Storms (6 page)

‘I’ve never seen anything like that’ said DS Adrian Bradshaw, shaking his head. ‘The poor bastard. What was that thing he was strapped to?’

‘It’s called a garotte’ said Ollie. ‘It’s a medieval method of execution that was mainly used by the Spanish right up until the time of Franco in the sixties and seventies’.

Everybody looked round quizzically at Ollie.

‘Look, I took my niece and nephew to Blackpool at the weekend and we went in this dungeon place by the tower where they have all this stuff to do with ancient torture and execution methods. They have actors scaring the living daylights out of people too and it was quite good fun actually. Our Charlotte and Jason enjoyed it and so did I’.

‘I’m glad that’s the explanation, Ollie’ said Jeff who was thinking how distraught Melanie Patterson would be after watching that. ‘We’ve got some really twisted individual to find here if that’s not an understatement after watching that film and we’ve got to make significant progress before he gets the chance to do that to someone else’.

‘We’ve got as many of the routes in and out of the estate covered with either CCTV or uniform surveillance, sir’ said Rebecca. Although she’d hardened her heart towards Jeff in the way of romance it had only been to protect herself from any further heartache. She still wanted to support him implicitly as her senior police officer and regretted the previous spat they’d had. Life was increasingly becoming about the separation between work and personal. She wished it wasn’t that way but neither did she feel she had any choice than to accept that it was and it was why she still intended to go through with her transfer request. ‘Short of closing off the estate completely there’s not much more we can do on that score and it still means that someone could get in there without us noticing’.

‘True’ said Jeff. He avoided letting his eyes linger on Rebecca anymore. The tension between them had given way to an obvious distance that sometimes pissed him right off. Why couldn’t they go back to where they were before? Was he so weak and pathetic that he couldn’t bring himself to talk to her about the situation between them? He didn’t ask to be widowed at thirty-four years old with a young son to bring up. He was doing the best he could but he hadn’t bargained for the loss of his beloved wife to emotional regress him by about fifteen years. ‘So where else can we go for answers?’

‘Well at least the community is now talking to us, sir’ said Ollie. ‘Even though they’re not telling us much they’re not slamming their doors in our faces anymore’.

‘Well can we go through everything from the house to house on the estate, please’ said Jeff. ‘I know there’s precious little there but I want you to go back to anyone who told us anything, however small or insignificant it might appear. There’s got to be some way of tying something together to make a lot more than it first seems. Now Ollie, what did you find out about her and her nephew Jackson Williams?’

This wasn’t a question that Ollie was comfortable about answering. He needed to speak to the boss about this in private but in the meantime he decided to share the official story about Jackson Williams. ‘A background check on Jackson Williams confirms what Melanie Patterson told you, sir, orphaned in a hurricane, lived in a children’s home before coming to stay with his Aunt here. And on the face of it his Aunt must be supporting him because he has no visible signs of any other income’.

‘Unless he’s living off the immoral earnings of the Gorton boys’ said Rebecca. ‘Like I suspect Melanie Patterson is too because her only visible means of financial support is the benefits she gets. But from what you said about her house, sir, she must be getting money from somewhere else. It would be my guess that she’s more involved with the Gorton boys and all their rackets that she’d like us to know and I would put money on her knowing something about the looting of Evelyn Squires’ house’.

‘Then bring her in’ said Jeff.

Rebecca looked round in silent surprise before turning her eyes back on Jeff. He’d seemed protective of Melanie Patterson up until he’d been to see her. Rebecca wondered what she’d said to make him change back into an investigating police officer and away from the pathetic alpha male he came across as when the name of Melanie Patterson was mentioned. ‘Do you mean that, sir?’

‘Why wouldn’t I mean it, DI Stockton? The funeral of her son Leroy was yesterday and even though we kept a discreet distance we were never going to pick up anything from it. I know you think, or thought, that I was a little blind where Melanie Patterson is concerned but you were wrong and you’ve been wrong all along. I’m not blind to what she really might be up to and I’m not soft on her because her son was brutally murdered. I’m still a police officer, DI Stockton. First and foremost I want a result and whatever I think about Melanie Patterson is worth nothing compared to that’. Is that understood?’

