Ruthless (22 page)

‘Was she breathing though?’ Amina said dramatically, clutching Rabia’s arm.

‘Course she was, you div, or they’d have used the oxygen.’

‘Did you see anyone else?’ Rachel asked the girls. ‘Hear anyone? A car driving off?’ Had she been attacked where she was found or dumped in the alley afterwards?

They shook their heads.

‘Do you all know Shirelle?’ Rachel asked.

Everyone nodded.

‘She’s a local,’ Mels said.

And a drug pusher, Rachel thought. Did they all know that too?

‘Are you aware of anyone who wished her harm?’

No one spoke.

‘Any boyfriend, partner?’

Mels shook her head. ‘She used to come in with Victor,’ she said. ‘Not for a while though.’

There was a moment’s quiet – news of the double murder had been released late that afternoon. Another shock for the community.

‘Maybe she shot them, Victor and that,’ Amina said, a thrill dancing in her eyes, like it wasn’t real, unaffected by seeing the mess that someone had made of Shirelle’s face.

‘Don’t be thick,’ Rabia nudged her friend.

‘Do you know anything about that?’ Rachel said to Amina.

‘No.’

‘Who’d want to hurt Shirelle?’ Rachel said, looking around.

‘The EBA,’ Rabia said. ‘They’re stirring things up. People say we need to defend ourselves. This is our estate as well.’

‘That sort of talk just makes things worse,’ Mrs Muhammad said. ‘One lot of hotheads after another.’

‘No, Ma,’ Rabia said, ‘we need protection. You know what they say, take the town back for the British.’

‘You’re British,’ her mother said.

‘Try telling them that!’ Rabia said.

‘The police are here to protect you,’ Rachel said.

‘Oh, great. Like you did in the riots?’ The girl’s tone was sarcastic.

Eleven years ago, Rachel thought, Rabia would have been a little kid but she’d probably grown up hearing all about it.

‘You think it was a racist attack?’ Rachel said.

‘She’s mixed race, worst of both worlds,’ Amina chipped in.

Liam Kelly shrugged.

It was all speculation, bound to happen but she’d got nothing she could take back to the inquiry.

‘Anyone think of anything else, hear anything, call me,’ Rachel said.

‘Have you any more news about Rick – Richard?’ Liam Kelly said.

‘We have charged two men with his murder.’

‘The Perrys?’ Connor said.

Rachel inclined her head slightly but did not commit herself verbally. ‘It’ll be made public in the morning.’

After leaving them, Rachel rang in and reported the serious assault of a person of interest, then called the hospital and left her details so they could contact her once Shirelle was fit to be interviewed.

Sean had left her a voicemail message:
We’re at the pub if you fancy a drink on the way home.

She did. A drink with her husband at the end of a long, long day.

Rachel walked round from the pub car park and in the main entrance to the Ladies where she gave her hair a quick brush-through and applied some lip gloss. She’d do. Sean probably wouldn’t notice. He thought she was gorgeous, told her so at regular intervals.

She went through to the bar and spotted him playing darts with a couple of the lads. She signalled to him to see if he wanted a drink. He shook his head, raised a full pint. Rachel bought herself a large red wine, had a sip then set it on a table near the lads and went out to the beer garden for a fag.

And found her mother.

‘What the f— are you doing here?’ Rachel said.

Sharon, wearing some sort of tiger-striped fake-fur jacket, was leaning back against the wall, fag in hand, and a drink on the table in front of her. She cut her eyes at Rachel.

‘Sean was coming for a drink, he invited me along.’

You invited yourself, more like.

Rachel didn’t know what to say, couldn’t bring herself to say what she really felt:
Fuck off and leave me alone. When I said I’d meet you, I didn’t mean every other bloody night.

Instead she remembered telling her mother to wait for an invitation. Rachel needed the distance. Twenty years Sharon had been on the lam, she couldn’t just pick up the reins like it had never happened.

‘He ring you up, did he?’ Rachel couldn’t leave it. She struck her lighter, a tug of wind snuffed out the flame.

‘I rang him, as it happens, see how you all were. He said he was coming here.’

‘I’ve no cash,’ Rachel said, ‘if that’s what you’re angling for.’

