Crossing the Line (Kerry Wilkinson) (13 page)

you want?’

‘The next time something huge is happening, I want a tip-off so we can get a photographer there.

The nationals have been hammering us, the BBC is always sniffing around and we barely get a look

in. Not just a “we’ve found that guy nicking bags of peas from Tesco” tip, I want an actual exclusive.’

‘Fine, whatever, just make sure you keep your phone on and I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Really?’

‘I thought you were going to want sexual favours or something – compared to that, sending a text

message is a piece of piss. Come on then, how’d you know about Hume?’

‘One more thing—’

‘I’ve told you before I’m not touching you there, you’ll have to do it yourself.’

Garry grinned. ‘I think you’re getting worse. Eighteen months ago we could have had a

conversation where every response wasn’t a punchline at my expense.’

Jessica had more of the tea. ‘What do you want?’

‘I was wondering what you thought of the Stretford Slasher piece. Did Hambleton read it?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

Garry bit on his bottom lip and shrugged slightly. ‘I put a lot of work into it. I really wanted to

interview him but I suppose I hoped he at least had a look at it.’

‘All right but if you ever run into him, don’t tell him I told you this.’

‘I won’t.’

‘I mean it – he won’t talk to me again if he knows I’ve spoken to you about it.’

‘I won’t!’

‘This is a direct quote: “He must have decent sources because he did a good job actually”.’

‘That’s what Hambleton said?’

‘Well it’s not something I’d say, is it? I’d say, “What bollocks has he been making up this time?”’

The smile was now fixed on Garry’s face as he leant back onto the sofa. ‘That’s really nice of him.

We’d planned it as this big pullout but when he said he didn’t want to speak to us, it became

complicated. The old DCI is dead too and they were the main two involved in the investigation.’

‘I thought it was a decent piece too – it’s just you lot and your alliteration. I mean, “Stretford

Slasher”, it must have been a media thing.’

‘How’d you mean?’

‘Come off it, it’s all headlines with you. In the past few years we’ve had the Tameside Tit-Grabber,

the Gorton Groper, the Didsbury Dick-Flasher, the Prestwich Panty-Sniffer and the Fallowfield

Flasher – they’re just the cases I’ve worked on.’

Garry laughed. ‘I remember that Fallowfield guy, whatever happened to him?’

‘We had him in on a line-up but the woman ID’d the wrong guy.’

‘She wasn’t looking at . . .’

‘What? Penises? Of course she wasn’t. How old are you? Grow up.’

Garry tried to apologise but Jessica had the giggles, sending a spray of tea across the carpet and

Garry scarpering for the kitchen muttering about how Beth was going to notice the stain. Still, it

served him right for putting the image in her mind of half-a-dozen naked men lined up having their

genitals examined by an already traumatised victim.

After Garry had scrubbed the floor amid a series of tuts, he finally returned to the sofa. ‘Right, let’s hear it then,’ Jessica said.

Garry nodded over the back of her. She turned to look at the wall where there was a row of pig

ornaments on top of a bookshelf.

‘Are you calling me a pig?’

‘No, that’s how I know Alan Hume is a right-wing nutball.’

‘How?’

‘He lives next door. He had a bunch of his racist, idiotic mates around over Christmas. They were

all in the back garden listening to punk music, pissed off their heads, chanting “Paki, Paki, Paki – out, out, out”. That photo on today’s front page is one I took from our bedroom. The stupid bellends were

marching around giving Nazi salutes. It’s only our house that had a view of it because of the high

fences. You think of them with tattoos and skinheads but this lot were all respectable types – suits,

smart shoes, posh cars.’

Jessica turned to stare at the wall. ‘I didn’t even clock his address. We saw that he was single and

because he was in hospital, there was no point in coming round.’

‘I’m pretty sure he owns another place anyway because he’s hardly here. I think he bought this to

sell it on.’

‘What about the “Gang War” headline?’

‘Not mine – I’m on holiday. I have newswire access at home and was checking through things last

night when I saw a name that rang a bell. I emailed the copy and picture and they did the rest.’

