One Bad Turn (17 page)

‘No,’ Coupland was enjoying himself, ‘but you brought the keys, and you’ll have tipped your mates off as to the best day to nick supplies. I guess it’s all the frozen food and meat packs they’ve taken?’ Food that could be offloaded easily. ‘Everyone knows it’ll take ten minutes for a police car to respond, long enough for three strapping blokes to empty a store cupboard,’

‘No, it wasn’t like that,’ Vince persisted, ‘I said all along I couldn’t get involved in the break in.’ he jerked his thumb back in the direction he’d come, ‘They asked me to give ‘em a hand loading the van but I said no way…’

‘So you scarpered, big deal. This gets back to your probation officer you’ll be back inside before morning.’

Vince’s hands fluttered beside him. ‘They’re mates, they won’t dob me in.’

‘Ya think?’ Coupland growled, ‘CCTV’ll show three men were involved, they’ll soon cave in if it saves their own skin.’

‘If it was working, yeah,’ Vince started to smirk; ‘only it went on the blink yesterday. Funny that, what with the timing and everything.’

Coupland bared his teeth as he slammed Vince back against his car. ‘I saw you there, I can place you at the scene,’

‘And be the nasty bastard that got me sent down again? Amy’d love that.’

‘She’d get over it.’ Coupland leaned in close, his fists curling round the collar of Vince’s hoodie.

‘Not if she knew I was doing it for her.’

‘What?’ Coupland stepped back, he didn’t want to breathe in the moron’s breath any longer, how Amy could stomach him he couldn’t understand. ‘I care for Amy,’ Vince said, all traces of humour gone. ‘but it isn’t easy staying out of trouble when you’ve been inside. I never wanted to be a bad guy.’ Coupland snorted, ‘You forget I was the one carted you off that lad, it would have been a murder charge if I’d been five minutes later.’

‘And if you’d have been five minutes earlier you’d have seen how he went for me. He and his mates had it in for me the moment I walked in that bar,’ Vince shook his head, ‘his type are the worst kind of hard case, the ones who give no warning. I was tanked up, yes, but I was minding my own business. Next thing he’s accusing me of spilling his drink, eyeing up his bird, anything to give him a reason to have a pop. Fast forward and I’m in the back of a police van covered in some nutter’s blood.’ The pub was notorious for trouble. It wasn’t the kind of place you went in for a quick drink. You went in because you thought you were a player. It was true Vince had no previous prior to the assault, he certainly hadn’t come under Coupland’s radar before, and if he wasn’t going out with Amy he wouldn’t be bothering with him now, petty theft at the college would be dealt with by uniforms. ‘Look,’ Vince continued, ‘I’m trying to keep my nose clean, honestly. I met one of those guys inside, and you know what it’s like, they come searching for you when they get out, safety in numbers and all that. He heard I was working at the college and he’s been pestering me to tip ‘em off about the best time to do over the kitchen ever since.’ There was always a market for stolen meat, if they touted it round the local pubs over the weekend it’d be snapped up by closing time, the landlords given a cut for turning a blind eye. Coupland forced himself not to lose sight of why he was really there.

‘What were you doing on Tuesday night?’

Vince blinked. ‘What?’ His eyes screwed up in confusion.

Careful. He couldn’t be questioned without a caution, and you could trust an ex con to know his rights. Coupland was treading on very thin ice if he went any further down this road. ‘Is the question too difficult?’ he persisted, staring Vince out.

‘I went into town,’ he shrugged, ‘walked around the centre. If you’ve not been inside it’s hard for you to understand but I can’t get enough of being out in the thick of it, crowds, music. I went round a few pubs, got a bag of chips, went home.’

‘Did you go past the Dog and Duck pub?’ Coupland couldn’t stop himself.

Vince shrugged. ‘Probably, I don’t know. What is this?’

‘Did you speak to anyone?’

‘Whao, are you trying to fit me up with something?’

Coupland could have kicked himself. ‘It’s not like that…’ he said, too quickly for his liking.

Vince’s gaunt face spread into a grin. ‘Do your superiors know you’re here? Better still, does Amy?’ The cocksure swagger returned once more. He had Coupland over a barrel and he knew it. But instead of milking the moment he shook his head. ‘Look, I get that I’m not what you had in mind for your daughter but I care about her you know. If you stopped trying to think up ways to try and lock me up again you’d realise we’re on the same side. Think about that.’ He took Coupland’s silence as permission to move. Coupland, still kicking himself over his stupidity, knew better than to say any more. He’d played into Vince’s hands and they both knew it. Coupland’s face was impassive as he watched him climb into his car, his fist clenching onto an imaginary nerve in Vince’s neck.