Rebecca swallowed. She hadn’t counted on Jeff being quite so forthright. ‘Loud and clear, sir’.

‘Good’ said Jeff. ‘Now let’s get on with it’.  

Ollie waited for the room to clear of everyone else before approaching Jeff. ‘Can we have a word, sir? In private’.

STORMS FIVE

‘What’s on your mind, Ollie?’ Jeff asked when it was just the two of them and the door was closed. He wasn’t necessarily in the mood for emotional complexities. He hoped to God that Ollie had a problem of the operational kind.

‘Well if I’m right then it could be as wrong as it gets, sir’ Ollie answered. ‘You asked me to look into the background of Jackson Williams?’

‘Yes, and you gave the team your answers during the briefing’.

‘Well it isn’t quite as simple as that, sir, which is why I wanted to talk to you privately about it because you’ll know what to do if I’m right and if I am then the least people who know the truth the better’.

Jeff gestured for Ollie to sit down in front of his desk. ‘So are you saying that what you said in the briefing isn’t true?’

‘No’ said Ollie. ‘What I said was the truth as we’re meant to believe it’.

‘You’d better explain’

‘Sir, when the pictures of Jackson Williams came through I was immediately struck by something’ Ollie went on. ‘I recognized him. I was a speaker at an association of black police officers dinner a few months back. The man we know as Jackson Williams was there and he asked me a lot of questions about advancing in the force as a black officer. I remember he was very ambitious and I got the feeling he’d do anything to get ahead. His name was Tyler Moore, sir. That’s Police Constable Tyler Moore and I suspect that he’s working undercover with the Gorton boys’.   

Jeff knew all about undercover operations and the obvious need to keep information about them to the tightest circle of officers as possible. But if the identity of this undercover officer had been blown then that would have consequences.

‘Ollie, I don’t doubt anything you say but you’ll understand that we could’ve picked ourselves up a bomb here’ said Jeff. ‘Do you have any other means of proving that the man known as Jackson Williams and living with his aunt Melanie Patterson in Gorton is not who he says he is?’

‘Yes, sir’ said Ollie who understood exactly why his boss had asked the question. ‘I did some further digging on Jackson Williams. It’s true that his parents died in the hurricane and Jackson was placed in a local orphanage. But the real Jackson Williams was adopted a couple of years later and he emigrated with his new family to the US soon after. They live in Philadelphia’.  

‘And you can prove this, Ollie?’

‘Conclusively, sir’.

‘Okay’ said Jeff. ‘Then leave it with me and I know I don’t need to ask but don’t breathe a word of this to anyone until you and I have spoken again about it’.

People who play games instead of being honest with themselves and the world about their true feelings are just weak. That was the conclusion Tim had drawn from years of slaying the demon of his own desires day after exhausting day. His position was somewhat different from all the others though. Nobody, not even his new best friend Annabel would be able to guess that ever since the fire that almost killed him all those years ago he’d been trapped inside a prison that meant that he didn’t have the choice but to be strong. All the ordinariness of love had passed him by. He’d never felt able to share in all the ordinariness of love that was all around him. Not since the fire had burned everything out of his soul and left him with nothing for the future except the risk of ever being found out.     

‘So do you think they’ll keep you on at the end of the season?’ asked Annabel after she’d sat down in the coffee shop. They’d arranged to meet outside of work because Annabel saw that as a gesture of real, proper friendship that lasted beyond the end of each shift. She’d had to really pin Tim down about it. He’d managed to slither his way out of two previous arrangements they’d made and that morning she’d checked her mobile for text messages a dozen times. She’d been sure he would back out again with some lame excuse. But no this time he was sitting opposite her with his caramel latte looking spick and span in his short leather jacket, white t-shirt and blue jeans. He looked younger than he did in his uniform at work. But then he looked young anyway. There were few lines on that handsome face. Surely someone must be keeping him warm at night.

‘You’d have to ask our glorious leader Marilyn Kent that’ said Tim.

