Crossing the Line (Kerry Wilkinson) (20 page)

Cole rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘I know what I look like in the mirror – I’m an old man now

and feel like it.’

‘You seem fine to me – nothing that a holiday and some good nights’ sleep wouldn’t solve.’

His smile was narrow, not fooled. ‘You used to be a better liar.’

Jessica chuckled. ‘I’m just saying you shouldn’t make any rash decisions. The only reason I came

back was for you.’

‘And how are things?’

‘Great, except that I keep losing my glasses.’ Cole widened his eyes, wanting the proper answer.

‘I’m fine, Sir,’ she added.

‘Would you tell me if you weren’t?’

‘Probably not.’

Another thin smile, which his eyes didn’t match. ‘Keep me updated if anything comes in – I’ve got

a conference call with the assistant chief constable and the superintendent later.’

Jessica stood to leave but Cole waved her around his desk, lifting his feet into the air. ‘What?’ she

asked, confused.

‘Slip-ons.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Not Velcro shoes, slip-ons.’ Jessica started to apologise but Cole held his hand up with a smile

and a wink. ‘I have spies all over – there’s life in the old dog yet.’

Jessica grinned back, apologised again and then headed for the stairs and her office, wondering

who had blabbed.

Halfway down, she ran into Izzy. ‘I was looking for you,’ the constable said.

‘Have you got me a number for the head of the Majorcan police yet?’

Izzy laughed. ‘How did you really know all of that about Dave?’

‘A PC I know from Northern CID was on holiday out there with his missus too. He saw Dave in

some bar copping off with an older woman and sent me a text. I have spies all over . . .’

20

Considering the time of year, darkness had dropped across the city ridiculously early. The work day

was over but Rowlands rested his head against the window of Jessica’s car as she edged along the

roads connecting the Northern Quarter to the rest of Manchester’s city centre.

‘It smells odd in here,’ he protested.

‘Stop whingeing.’

‘What is it?’

‘Probably whatever gel you use, now stop complaining and help.’ Jessica slowed the car to a

crawl as they reached the opening to the alley where she had found Tony four nights previously. ‘See

anything?’

‘Fog.’

Jessica pulled the car over to the side of the road and parked. ‘You’re hilarious. I don’t know why

I bothered asking you for help.’

‘Because I’m a big strong man and you need protecting?’

‘Keep telling yourself that. The sun must’ve really gone to your head.’

Jessica got out of the car and rounded it until she was on the pavement. Dave was wearing a coat

down to his knees, gloves, a scarf and a thick woollen hat pulled over his ears.

‘It’s freezing out here.’

Jessica was wearing much the same but her coat was at least practical to run in. ‘You’re not the

first to notice.’

She led him into the alley, looking both ways as she moved slowly. The shadows weren’t quite as

large as the other night and it was marginally warmer but there was still a faint trace of vomit stuck

between the cobbles.

Dave kept on her shoulder. ‘What exactly are we doing?’

‘I told you – looking for Tony.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I asked you to do me a favour and you very kindly said yes.’

‘Are you being sarcastic?’

‘No, I’m being nice, can’t you tell the difference?’

Dave used his shoe to nudge a bin bag, revealing nothing underneath. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well I do appreciate it – it’s dark, it’s colder than the polar ice caps and this area is full of

weirdos.’

They reached the end of the alley having not seen anyone, so Jessica walked along the road parallel

to where she had parked and started along the next cut-through. Rundown buildings covered in grime

rose above them, blocking the street lights and leaving them in near-darkness. In the distance, the city hummed with people out for the evening and traffic buzzing towards its destination.

‘Let’s hear it then,’ Jessica said, ‘who’s your granny?’

‘She’s not a granny.’

‘So who is she?’

‘I still don’t know how you knew but her name’s Lynn. She’s in her
early
-fifties but you wouldn’t guess it – she’s thin, she’s—’

‘All right, I don’t need to hear all that stuff. So was it just a holiday romance?’