Coupland returned home with a sinking feeling. He tried not to brood over Scrote Feature’s parting shot. If his feelings for Amy were genuine then the chances of their relationship fizzling out like Ashcroft predicted looked less likely by the second. All he could hope for was that Amy came to her senses instead but she was smitten. Of all the boys - or men, Coupland grudgingly accepted - she had to parade under his nose at home, why did it have to be this one? Vince was trying to drive a wedge between them, he could feel it, and Coupland had just gone and made it a whole lot wider.

He’d no sooner stepped into the hallway and closed the front door behind him than Amy launched herself down the stairs, shouting at the top of her voice as though she’d been lying in wait for him to return. ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU FOLLOWED HIM!’ she screamed, standing in the middle of the narrow hallway. Feet planted wide with hands on hips she resembled a stroppy toddler and though fearful of her mood he found it hard not to smile. ‘Hello to you, too,’ he saluted, stifling the urge to ruffle her hair. Her scowl warned him to keep his distance. He hoped Lynn was close at hand, she could diffuse a row in seconds - as long as she was on his side. He cocked his head towards the kitchen but Amy wouldn’t budge, ‘Do you know how embarrassing what you’ve just done is? It’s bad enough that my dad’s a cop...’ she added, staring at him like he’d crawled out from under her shoe. Coupland raised his hands in mock surrender, ‘I know, I know, you’ve told me often enough,’ he said amiably, trying to joke her out of her temper. It used to work, when she was ten years old. ‘…but now you’re shaming me by persecuting my boyfriend.’ Coupland pulled a face at the word. The thought that Vince was in a relationship with his daughter jarred with him on some primitive level. Amy wasn’t his property, he knew that, but it still felt like something of his was being plundered. ‘Can I at least get into my own home before you start giving me a hard time?’ he pleaded, glancing into the sitting room looking for the cavalry. There was no sign of Lynn. ‘He was a possible suspect in a murder enquiry,’ Coupland explained, ‘he needed to be eliminated.’

If only that were possible.

‘So you think he’s a killer now?’ Amy demanded, her face a picture of disbelief. Coupland placed a hand on her shoulder but she jerked it away. He let his arm fall to his side. ‘Look, I saw him on CCTC footage talking to our victim, what the hell am I supposed to do?’ he hissed, ‘Stand back and let him kill you too?’

‘But he hasn’t killed anyone though, has he?’ she said triumphantly. ‘Look, are you talking about the two women on the news?’ Her voice was calmer now, though the tone still reproachful. Since when had the tables turned? He wondered, as he stood before his child being reprimanded. He nodded in answer, a sigh hissing out of him like a slow puncture. ‘He asked the first victim for a light for his cigarette,’ his tone weary, already he was regretting tonight’s action.

‘So that makes someone a killer in your book now does it?’ Her voice rose slightly.

‘No,’ he said through gritted teeth; he had already blown PACE protocol by questioning Vince without a caution, he didn’t want to give Amy much more information in case she passed it on, he didn’t want another bollocking from DCI Mallender, especially while Curtis was so set against him.

‘Anyway, wasn’t the second woman murdered on Thursday evening?’ she asked.

Coupland nodded once more.

‘You do know I was with him then…remember when I stormed out? - It was the day you took it upon yourself to go over to my college.’

How could he forget?

‘I stayed over,’ she added spitefully.

Coupland winced, stepping around her to go into the kitchen. He needed reinforcements, and fast.

‘She’s gone up.’ Amy informed him.

Coupland’s heart missed a beat. ‘Is she alright?’ he glanced at his watch, he wasn’t that late. Depending on shifts Lynn’d often wait up until he got back. His colon twitched at the thought she was unwell again. ‘Have you been giving your mum a hard time?’ His accusation made Amy draw back, startled, his fear of upsetting her eclipsed by anger Lynn was getting caught up in the crossfire.

‘No!’ But she didn’t meet his eye. Coupland had had enough. ‘Move!’ he bellowed. It was the voice he used in the city centre at closing time when it was kicking off. The one he saved for scum bags off their faces, not his precious daughter. Amy’s eyes widened before she turned on her heel. Throwing him a filthy look she ran upstairs, slamming her bedroom door behind her. Coupland, focussed on Lynn, took the stairs two at a time, his chest thumping as he went into the bedroom they shared.

