, that he’d changed his identity and gone to ground. He was in the perfect position to sit back and let them take the rap for that constable’s death back in the sixties if it all came out in the open. Who could touch Gould for it? He was dead! He was immune.’

‘So Carroll, Walsh and Darby were planning on making sure that all the blame for PC Tony Cartwright’s murder would be squarely on Gould’s shoulders,’ said Sam. ‘What were they going to do, expose him as being alive? Then appeal to us boys in CID to close ranks, to make sure they were in the clear and that it was Gould who took the full rap?’

‘Well …’ said Harry in a weak voice. ‘It’s how coppers think, isn’t it? I knew you wouldn’t like it. But you promised not to hit me!’

‘Carroll came to you to get in touch with Gould,’ Sam said, piecing it all together in his mind. ‘And you spoke to Gould, didn’t you.’

Harry nodded.

‘But you tipped him off about what Carroll and the others were planning.’

Wretchedly, Harry nodded again.

‘Why?’ Sam asked.

‘Stupid question, Tyler,’ Gene growled. ‘It’s like I told you, he’s
their
kind not ours. Villainy’s in his blood. He’s always going to side with the scum of the earth instead of the angels.’

‘The scum of the earth tends to pay better,’ Harry said.

Gene thought about this, and conceded that it was probably true.

‘So you sold out Carroll and the others,’ said Sam. ‘And now they’re dead.’

‘All I did was have a word in his ear, you can’t pin them deaths on me!’ Harry pleaded.

’So – where’s Gould now?’

‘Timbuktu, if he’s got any sense,’ said Harry. ‘He just killed three ex-coppers!’

Four
,
Sam corrected him silently, thinking of McClintock.

He stood over Harry Earles and said, ‘You swear to me you don’t know where Gould is?’

‘I swear it, sir. On my daughter’s life, I swear it.’

Harry Earles looked up at Sam with big, round, pleading eyes.

‘Then I’ll take you at your word, Mr Earles,’ Sam said. ‘But one more thing before we go. You said all this kicked off when a female officer started asking questions. Surely, to be safe, Gould needs her out of the way too, yes?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Harry said, slumping against a wall. He looked utterly defeated. ‘All this killing, I never had the belly for it. I just wanted to drive.’

‘Are Gould and his boys going after this female officer?’ Sam asked. He stared hard at Earles, willing him to speak the truth.

Earles looked at him fearfully, then nodded his head.

That was enough for Sam. He had to find Annie before Gould and his henchmen did. And once he
had
found her, all he had to do was wait. He did not need to chase after Gould for the final showdown. The final showdown would come to
him.

Sam turned and strode out of the lock-up, leaving Harry Earles sprawled amid his oily wreckage.

Gene carefully dropped the monkey wrench back where he’d found it and, before sauntering out, said, ‘Much obliged, Harry, you’ve been very helpful. Break a leg in the race tonight – if my colleague hasn’t just broken it for you.’

Gene demanded a conducive place to do some serious thinking, so he roared the Cortina into the car park of a grim-looking pub called the Four Feathers.

‘Don’t let the exterior décor give you the wrong impression, Tyler,’ he said, throwing open the door to clamber out. ‘The Feathers is a quality establishment. A refuge for the pensive mind. A cloister for cogitation. I’ve cogitated in there a few times meself. And besides, the lass serving’s got nabookas right out to here.’

‘What about Annie?’

‘Well
she
ain’t got nabookas worth writing home about. Your bird always makes me think of pancake day.’

‘What I mean is, Guv, we don’t have time for a drink.’

‘Oh yes, we do. Well,
I
do. And since I’m the guv’nor that pretty much clinches it. Every copper needs to wet his whistle, Tyler. You should know that.’

Sam sighed and followed Gene across the car park towards the grubby, rundown boozer. There was a badly hand-painted sign propped outside promising ‘exotic dancers’ every Thursday, and an amateur darts tournament on Saturday night.

Inside, the place was dull and smoky, with unwashed pint glasses and full ashtrays cluttering the sticky tables. Sam looked across at the clapped-out snooker table, the battered one-armed bandit flashing away silently to itself in the corner, the dart board with its drink-stained distance mat on the floor beneath it. It was all so wretched. He didn’t find the atmosphere at all favourable to deep thought and concentration. But Gene was at least right about the barmaid.

‘Hello, luv,’ Gene intoned, planting himself manfully at the bar. ‘You’re looking bonny. How are the twins?’

‘Perking up now
you’ve
come in,’ the barmaid simpered back. She glanced over Gene’s shoulder. ‘Here, you never told me you had a son.’

‘Yes, well, I don’t like to broadcast it, seeing how he’s turned out. Takes after his mother. Same hair. That’s the last time
I
boff a lezza, I can tell you. It don’t cure ’em but you can but try. Two pints of your finest, love, and a cop of the melons if you’re feeling obliging.’

Sam had no stomach to listen to this stuff, not today. He turned his back on Gene, his head full of fears about Annie. Where was she? Was she safe there? Was Gould already on her trail? Was he closing in on her? Had he found her already?