‘How dare you,’ Sharon said, her face alive with outrage.

‘Just a few free drinks, was it?’

‘You little bitch.’

‘Listen, you … you can’t just waltz back in,’ Rachel said.

‘You think you’re better than me,’ Sharon said, ‘you think because you’ve got a job as a copper and a fancy flat and a few bob you can look down on me.’

‘It’s nothing to do with—’

Sharon interrupted, ‘How could you do it? Your own brother, flesh and blood. That gain you a step up the ladder, did it?’

What the fuck?
‘Who told you?’ Rachel said.

‘That doesn’t matter, what matters—’

‘Who told you?’ Rachel shouted. Sharon was not meant to know. She was a virtual stranger, this woman, and Rachel was certainly not ready to share something so personal, so important, with her. And Sharon hadn’t seen Alison, so …

‘Sean,’ Sharon said, ‘he thought I already knew. I should’ve known. My own daughter dobbing in my own son. Grassing up her little brother.’

Rachel’s cheeks were burning, her chest felt tight. Her hand was shaking as she pointed two fingers, ciggie between them, at Sharon. ‘He killed someone,’ Rachel said.

‘He was looking after you, by all accounts,’ she retorted.

‘By taking a life? By making it look like I put him up to it? I’d have been in there with him if Sean hadn’t found I’d an alibi.’ The taxi driver who had taken a very drunken Rachel home while Dominic was kicking seven shades of shit out of her ex-lover Nick Savage.

‘This fellow, he’d tried to have you killed, Sean says, this lawyer bloke.’

‘That doesn’t make it right,’ Rachel said.

‘Grassing on your family’s not right, neither. Not in my book.’

‘It’s got fuck all to do with you.’

‘I’m still your mother,’ Sharon said. ‘When it suits. Not for twenty years, you weren’t. You can’t be meddling like this.’

‘Meddling! You’re a selfish little shit, Rachel, you always were. And this, this really takes the biscuit.’ She threw her tab end down, snatched up her drink and went inside, heels smacking on the flagstones.

Rachel stared, head raised, blinking back tears. She wasn’t supposed to be here, not like this, not with these people. She’d spent years building a life as different as possible. She’d escaped Langley, escaped her family, and made her own way. But they’d all come crawling after her, zombies who wouldn’t stay buried, determined to drag her back to the fold. Her mother, Dominic, Sean, they wouldn’t let her go. Bloodsuckers. She didn’t want to be that Rachel Bailey, their Rachel Bailey. That wasn’t her any more.

It was hard to breathe, as though there was no air. She looked at the sky above. Only clouds there, sickly orange clouds and nothing else.

21

Gill was at her desk, trying to keep abreast of the multiple strands of the three murder inquiries and make sure her files were up to date, when her phone rang. The ringtone was loud in the empty office, the only background noise the whirr of the computer fan.

‘Gill Murray,’ she answered.

‘Mrs Murray, this is Secure XX, we’ve a call alert through from your security system. Would you like us to check it out?’

Shit!
Gill was still embarrassed by the encounter with the local bobbies and would rather not have anyone else coming up to the house until she’d established what was going on. Probably a fox, anyway, setting off the alarm at the gate. She’d closed the gate after Dave’s recent antics and activated that zone. Sammy was at Orla’s tonight so it couldn’t be him.

‘I’m leaving for home now,’ she said, ‘it’s probably a false alarm. I left the outer zone on today, it can be a bit temperamental. I’ll get back to you if I have any concerns. I’m sorry for the bother.’

She switched everything off and made her way down and out to the car park. Her mind was on Greg Tandy. He had committed previous offences in possession and supply of firearms but had not, in the course of his stellar criminal career, ever been found guilty of shooting someone. He was an arms dealer, not a hitman, so what had this been? Had he joined the twins on a killing spree? Or had he been doing a favour for Williams? And why? It was risky enough to be in possession of firearms but murder was a whole other league.

She drove on autopilot. Home, on the edge of the moors, was only a few minutes’ drive at this time of night when the roads were deserted. She slowed when her headlights picked out a dark shadow on the ground ahead. A ball? The ball moved, scuttling to the ditch at the side of the road. Hedgehog. They had them in the garden quite often. Sammy used to put dog food out for them. He wanted to keep one as a pet but she’d explained it was a wild animal, needed to roam and wouldn’t be happy cooped up. They’d got a gerbil instead, which kept Sammy entertained for all of two weeks until the novelty faded and Gill was left nagging him to feed and water the creature and clean it out.