Dave’s deep breath swirled into the surrounding gloom. ‘I don’t know, we had a fun time and

swapped numbers. We’ll see. I’d be happier if everyone at the station wasn’t calling me a granny-

shagger.’

‘Don’t blame me.’

‘You told them!’

‘I did not – I told Pat and he told them. If you’d been planning ahead you could’ve bribed him with

a giant bag of mini Cheddars.’

‘He did tell me that old DSI guy’s got a crush on you. The phrase “love-sick puppy” was

mentioned.’

‘Sod off and stop changing the subject. So are you going to see her again?’

‘I don’t know, I’m leaving it with her. She’s not had it easy.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘She’s divorced but her husband used to smack her around. She was on holiday with her mates and

I think they were all out looking for a bit of fun. No one expected anything more but we got chatting on my second night there and then we spent the rest of the holiday together.’

‘That’s really nice.’

‘And . . .’

‘And what?’

‘I thought you were going to add something like: “That’s really nice . . . when’s she getting her hip

replaced?” or “That’s really nice . . . when’s she having the sex-change operation?”’

‘Actually I was going to say, “That’s really nice . . . let’s hope you don’t wake up to find your

kidneys on eBay.”’

Dave laughed. ‘That’s actually pretty funny.’

‘It won’t be when they sell for five hundred quid.’

At the end of another empty alley, Jessica said they should try Tony’s flat. He’d been in the last

time she was around and although she wasn’t expecting him to be there now, it was worth a go. They

hurried along the streets hands in pockets, Jessica trying to stop her teeth chattering.

‘It’s nice to talk like this again,’ she said.

‘What, for you to take the piss?’

‘Essentially – you give as good as you get though. It’s just nice after everything that happened with

you and your big mouth.’

Dave didn’t reply straight away, unsurprising considering he’d told her that he loved her only a

couple of years ago and hadn’t been in a relationship since. It had taken her enough time to talk to him again. ‘Izzy says you and Adam are still trying for kids . . .’

It was Jessica’s turn to stay silent. Although she didn’t necessarily mind, she didn’t know Dave and

Izzy spoke about things like that. Izzy couldn’t have passed on what Jessica had told her about not

being with Adam for months . . . ‘We’re seeing how it goes. The doctors say it can’t happen but

they’ve been wrong about other things in the past.’

They continued heading through the streets, falling into silence as they reached Tony’s flat. Despite

ringing the bell attached to the front door, knocking loudly, and throwing tiny stones to bounce off his window, no one answered.

‘Pub?’ Dave asked, nodding towards the building next door.

‘You buying?’

‘I’ve only got euros. Not had time to change them back yet.’

‘Okay, no worries.’

Jessica headed for the door but Dave caught her arm. ‘What are you grinning about?’

‘Nothing. Just a cosy drink with a mate.’

‘So you’re going to go in there, buy a drink for the pair of us and that’s why you’re grinning?’

Jessica pointed to a scrawled note pinned to the window: EURO’S ACCEPTED. ‘They might not

know how to use an apostrophe – but at least they’ll take your money.’

Inside and the barkeeper did take Dave’s leftover euros, much to his annoyance. The floors were

sticky, the lighting dim and orange and the clientele a mixture of people they spent their time trying to lock up and student-types slumming around with multi-coloured hair and T-shirts sporting slogans.

They found a booth near the window next to a radiator underneath a sign that read THURSDAY

NIGHT IS PARTAY NIGHT. It was also apparently karaoke night. As Dave told her about the rest of

his holiday, the students and pissed-up locals took it in turns to sing out-of-tune Britpop songs to a

largely uninterested crowd.

Jessica eventually crossed the booth to sit next to the constable so they could hear each other over

the sound of a Goth girl murdering a Verve song.

‘Why Tony?’ Dave asked.

Jessica left Scott Dewhurst out of it but told him how she’d seen Tony clean, sober and ready for a

new life one day, and then drunk and high a few days later.

‘That’s just him, isn’t it?’ Dave said. ‘We’ve all picked him up over the years.’

