The Drowners (20 page)

Rob seized his chance and rose, the chair scraping loudly in the deserted bar.

‘I got to be off,’ he muttered and headed for the door.

Phil had been a pub landlord for most of his adult life and he’d not survived all those years without an instinctive knowledge of body language and an almost uncanny ability to read a situation.

‘I’ll leave you to eat,’ he said, keeping his voice as jovial as he could. ‘You just call if you want anything else,’ he added over his shoulder as he disappeared behind the bar and hurried into the kitchen.

Across the table Charlie began to rise from his place but Max was too fast for him. Seizing him by the arm, he hauled
the lad back down and then pulled his hand across the table until it was barely an inch from the dish containing the
hot-pot
. Charlie struggled as he felt the heat from the casserole but Max was too strong and held him down with ease.

‘In a bit of a hurry suddenly ’ent you?’ said Max, picking up his fork whilst keeping Charlie’s hand clamped in place. Max speared a piece of meat, blew on it for a minute and popped it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

‘Is good this,’ he said. ‘You should try it.’ The fork snaked in to the pot and a scalding lump of meat landed on Charlie’s arm. Tugging frantically at his trapped hand, the young man gave a cry, tears springing to his eyes with the pain.

‘Oops, sorry about that,’ said Max easily. ‘Let’s try again shall we?’ Again the fork darted towards the dish.

‘No, please …,’ gasped Charlie. Max stopped, his hand poised above the still-bubbling stew.

‘Not hungry then?’ he said, raising an eyebrow and smiling calmly.

Charlie shook his head, trying to keep calm as the pain from his burnt arm began to intensify. Max nodded
thoughtfully
, dipped into the stew and held a piece up for inspection. Charlie was shaking, the tears beginning to trickle down his face. Max waited, drawing out the tension before blowing on the meat to cool it and taking a bite.

‘So,’ he said, ‘You got something you want to say about our little business arrangement?’

Not trusting his own voice, Charlie shook his head. He was finding it hard to breath and Max had his hand in a grip so tight he thought the bones would crack. All he wanted was to get out of that room, as far away from this nutcase as
possible
. At that moment he would have offered up his granny as a victim in his place, and he was very fond of his granny. She had raised him, took him in when he had nowhere to go and had spent most of the last two years warning him about people like Max. If only, a tiny voice inside whispered, if only he had listened to her.

‘So I take it is business as usual then?’ Max went on smoothly.

Charlie nodded frantically.

‘Good,’ said Max, exploring his lunch and selecting a large piece of carrot. He munched on it for a moment before adding, ‘You won’t be forgetting this conversation will you?’

Charlie shook his head, still unable to speak.

Max smiled again, looking at him almost kindly.

‘Well, just to make sure, reckon this should remind you.’ He tugged at Charlie’s hand, pressing the back of it against the cooking pot for a second. The boy gave a high-pitched scream, the cry of a trapped animal. As Max released his hand and pushed him away, Charlie hunched over gasping, saliva dribbling from his chin and mixing with the tears that rolled freely down his face.

‘Off you go then,’ said Max, turning his attention to his lunch. He didn’t look up as the young man staggered to the door, arm cradled against his chest. In the kitchen Marie stared at Phil, horrified by the ghastly cry. Phil closed the door to the bar softly and gestured to her to go upstairs.

‘I’ll finish up here,’ he said gently. ‘Go on.’

Marie stumbled to the back door, turning back to look at him, her distress clear on her face.

Phil met her gaze and nodded slowly. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘You was right. Now is up to me to sort this out.’

A quick review of all the officers’ filing cabinets revealed a rather unpleasant selection of dubious material secreted amongst the case reviews, social enquiry reports and Part Bs. As acting senior it fell to Gordon to collect this and examine it, something he did with marked reluctance.

‘I feel I should be wearing rubber gloves to touch some of this,’ he confided to Pauline. She disappeared into the
storeroom
, returning with several large black plastic sacks and a pair of bright yellow marigolds which she presented to him with a flourish.

‘I’ve got an apron too,’ she said, ‘but it’s got pictures of fluffy kittens on it – don’t know if that’s any use?’

Gordon took the bags and gloves with thanks but decided the kittens were probably a step too far.

