Taking Pity (18 page)

“You’ve made it your business, though, eh?”

Jasper looks a little upset at having his integrity questioned. “It was a nice secret to have.”

“And you’ve dumped your knocked-off clothes down there, have you?”

Jasper nods. “Almost burst a bollock getting the lid open. We were just thinking on our feet, weren’t we, lads? These buggers were trying to muscle in. We needed somewhere safe to keep the stuff. Figured we could guard it if we needed to.”

“And shoot whoever turned up?” asks McAvoy with a look of disgust on his face.

“Come on now, mate, we’ve helped, haven’t we?”

“You’ve committed a crime.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“No buts.”

McAvoy scratches at the back of his neck. He hasn’t thought about the Winn family for half an hour. Wonders what the hell he is going to do next. He can’t ask all three men to accompany him back to his car so he can drop them off at the police station. He’s simply stumbled onto something. There has been no investigation. No proper search. He has no desire to start clawing through damp bin bags in an underground bunker dug decades ago to house local resistance men in the event of an invasion.

“I need your addresses,” he says at last. “Officers will be with you within twenty-four hours to discuss this properly. You are not to remove anything from either the trailer or the bunker. Your information may actually be very useful in connection with an investigation into organized crime. Would you be willing to cooperate with that?”

Jasper nods his head, childlike and grateful.

“Do you think we’ll go to prison?” asks Liam again, in a pitiful whine.

McAvoy is about to speak when his phone rings. He holds up a hand in apology and takes the call.

“Hello, guv,” he says. “I may have something you’ll be happy to hear all about . . .”

His face falls as he hears the sound of Trish Pharaoh dissolving into sobs.

The color drains from his face.

Listens, without speaking, as she tells him about the horrors inflicted on the body of Tom Spink.

9:06
P
.
M
. H
ULL
CITY
CENTER
.

Pharaoh lights a cigarette from the tip of her last one and flicks the stub against the white-painted wall of the new police station. Slows her pace as she sees the figure outlined beneath the yellow streetlight on the corner of Myton Street.

A few meters ahead, a drunk man in a tracksuit and brogues is pissing on the tiled floor that leads through a clear-glass door to the unmanned front desk of the gleaming new community policing center. He’s doing it quite artistically. Turning in slow circles for maximum coverage while not letting the puddle reach the half-empty bottle of cider by the curb.

“Bastards,” says the man when he catches Pharaoh’s eye. Then, “Fucking bastards,” for extra emphasis.

Pharaoh nods acceptingly. “You should poke your todger through the letter box,” she says. “Really show them who’s boss.”

The man gives a grin. Wishes he’d had the idea before he emptied his bladder. Pharaoh gives him a nod. A look of approval. Sniffs hard and inhales a lungful of smoke. Walks behind him and shoves him hard in the back. Doesn’t even turn around as he slips and slithers to the ground and starts shouting curses at her diminishing shape.

Pharaoh has bite marks on her index finger and wrist. She has chewed herself almost to the bone. The anger she feels has a heat and intensity; a dangerous potency that makes her feel as though her body is too small a container for it. She is having to walk just to burn some of it off. She’s a mile from Hull Royal Infirmary now. Stamping her way down the little road at the back of the shopping center. There are multistory car parks to her left and right, and the presence of Styrofoam takeaway cartons and smashed glass in the gutters betrays the hour. She can hear sirens somewhere. Can hear the symphony that accompanies a city grinding its way to a fitful sleep.

Pharaoh catches a glimpse of herself in the dark glass of a furniture store and turns her head before she has time to focus on the lines in her forehead, the bags beneath her eyes, or the pouting lip of belly that her biker jacket fails to conceal. She hates herself tonight. Hates herself for what has happened to Tom Spink.

He’ll be okay. That’s what the young doctor had said. Going to need a lot of rest and painkillers, but no injuries to anything vital for life. No, his attacker had instead made merry with his expendable parts. Fired half a dozen nails through the soles of his shoes and into his feet; two of which went all the way through and emerged, gleaming and gory, through the laces of his Hush Puppies. Snapped his arm backward at the elbow. Hit him in the face so hard Tom had been choking on his own incisors when the paramedics arrived.

Pharaoh licks her teeth. She’d sat by Tom’s bed for a couple of hours, squeezing his hand and managing tight, thin-lipped smiles whenever his wife looked at her through red-seamed eyes. Managed to cough up a few promises that she would get whoever did this. Choked on her own spit as she kissed him on his wrinkled forehead and told him she was more sorry than he would ever know.