Jessica shrugged. ‘Don’t you ever want to believe that we make a difference?’

‘We do – when we get people away from their abusive families, or someone gets sent down.’

‘It’s all small stuff though. Drunken idiots, wannabe gangsters. I don’t mean that, I suppose . . .’

Jessica took a deep breath, trying to block out the crime being committed by the Goth with the

microphone. ‘. . . I suppose there’s not that much difference between Tony and me.’

‘What do you mean? You an inspector – he’s a junkie.’

Jessica shook her head. ‘You’re missing it. He’s a little younger than me but we share a lot. Neither

of us comes from around here but we both came to the city to see if it could give us something better.

Something happened when he was at university which made him turn to the drugs and the drink. It

could happen to anyone if they didn’t have the support around them. I lived with Caroline and became

a PC but if I’d had someone who’d wanted to take advantage of me, maybe I’d have gone for it too.’

‘I can’t imagine anyone taking advantage of you.’

Jessica didn’t reply because he didn’t understand the point and didn’t know her then. It was easy to

think of her as the person she was now but she’d hardened through all her years as an officer at

various levels. As an impressionable twenty-something, perhaps she’d have made bad choices too?

She looked around the room and could see it here as well: weathered, long-in-the-tooth locals

trying it on with a group of female students at the bar. Some of them would play the game, get a few

free drinks and then go home. More power to them. Others would be less experienced at dealing with

older people and feel under pressure, even though all they’d done was accept a drink.

The Goth girl thankfully finished singing but that wasn’t the end of the torture. Up stepped her

boyfriend, face like a drawer full of paperclips, who launched into a Metallica track.

Jessica downed the rest of her wine in one. ‘Sod this, let’s see if we can find anyone else on the

street – someone must know where Tony is.’

Back outside, it felt even colder after the time they had spent next to the radiator. Jessica headed

into the nearest alleyway, Dave close behind. It didn’t take them long to find three bearded men

huddled under a couple of sleeping bags next to a pair of large wheelie bins, passing a bottle of cider

between them. As she and Dave approached, their mutterings went silent as they withdrew under the

covers.

Jessica stood in front of them, framed by the street light. She took a twenty-pound note out of her

pocket and stretched it out between her hands so they had a clear view.

‘If any of you know where Tony is, this is yours.’

The three heads shot out of the bag at once, like a triple-headed tortoise looking for food. She

could see their beady eyes registering what was in her hand, remembering how Tony described it –

they weren’t seeing the banknote, they were seeing a means to an end: booze, fags, drugs.

‘Tony,’ she repeated.

The one in the centre half-mumbled, half-coughed a reply. ‘Norff.’

‘North what?’

He took his hand out from under the cover, stretching it towards her. ‘Norff.’

‘You’re not getting the money until you say where he is. “North” doesn’t count.’

‘Great Norff. Trains.’

Jessica dropped the note on his lap and turned to walk away, listening to the scurrying behind her

as the homeless men scrambled for it.

‘I take it you know where he’s on about?’ Dave asked.

‘Out the back of the cinema down by Deansgate station there are a few cobbled alleys. Some of the

homeless community beg around there because it’s close to the bars on the locks and you get all the

drunks going home that way towards the taxis. There used to be a pickpocketing problem when I was

in uniform.’

Jessica took the car, driving the short distance across the city and parking outside the station. She

led Dave along Great Bridgewater Street, asking him to wait as she moved into one of the cobbled

ginnels engulfed by the long, freezing shadows. Mist clung to the top of the overhanging buildings,

bathing the cobbles in a hazy orange burn from the dim street lights. Jessica could feel the glacial air filling her lungs as she approached a small group of people-shaped silhouettes slumped against a wall

smudged with filth. The person on the far end scuttled away as soon as he saw her and although she

didn’t recognise one of the remaining shapes, Tony’s coat was unmistakeable. She sat next to him on

the ground, feeling the harsh frost eating through her clothes. Again.

‘Tony.’

He gurgled something incomprehensible and Jessica edged away, flashing back to the last time he