He winced, the thought of what might have already happened to her too painful to bear.

Have faith in her. Have faith that she can look after herself
–
at least until we find her. You have no choice, Sam. You just have to believe.

A radio was playing behind the bar. It was off the station, but shining through the static came the young, clear voice of Karen Carpenter singing ‘Yesterday Once More’
.
The feelings of warmth and nostalgia that it evoked were almost too much to stand. The song conjured a world of domestic safety, cosiness, innocence – all the things in the world that Clive Gould was not. How could such a song emerge from world as wicked and hopeless as this one? When Annie teetered on the very precipice of hell, how could Karen Carpenter find it in her to sing about listening to her favourite songs on the radio, about happy times not so long ago, about old tunes coming back like long lost friends?

Or was it
because
the world had such terrible darkness in it that it demanded simple songs be sung, innocent pleasures be celebrated?

Sam let Karen Carpenter’s voice flow through him, a reminder of better times, better places, that not all the world was corrupt. And yet still the shadow of Clive Gould fell across his heart. What was driving that man so remorselessly? Why would he go to such terrible lengths to reach out across the universe and sink his claws into Annie Cartwright? Could he not bear to spend eternity alone in whatever foul and unimaginable place was allotted to him? Was there unfinished business between the two of them? Was there something, some perceived crime against him, for which he was determined Annie would be punished?

Don’t let this stuff overwhelm you,
Sam told himself.
Stay focused. Stay sharp.

He turned round and saw Gene openly ogling the barmaid’s chest.

‘A fella could lose his specs in there,’ the Guv was saying.

‘That’s not all he could lose,’ she breathed back, fluttering her blue-painted eyelids.

‘Guv, is this what you call cogitating?’ Sam cut in.

Gene gave a
what can you do with ’em, eh?
look to the barmaid and said, ‘Excuse me, treasure. His nappy needs changing.’

He handed Sam a pint and they sat together at one of the filthy, rickety tables.

‘Sorry if I’m not being the life and soul of the party just at the moment, Guv,’ Sam said in a tight voice. ‘I got things on my mind – like the fact that Annie’s in line to be murdered by Clive Gould and his pack of thugs.’

‘She’s got sense enough to do a bunk and keep her head down,’ said Gene, quaffing deep from his pint and then licking away the froth moustache. ‘And she can handle herself in a fight. Ask Ray.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, that was just a one-off and you know it! Ray was spoiling for a punch-up, and when he got it he got more than he bargained for.’

Gene shrugged and nodded: ‘You’re not wrong, Tyler. But I’m not having her back. I’ll look for her, I’ll protect her, just like I would any other dopy lass in trouble – but she remains well and truly fired.’

‘I don’t care about that, I just want her safe. I can’t think of anything else at the moment.’

‘No,’ said Gene quietly, without irony. ‘Of course not.’

‘How are we going to find her? There’s
got
to be a lead somewhere, she can’t have just disappeared! Somebody knows! Somebody’s seen her!’

‘We’re CID, Sam. Leads are our forte. We’ll find her.’

‘Not sitting here we won’t, Guv.’

‘
We
might be sitting here, but Chris and Ray are back in the office pounding the phones or whatever.’

Sam looked flatly at Gene and said, ‘My heart doesn’t leap with hope.’

‘Perhaps it should. Perhaps you should have more faith in people other than just yourself and your bird.’ Gene jangled the loose change in his pocket and slapped a handful of coins down on the table. ‘Enough for a call. I think I’ll check on the boys, see if they’ve picked up any leads yet.’

There was a much-abused payphone perilously close to the dart board. Gene dialled the direct line to CID, waited for the pips, then shoved a couple of ten pence pieces into the slot.

‘Ray, it’s your lord and master. What’s occurring?’

Annie
.
Sam mouthed.
What news on Annie?

Gene listened to Ray’s voice, then turned to Sam and shook his head.

Sam sighed and slumped against the wall. He felt powerless, like a knight in armour who’s missed the battle. He wracked his brain, trying to think where Annie might have gone to. Would she stay fairly local? Would she head across to Liverpool, or maybe down south to London? Had she left the country altogether, skipping across the water to Ireland, or east to the Continent? One location was as likely as any other. Sam would be forced to scour the whole face of the earth to find her.

Gene hung up the phone and turned to him.

‘Your bird might have been a wash-out as a copper but she’d make a first-rate assassin, Tyler. She’s vanished. Completely. Like a cheeky fart in a gale.’

CCTV would have picked her up. Her mobile could have been tracked. If she used her cash card to buy a ticket, it would all be logged and monitored.

But none of that applied here. This wasn’t 2006. It was the bloody dark ages. Sam punched the wall in frustration.

‘I told you Chris and Ray wouldn’t be any use,’ Sam said through gritted teeth. ‘I told you they’d be worse than useless! And look at
us
!
Sitting on our arses in this crap-hole when we should be out there looking for her!’