Jessica finished the last of her tea, swallowing it this time. ‘Do you have any photos of the other

Nazis from Christmas?’

Garry booted up his laptop and showed her the two-dozen images. It was always going to be a long

shot but there was no Luke Callaghan there. He put them on a pen drive, with Jessica saying she’d

send them on to the SCD to go into their gang files.

‘I do have one other thing for you,’ Garry added, handing over the drive.

‘If there are naked pictures of you on here I don’t want to see them.’

‘It’s about Hume – you know he’s a builder and a landlord, don’t you?’

‘We might be incompetent but we’re not complete numpties.’

‘I’ve heard rumours a lot of his tenants are unhappy and that his houses are in terrible states. I was

thinking about doing an exposé but it’s a little too close to home.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Definitely but I’m not going to put this on a plate for you, you’ll have to do the legwork yourself.’

Jessica didn’t mind that – she just wondered if they’d been thinking too big.

13

As she sat in unmoving traffic that had somehow become even worse than before, Jessica phoned

Cole to give him the information about Alan Hume and then called Izzy to give her the news too.

‘What else is going on?’ Jessica asked, half-wishing she had a pool car so she could use the sirens

and then realising it was probably a bad idea to drive at speed given the conditions.

‘Not much,’ Izzy replied. ‘There hasn’t been any web chatter about this attack, so if Anarky or

anyone else are responsible then they’re keeping it quiet. The DCI says the SCD reckons the first post

could’ve been someone trying to claim credit to make a name for themselves.’

‘What about the search team at Trafford?’

‘They’re stuck out there because the roads are gridlocked. I think they’ve all gone to the food

court.’

‘Did they find anything?’

‘There was a rotting seagull in one of the bins.’

‘Ugh, who found that?’

‘Who do you think?’

Jessica thought for a few moments. Her first idea would always have been DC Rowlands but he

was sunning himself somewhere and leaving them to do the work. Then it hit her. ‘Not Joy Bag Jane?’

‘Yep. They were singing “The Birdy Song” at her, apparently.’

‘Y’know, the people we work with really are a bunch of bastards. If it’s not making up lies about

my driving, then it’s giving a constable rude nicknames.’

‘Firstly, I’ve been in a car with you and the reputation is deserved. Secondly, you’re the one who

sent her out on both searches, so don’t be surprised if that seagull finds its way into your office. Not that you’d notice given the amount of shite that’s in there.’

‘Whose side are you on?’

‘No one’s but I’d sleep with one eye open if I were you because Joy Bag’s on the warpath.’

‘That’s all I need; another constable gunning for me. What else is going on – have we spoken to the

SCD about the gang war thing? Garry says it wasn’t his headline.’

There was a rustle of papers and the line went quiet for a moment as Jessica heard the faint sound

of Izzy shouting at someone. ‘Sorry, Pat’s going off on one,’ she said, returning to the call. ‘The

canteen’s closed today because the cook can’t get in.’

‘We have a cook? Imagine having that on your CV. I hope no one here gives them a reference, the

food’s bloody awful.’

Izzy ignored her. ‘Serious Crime say there’s no evidence and no chatter. The press office is putting

out a statement rubbishing the news piece.’

‘If I’d known that, I would have hung around at Garry’s to wait for his editor to call.’

‘Luke Callaghan has spoken to a victim support officer this morning with one of our lot present. I

think it’s the best we’re going to get, statement-wise.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Not a lot. We asked if he knew anyone who could have targeted him but there were no names we

didn’t already know. He kept going on about his wife – plus his old business partner, that Cowell guy.

He even mentioned the councillor he defeated but we know he’s in New Zealand. We’ve already

eliminated everyone.’

‘Anything else?’

‘He said something about getting a lawyer and suing us for not protecting him but he’s just angry.

Whatever he’s done in past, he’s still lost his eyesight – the guy’s entire life has changed. Oh, and you owe me a tenner.’