And she had begun walking. Didn’t really know what else to do. She’d half entertained the idea of a drink in some unfamiliar pub, but most of the city center boozers close the doors at eleven p.m. on a weeknight and she knows that, should she pop the cork on a bottle tonight, she won’t stop drinking until she can’t see.

Her footsteps take her back in the direction of the divided highway. There are few cars on the roads. In the distance she can see a thin curve of moon bouncing off the inky-black water of the marina. Can see the black mass of the
Spurn
lightship, blotting out the masts of the pleasure craft that sit motionless to its rear.

She crunches across the gravel and broken glass of a car park that nobody would be daft enough to use. She remembers being here before; years ago. Was one of her first jobs in Hull. Her chief superintendent in Grimsby had offered to share her expertise with one of the highfliers on the old CID team across the water. A prostitute had been left for dead in a skip. Every bone in her face had been broken. Pharaoh had been a detective inspector then. Had only just come back to work after having her third child. She’d been eager to get a result. Knew that whichever bastard had done it deserved what was coming to him and more. Had been only too willing to work day and night to put the bastard away. Turned out she wasn’t needed. The Hull highflier had his own way of doing things. Ran a slick, efficient operation with a clear-up rate that was the envy of the service. He was Humberside Police’s blue-eyed boy and he was a smarmy, dangerous, egocentric wanker. His name was Doug Roper. He had been made a detective chief inspector just a couple of years before Pharaoh had first shook his perfumed, moisturized hand. Already had the respect and admiration of colleagues who were double his years. Scared the shit out of villains and could charm grieving wives and mothers into peals of laughter with just a few words. He dressed like a movie star. Wore bespoke suits and Italian leather shoes. Groomed his facial hair into neat peaks and points and wore his hair longer than regulations allowed. He reveled in his image of a swashbuckling maverick and couldn’t keep his face or his name out of the
Hull Daily Mail
. He was the symbol of Humberside Police. Pharaoh had formed the impression within about ten seconds of introducing herself that he was a prize prick. But she was in the minority. Women constables lined up to be bedded by him, and he never had to buy a round with the lads. His coattails were a comfortable and fast-moving magic carpet and half the police force was trying to ride them. Pharaoh only worked half a day on the case that had brought her to Hull. Was sent off on some fool’s errand by Roper’s right-hand man. He was a big, bullet-headed bully with capped front teeth and bad skin, and he’d looked down her top like an artist considering a blank canvas when he had told her to go speak to the owner of the car park about CCTV footage that she already knew did not exist. Absolom, his name was. David or Daniel or something like that. He’d slithered away when Roper was brought low. She reckons he’s probably still following the slimy prick around; cutting the crusts off Roper’s sandwiches and putting his condoms on for him before he bangs his latest slag.

She remembers getting the call. Absolom, in his campy, greasy voice. Roper had arrested somebody. He’d confessed. Was a Bosnian guy, living in one of the nasty flats beneath Clive Sullivan Way. He’d liked the look of the prostitute and didn’t want to pay for it. Couldn’t get hard when she hitched her skirt up, and lost his temper when she sighed. Roper got him sent down. It was a good result. A neat result. They had a witness who could place him there, and a DNA match. Pharoah’s services were no longer required. She’d known just from the way he’d said the suspect’s nationality that Roper was playing tricks. She’d run the name of the witness through the PNC database and found endless links between himself and Absolom. She’d smelled something rank about the whole affair, though she was still too career savvy to take her suspicions to a top brass who worshipped the ground the pair walked on. The whole thing had left Pharaoh wishing a hundred varieties of death on Roper, Absolom, and anybody else who thought of the pair with anything other than loathing. Making sense of her feelings about Roper is easier today. He’s no longer a cop. McAvoy saw to that. Found out that Roper didn’t care whether he put the right person away as long as he made headlines while doing so. Took his findings to the top brass and was rewarded with a place on Trish Pharaoh’s new CID unit. Roper got his pension early. Left with a golden handshake and no stain on his record. Buggered off to work as an adviser for some posh firm of London corporate lawyers. Living the high life in a flat in Mayfair, last time she’d heard his name in the canteen. Left McAvoy with a reputation as a snake, which he has had to half kill himself to remove.

Despite her fury, Pharaoh cannot help but let her expression change as her thoughts turn to McAvoy. He and Fin had turned up at the hospital not long after six p.m. Pharaoh had heard his footsteps in the corridor and gone out to meet him. She hadn’t meant to cry on the phone and certainly hadn’t meant to dissolve into a puddle of snot and tears when she saw him. But it had happened anyway. She wept against him as he folded his arms around her and rested his chin upon the top of her head.

She stubs out the cigarette and comes to a stop against the wall of the boarded-up pub.