Gill reached the top of the hill and glanced, as she always did, in her rear-view mirror at the lights of the town in the valley below. She took a turning between the stone walls and stopped at the end of the little lane. Ahead her gate was pushed back, wide open. No fox could’ve undone the latch. She looked at the house to her left. The alarm box was flashing. The only lights inside the property were the ones set to come on with the timer.

She considered what to do. She would investigate a little further but leave her car ready for a quick escape in case she found intruders. She had a police baton in the car and a heavy-duty torch. She took them with her. She walked up to the gate, aware that if anyone was there they would’ve heard the engine. She shone the torch along the driveway that led down the right-hand side of the house to the double garage at the end.

And saw Dave’s car.

She let out a breath, felt her shoulders slump with relief. She rang the police station and told them all was well, just the gate not properly secured.

She drove in, and parked alongside Dave’s car. Where was he? He didn’t have a key. She thought he might be sleeping it off in the back seat of the car but when she looked there was no sign.

She shook her head, exasperated by his messing about. He could be in the summerhouse, keeping warm. She needed to disable the burglar alarm first before playing bloody hide and seek in the garden.

After unlocking the door and entering the code on the panel, Sammy’s birthday backwards, she listened for a moment to make completely sure that the house was empty. It sounded and felt exactly like it usually did when she was on her own. Besides, if anyone had got into the property it would’ve triggered other zones on the alarm but only the gate LED had been flashing on the controls.

Gill went back outside, called Dave’s name. Nothing. She swung the torch around, the cone of light travelling over the grass at the far side of the garden, picking out the white pips of the cherries below the tree. The birds had taken all the fruit. No sign of him out here.

The security lights snapped on as she crossed the patio and stepped on to the lawn. The light illuminated the lawn and shrubs but didn’t quite reach as far as the summerhouse. The garden was large, it went round the house on all four sides. It was something they’d asked for when they had the plans drawn up. The front of the house faced across the narrow road to the moors. The summerhouse at the rear caught the afternoon sun. It wasn’t used much these days, usually by Sammy, who would have mates round and set up camp out there, but even that had changed in recent months with the arrival on the scene of Orla. They had electricity out there but there was no glow of light from the mullioned windows.

She pointed the beam ahead of her and walked over the grass, damp with dew and spongy from the recent rain, to the summerhouse. One of the windows was broken; fragments of glass, uneven triangles, ringed the frame. She felt her heart pick up pace.

She shone the light and peered in, saw the camping chairs, folded leaning against the wall, the clutter of bats and sticks and racquets next to them and then Dave, prone on the sun-lounger, his face white in the gloom.

The door wasn’t quite closed and Gill caught the stink of vomit, high and sharp, as she pushed it open and stepped inside, saw by torchlight that his lips and chin were speckled with sick, there was a pool of it by his right cheek and a patch on that shoulder.

He was too still.

Fear zipped through her, heart thundering in her chest, blood pounding in her ears, half-formed thoughts, risk of choking, asphyxiation, major cause of accidental death.

‘Dave!’ she shouted at him. ‘Dave!’

No response.

In the dark she heard the harsh cries of the magpie from the guttering. Those calls he’d made, the ones she’d ignored earlier in the day, would this be happening now if she had answered? Would it have made any difference?

She crouched closer, ignoring the smell, slapped his other cheek, repeating his name. Her mind raced ahead, tripping up over what she might have to do, clear the airways, start chest compressions.

A second slap and he groaned.

‘Dave!’

His upper body jerked, he made a gargling sound and bucked, flung up an arm, his hand slamming into her nose and cheekbone, sending a sickening pain through her face.

She fell back, giddy with relief, blinked away tears and got to her feet. He was breathing, harsh rasping sounds, eyes closed. ‘Dave,’ she said.

He hadn’t a clue what he was doing. Pillock, stupid pillock. Trembling with adrenaline, she pulled her phone from her pocket and took a photograph of him in all his glory. Proof, should she need it.