‘Gordon,’ Pauline called after him as he made his way towards the day centre office, ‘what’s happening around here? It just seems everything’s – well, falling apart. What with Garry going so strange and the officers being moved around. And some of that stuff coming out of head office – I’m not sure I recognize the job sometimes.’

Privately Gordon agreed with her but it was his job to keep the office running and get them all working as a team again. He couldn’t start undermining their belief in the service, despite his misgivings about the way things were going and he was too professional to show what he really thought of the new emphasis on ‘control’ rather than ‘rehabilitate’. With a heavy heart, he set about his task.

At the meeting he called after hours he went through his findings briefly, not wanted to give too many details of some of his discoveries. Whilst the female officers had all been graced with a variety of images and advertisements from ‘male’ magazines, the men had a varied selection of pictures and articles, some from the same sources but others from hunting journals, war comics and a disturbing number from the far right fringe. The appearance of what was essentially fascist propaganda struck Gordon as particularly sinister and he glossed over this in his summary. The offending items were already packaged up securely and awaiting collection by the police. His joke about the rubber gloves, he thought, had been unexpectedly timely. If there were any prints on the paper he had avoided contaminating them.

Even more worrying from his point of view was what had been removed from the cabinets. Every officer had several files that were missing pages and a number of them had substantial parts of some files missing. Alex and Sue were particularly badly affected and Alex, who had been struggling to make sense of the mess in her records for a while, had some
folders with nothing official in them at all. If they were hit by an inspection, Gordon thought, they would all be in serious trouble but Alex would probably be facing dismissal. The first task was to get the mess sorted out and he instructed the assembled company to go through everything – every folder, file and ‘dead’ case still in their rooms.

‘Some of the missing forms are in the wrong place,’ he explained. ‘I found a couple of Sue’s Part Bs in Eddie’s stuff …’

‘Not guilty!’ said Eddie.

‘I didn’t say you were,’ said Gordon wearily. ‘I don’t think anyone here has anything to do with this but we have to get it sorted, and quick. I just hope we can find most of what’s missing before someone asks for it.’

There was general nodding around the room, apart from Ricky who was leaning back on his chair, a bored expression on his face.

‘I know it is asking a lot,’ Gordon continued, ‘but if and when we identify items that really are missing they need to be replaced.’ He looked over at Pauline and gave a little shrug of apology. ‘I’m afraid this may put a lot of extra work on you and the rest of the admins,’ he finished.

‘Surely the most important thing is to find out who did this,’ said Ricky.

There was a moment’s silence and everyone in the room turned to look at him.

‘That is in hand,’ said Gordon softly. ‘The police are now involved and will be making a full investigation. I know I don’t have to ask you all for your full co-operation.’

Ricky sniffed and resumed the study of his fingernails, swinging one foot back and forth. Alex risked a glance in Lauren’s direction and stifled a grin at the look on her face. Her friend might as well have been holding up a sign that said ‘I reckon you did it, Ricky’, she thought.

Not many of the old families remained on the more remote parts of the Levels. Some had moved away in search of work,
some went to nearby towns to be closer to schools or shops and some simply died out as the young ones married and moved away or were forced out by rising rents. Only a few hardy souls were left, clinging stubbornly to their homes, their gardens and their way of life. Ada Mallory was one such, a formidable character who defied land owners,
councils
and occasionally the police in defence of her right to live where she chose, on her own terms. She had few neighbours closer than a couple of miles, and few friends left in the area, so when Lily Dodds came calling she was greeted with smiles and an invitation into the kitchen.

‘I’m sorry has been so long,’ said Lily. ‘Only, ’tis a long walk, with the bus bein’ not running most times now. I bin meaning to drop by and now I is here askin’ for yer help.’

Ada sat her down, brewed some tea and settled herself at the table.

‘You ask away,’ she said, pouring them both a large cup of exceedingly strong tea. Lily took a sip, screwed up her eyes with pleasure and set her cup down again with a sigh.

‘Now that’s proper tea,’ she said. ‘These young’uns, they don’t know how to make a decent brew, what with them bags and funny twigs and
fruit
for goodness sakes! Tea is tea not some pink water.’ She had another taste, nodded and took a deep breath.