Roisin’s contact details had been stored in Tom Spink’s mobile phone. So had the address where she was staying in South Yorkshire. So had the notes from his breakfast meeting with Pharaoh; not to mention the list of properties belonging to Francis Nock that had been taken from the passenger seat. Pharaoh knows she has fucked up. Desperation made her incautious. She’d thought she could push the boundaries without them splintering. Thought she could manipulate the Headhunters without repercussions. They must have known she would edit the list. Must have known she would send her old boss and friend to make inquiries on her behalf. They’d simply made sure she understood how things worked. They were in charge. They took what they wanted. When persuasion didn’t work, they used force. And they had friends in patrol cars who were willing to help them beat a sixty-four-year-old man unrecognizable.

Pharaoh had wanted to tell McAvoy everything. Wanted to tell him where Roisin has been these past weeks. Wanted to jump in her car with him and Fin and race to Sheffield to reunite the great hopeless lump and his bloody perfect little wife. She might have done, too, had the call not come in.

Scowling, scrunching up her face, Pharaoh takes Bruno Pharmacy’s phone from her handbag and listens to the message that was left on the voicemail service as she sat in the canteen with McAvoy and halfheartedly listened to what he had been doing out at the woods and some shit about an underground bunker and a charity bin bag scam. She hadn’t been paying attention. Had been too busy texting the blokes in the forensics unit and warning them what would happen if they didn’t analyze the nails that had been removed from Tom’s feet before the morning.

Pharaoh listens to the message again. Feels her heart squeeze.

“Detective Superintendent. I had rather hoped we could talk properly, but I presume you are otherwise engaged, attending to your friend and confidant. Let me express my deep regret. I do not expect you to believe me, but it is important to me that I inform you we had given no instruction for the harming of Mr. Spink. We are restructuring our organization at present and some of the less reliable members of the workforce will soon be seeking new employment, or worse. I hope you appreciate that this is a sincere apology. As a demonstration of good faith, I will continue to personally ensure that Mrs. McAvoy is kept free from harm until such time as alternative arrangements can be made. I believe that the address in Sheffield has been compromised following today’s unfortunate business. Truly, I hope you appreciate that the vision we had for our organization does not correspond with some of our more recent indiscretions—”

Pharaoh had hung up so hard that she’d snapped a nail. The bastards had known all along. Her well-spoken contact had kept Roisin’s whereabouts private, but there are others within the Headhunters who wish her harm. Pharaoh bites again at the fat of her thumb. Tastes her own sweat and sniffs the nicotine on her fingers. It’s clear the Headhunters are splintering. The organization may have started as a small collection of pragmatic individuals, but they have had to recruit muscle that is not respecting the rules. And somebody is refusing to play nicely. For whatever reason, they want Roisin. And Pharaoh has no idea where to put her.

Pharaoh leans back against the damp brick of the pub. Used to be famous around the world, this place. The Earl De Grey. Known in every port on the planet as the seediest of dives and the place to go meet an accommodating lady. Had a cage in which varicose-veined grannies danced in bustiers and boas. Had quite the transvestite clientele, and on cold nights, one cubicle in the male toilets needed a revolving door for the punters to take their turns with whichever hooker the landlady had allowed to conduct her business in a slightly warmer environment. Used to be a couple of parrots on a perch in the eighties. One of them got stabbed by a burglar who feared it would reveal his identity. The other died of a broken heart and was buried under Clive Sullivan Way. Pharaoh had simply shaken her head when she’d heard that story. Added another entry to her list of reasons to think of Hull as a seriously weird place.

As she stands and watches the clouds change shape in the black sky, Pharaoh suddenly feels bone-tired. She should be at home. But she’s standing in the cold, resting her back against a boarded-up brothel, chewing her tongue over her failures and lashing herself for not knowing what to do next.

Pharaoh breathes in. Holds it. Pushes it out slowly. Repeats the process until she feels a modicum of calm. She decides not to let go of the rage. Just folds it up and stores it with the rest. A picture is starting to form in her head. It reminds her of an old portable TV with the circular aerials that could only pick up a picture when they were held at certain angles. The static in her mind is forming into something clear.

She pulls out her phone. Calls for a patrol car to take her back to her vehicle. Wonders if there is anywhere between here and home that might serve fried chicken and red wine.

Dials another number. Waits for the sound of a gruff Scottish accent to say a soft hello.

Hopes, above all things, that she was right to contact this man she doesn’t know, and to ask him to take on a responsibility that could cost him his life.

•   •   •

“T
HAT
RELEVANT
,
you think?”

Colin Ray nods in the direction of the jeweler’s across the street. Helen squints and makes out the name of the shop.

“McAvoy and Beardsmore? I doubt it. Just one of those things.”