‘Leader? She doesn’t lead anything except her own targets whether it’s to do with the job or her own taste for wine’.

‘Well I wasn’t being desperately serious’.

‘No, but Suzie was yesterday’.

Yesterday Tim and Annabel had attended the celebratory lunch for Suzie, one of the reception staff who was leaving because her husband had got promotion at work and because that meant he’d be doing a lot of travelling they’d decided that Suzie would give up her job. After all, they didn’t need the money anymore and someone needed to be at home during regular hours for the kids. A good lunch in one of Lytham’s finest restaurants had been enjoyed by all and when even more wine had appeared to cater for those who’d reached the point where enough was not enough, Marilyn Kent, who’d got herself rather more pissed than the rest of them decided to grant proceedings with her pearls of wisdom.

‘Now that he’s got you as the pretty little stay at home wife bringing up the kids for him it won’t be long before he’s off shagging’ Marilyn had declared, leaning tipsily across the table and trying to get right in Suzie’s face.

Suzie, who was known for not taking any nonsense off anyone but who’d had more than one disagreement with her boss, had been waiting to bat it straight back to Marilyn. So she’d taken a deep breath and whilst everyone looked on in silence she said ‘No, he won’t, Marilyn. And do you know why? Because he’s married to me and not to you’.

Marilyn’s face had been a picture.

‘She delivered a classic reposte’ Tim recalled, smiling.

‘Oh it was worthy of Krystle and Alexis in Dynasty’ said Annabel, remembering every moment. ‘Did you ever watch Dynasty?’

‘Only until someone went up in a space ship’ said Tim. ‘That’s when it all got a bit too daft for me. And I’m not a fan of Joan Collins. She’s a hopeless actress. She just plays a caricature of herself in whatever she does’. 

‘She’s very good at it’.

‘Maybe so but she’s not an actress’ Tim countered. ‘Not really. She can deliver lines but only as herself’.     

Well, thought Annabel. If he is gay he can’t be that gay. All the gays love Joan Collins. Or so she thought. They all love that kind of bad tempered diva. But perhaps there were varying degrees to someone being gay? Perhaps it was more of an a la carte menu than an uptake of the full menu option. She’d often thought about this. In the old days it was all about Larry Grayson and John Inman and the things that were now being found out about the likes of Liberace. With today’s openness it wasn’t surprising when the most macho of men turned out to be gay. And that was good. But where would Tim place himself along this newly liberated line of ordinary men who happen to be gay.

‘Did you enjoy yourself at the lunch yesterday?’

‘That was a change of subject bolt out of the blue’.

‘Well you know me’ said Annabel. ‘What comes into my head tends to exit straight away through my mouth’.

‘Well didn’t I look like I was enjoying myself?’

‘Yes, you did but …. ‘

‘ …. but what?’

‘I don’t mean to interrogate you, Tim’.

‘Then don’t’.

‘But it’s just that I feel I know you and yet I don’t think I really know you and I don’t mean that in any kind of malicious or critical way I just mean I want to get to know you more’.

Tim smiled. If only she really did know him. She may not be quite so keen to get to know him better if that was the case. ‘But you’ve got your meat and potatoes Irishman to know well. And you know him very well’.

Tim relished being surrounded by wholesome family men at work like Annabel’s Dermot. They were all tall and broad and had wives or girlfriends to go home to. They had houses onto which they built extensions. They went on package holidays to Spain or Greece or Turkey. They had extended families with whom they spent Christmas and birthdays. They’d learnt about sex when they were teenagers and were experienced enough to show their wives or girlfriends a good time. They’d grown up with all the ordinariness of life and love all falling into place like it did for most people. They expected mortgages, kids, a house in the suburbs. They expected to sit around and moan and whine about inconsequential bullshit without ever doing anything constructive to change the situation they moaned and whined about. They condemned their women for gossiping and yet the wholesome men themselves were the biggest gossips. Tim would like to join them sometimes. He’d love to know how it really felt to have stepped onto the treadmill of ordinary life with such apparent ease. He’d known so long ago that he’d never be able to achieve something so fulfilling.