‘Is my grandson,’ she said, finally coming to the point of her visit.

Ada nodded. She knew all about Charlie Dodds, who had been at school a few years below Kevin. He had been a decent enough young lad, she recalled. One summer he and Kevin had been quite friendly and spent the long, hot days paddling in the stream at the bottom of her garden, fishing for tiddlers and catching frogs. They had drifted apart when September rolled round and Kevin began to truant more often than he attended, but she remembered that summer as one of the happiest of her son’s childhood. Kevin had been a late baby, born when Ada was almost forty and taking everyone by surprise. Lily, one the other hand, had started young and had
three children by the time she was out of her teens. They were neither of them in the first flush of youth – or even of middle age – but looking at her friend’s face Ada reckoned she’d been the more fortunate of the two. Poverty, physical work and anxiety had aged Lily beyond her years.

Unaware of Ada’s wandering attention, Lily was still talking.

‘He’s got hisself in to some bother, mixing with the wrong sort. Now, I know that’s what lads do at his age.’ Ada nodded again, remembering Kevin and his seemingly endless run of petty offences. ‘But these is really the wrong type. Serious trouble they is, and Charlie was out this morning and comes back around three, crying and such. In a terrible state, he was. Took ages to get ’un to tell what ’tis all about, and he’s got this girt burn on his hand, see. I tried to get him to the doctors but he won’t go. Says ’tis nothing, but it looks pretty bad.’

Ada nodded and waited, knowing there was more to come.

‘I wondered if perhaps you had something, could suggest for it maybe?’ Lily finished.

Ada considered for a moment. ‘Burns is tricky,’ she said finally. ‘Depends how bad, how long it was afore he got it cooled down – all kinds of things make a big difference. Can’t be sure I’d be doing the right thing, see.’

‘Mebbe if you saw him?’ said Lily hopefully.

Ada put down her cup, worried at the implications of this.

‘I’m happy to help,’ she said, ‘but I don’t reckon I’ve time to walk all the way to your’n and back this evening.’

‘Oh no, course not,’ said Lily hurriedly. ‘Wouldn’t dream of asking. I told Charlie to come along a bit after me, just in case. I hope you don’t mind?’

At that moment there was a knock on the door, followed in seconds by the frantic barking of the dogs. Well, thought Ada, bit late if I do.

Charlie sat on the stool at Ada’s kitchen table, his arm on some clean newspaper as she examined his hand. It was a nasty burn – blistered and cracked in places and covering a large area. She considered her options before going to the
window-sill and breaking a few leaves off her aloe plant. Slicing them lengthways, she applied the sticky flesh to the burn before binding the whole hand firmly with strips of cloth torn from an old sheet.

‘Ow – that stings,’ Charlie protested earning himself a swift clip round the head from his granny.

‘Show some gratitude,’ she said sternly.

‘Thank you Mrs Mallory,’ muttered the youth, his head down.

Ada smiled at him. She still had a soft spot for the lad and if the truth be told, she missed having someone to look after, with Kevin gone.

‘That’ll settle down soon,’ she said reassuringly. ‘Will take all the sting out and start to heal it. There’s antiseptic in them leaves too so you’ll not get any infection in there. Now, ‘twill need to be changed every day or so for the first week.’ She frowned as she tried to work out the logistics of the problem.

‘That’s all right,’ said Lily. ‘If you want, he can cycle over to see you. What you say, Charlie?’

He was sitting up straighter now and flexing his fingers experimentally. He gave a wide, slightly gap-toothed grin and nodded.

‘You’m right – is hardly hurting at all. What’s that called, you said?’

‘Is aloe. From Mexico or some such place. Lots of cooks, they keep it in the kitchen to rub on burns. Works like magic, it does.’ Then, abruptly changing the subject, ‘Where’s you getting a bike from? Only I can’t have you coming here if it’s a bit … dodgy. Can’t take no chances, with Kevin still being on probation, even if he is away.’

Lily laughed, ‘I reckon that probation officer’s the best thing as happened for some of the lads round here,’ she said. ‘They get to go to the workshop, pick a bike and do it up and then is registered with the police and they gets to keep it. Means they can go looking for work, get in for appointments, all kind of stuff. Is a life-saver for those out here on the Levels.’