Jessica finally moved forwards an entire car’s length before putting the handbrake on again. It was

going to be a long journey back. ‘Why?’

‘We had a book running on whether you were going to slip over in the car park heading to your car.

I put ten quid down that you were going arse over tit but then you crept around the edge. If I’d known

you were going to do that, I wouldn’t have told you how icy the car park was.’

‘You bet against me?’

‘Obviously. I don’t take cheques though, cash only.’

‘Why would I pay you the ten pounds you bet against me?’

‘Because I tipped you off! If it wasn’t for that I would have had my tenner back, plus the twenty

quid from the two-to-one odds. I should really get thirty quid off you but I’ll settle for my stake back.’

‘Who was running the book?’

‘Who do you think? Pat.’

‘Bastard – I even gave him a vanilla slice and this is how he repays me. If you’d said something, I

could have given you fifty quid to put on, faked falling over and then we could have gone halves.’

Izzy wasn’t listening. ‘Where are you?’

‘Just outside Chorlton – the traffic’s not moving but the rain’s finally stopped. Some bloke in front

has one of those massive exhausts.’

‘I’ve got a list of properties that Hume owns. There are four close to you – if his houses are that

bad, you can go and have a chat to some of his tenants. It doesn’t sound like you’re going anywhere

quickly.’

The row of traffic heading towards the centre of the city was unmoving but the line in the opposite

direction was at least crawling along.

‘Fine, text them to me and I’ll see what I can do. Has anyone got a connection between the two

victims yet?’

‘No, but I’d be more worried about Joy Bag getting vengeance if I were you.’

The first address Jessica checked was a two-bedroom semidetached house with once-red-brick walls

that were stained with black soot as if it had recently been on fire with a tatty flowery curtain hanging across single-glazed windows. It looked like it had been built some time shortly after the Second

World War and hadn’t been renovated since. To call it a shithole would insult any holes that had been

dug in the ground and filled with shit. No one answered the door.

The second place Hume owned was a terrace in the middle of a row that stretched the entire length

of a street. Although the roads had been tarmacked, the alleys that ran in between the houses were still made of the same cobbles that had been laid a hundred years previously. The house didn’t look as if it

had been done up much since then either. Although every other house in the street had new gutters plus

a double-glazed door and windows, Hume’s property had a metal gutter hanging off its brackets and a

flaking wooden door that Jessica felt confident she could put her boot through if she felt like it.

Jessica knocked on the door and heard an instant scrabbling from the inside. She couldn’t see

anything through the letterbox but when she pressed her face to the living-room window, she spotted a

pair of legs hiding behind the sofa.

This time she knocked on the window. ‘Hello? I can see you in there.’

The legs twitched but the figure didn’t stand. After another few attempts, Jessica gave up – but it

didn’t bode well if Hume’s tenants were hiding when the door went.

After the first two houses, Jessica didn’t think it could get any worse but the third place somehow

managed to be a step down. This was a flat above a pizza shop that was hard to find even with the

address on her phone and the sat nav in her car telling her she was facing the front door. Jessica

eventually realised that what she thought was an alleyway for the shop’s bins was actually the

entrance to a stairwell that led up to a flat. Even holding her breath, Jessica couldn’t avoid the smell of rotting food as she edged around a pile of pizza boxes. For the first time since the bad weather had

begun, she was grateful for the freezing cold – if it had been a hot day, this area would have been

crawling with ants and who knew what else.

At the top of a rickety set of wooden steps, there was a once-green door that was smeared with

grease and dirt. In the muck, someone had used a finger to inscribe the somewhat poetic ‘fancy a fuk?’

Courtship wasn’t what it used to be.

Carly Dennis answered after one knock, cigarette hanging from her mouth, Manchester facelift in

full flow, her hair scraped back so tightly that it made the rest of her features bulge like a squeezed

frog. She was somewhere in her forties, her best days long behind her, if they’d ever existed. Despite

her strong local accent making every sentence sound like she was offering to rip your ears off, she