His wife was sat up in bed reading, a cup of camomile tea on the bedside table beside her. The scent of lavender permeated the air. As she unplugged a pair of ear phones from her ears, the sound of pan pipes could be heard over the hiss. ‘Welcome to Beirut,’ she said, tapping a bookmark onto her kindle before placing it on the empty half of the bed.

‘Christ, no flies on His Nibs then. He must have rung her the moment I drove away,’ Coupland muttered, removing his jacket and tossing it onto the pile of clothes on the chair by his side of the bed. Lynn was after getting an ottoman but he didn’t see the point. ‘Not like you’d ever see it,’ he muttered, whenever she brought it up. He was a creature of habit. Too long in the tooth to start changing.

‘He saw you then.’ Lynn prompted.

Coupland lowered his head, ‘I waited for him…’

‘Oh, Kevin!’ she groaned, thumping her hand against the top of the quilt in frustration, ‘Stop trying to score points!’

‘I’m not!’ he said quickly, sitting on the edge of the bed as he turned to face her, ‘I thought he was up to something when he left his flat and I was right. I caught him helping a couple of mates nick food supplies from the college.’

Lynn sighed, ‘So he’s not a killer then?’

‘Is it not bad enough that he’s on the rob?’

Lynn shrugged, ‘Yes, but you made it sound so much worse earlier,’

Coupland ran his hands through his hair. He supposed it was relative, that it depended on your moral compass, or what you thought of someone else’s moral compass, at any given time. His daughter’s boyfriend had a history of violence and had now branched out into burglary, but at least he wasn’t a killer.

Oh joy.

He unbuttoned his shirt and put on an old t-shirt he used as a pyjama top. He took off his trousers, laying them neatly across the top of the clothes pile.

‘Do you want me to heat up your dinner?’ Lynn asked, already pushing back the bedclothes, ‘It’s your favourite - humble pie,’ she grinned. Coupland scowled as he stepped into his pyjama bottoms. Just then Amy’s stereo blasted into life, American rappers obsessed with folk who do unmentionable things to their mothers.

He pulled a face. ‘Don’t bother,’ he pouted, his appetite lost.

Chapter 11

Fresh sobs burst from the woman’s throat as he stifled a yawn. No fight in this one, just fear. A vein in his head throbbed guiltily. It wasn’t her fault things had turned out the way they had, but then it wasn’t his either. They were victims of circumstance, that’s what they were. The woman wasn’t a pretty crier, slugs of snot trailed over her mouth which she wiped away periodically with a sleeve. She tried to say something but she was crying so hard it was impossible to understand.

‘Say it again.’ He said patiently, like he imagined she’d be with a pupil learning to read. Her words tumbled over themselves between hiccupping sobs. He still couldn’t understand her. ‘You’re going to have to speak nice and slow.’ He smiled, but it was the kind of smile that made her hold her breath. There was something profoundly wrong with it.

Insincere.

The woman exhaled, slowly, quietly, and begged through her snot covered mouth: ‘Please don’t kill me.’

Tuesday morning

Coupland knew his day was about to get a whole lot worse long before it actually did. Amy had got up early so she could make a point of blanking him in the kitchen. She flounced around in an oversized t-shirt, slamming her coffee mug onto the counter while she waited for the kettle to boil, using the last of the milk to spite him. Lynn, back on days, hadn’t bothered to get up yet, even though her breathing told him she was wide awake. ‘If you stay on that fence much longer you’ll get splinters in your bum,’ he whispered as bent to kiss her, though he didn’t blame her waiting until the coast was clear before venturing downstairs. ‘He’s a passing phase, Kev,’ she sighed, ‘don’t rise to the bait and he’ll be gone soon enough.’

‘That’s what they said about Hitler,’ Coupland grumbled, ‘look how that turned out.’ At least Lynn was speaking to him, unlike Amy, who preferred shouting.

‘HOW COULD YOU, DAD?’ She called after him when she failed to get the response she was expecting. Coupland turned, his heart flipping over as it always did at the sight of her. ‘How could I what, love?’ he sighed, ‘Worry about you? Care for you? Want what’s bloody best for you?’ He held her gaze.

‘How could you betray my trust?’ she said quietly, ‘You promised you’d leave him alone.’

‘I don’t think I actually promised that,’ he reasoned lamely, ‘And by leave alone, I meant not try to strangle him,’ the words died in his throat because instead of raising a smile she just scowled.