To Catch a Rabbit (6 page)

‘Why don’t you use a notebook like everyone else?’

‘I better get off.’ He edged towards the door. ‘I’m supposed to be back on the estate in twenty minutes.’

‘What do you think the connection is?’ She sounded like it mattered, what he thought, not taking the piss or anything. ‘I mean with our girl?’

‘Don’t ask me, I’m just a PCSO.’ Passing her in the doorway, he could smell her. It was a clean, perfume and soap smell. Like fresh sheets.

Outside Chasebridge Health Centre, Sean was being ignored. Carly, his partner, was doing better, pressing leaflets into the hands of women surrounded by sticky kids. She acted like one of the lads back at the station but out here she switched on some secret woman-talk thing.

‘Come on girls, give us a minute, cheers duck.’

Bold black letters warned of a batch of high-strength heroin in circulation, with a helpline number and the usual details of local drugs agencies. Most of the leaflets ended up in the hoods of buggies or stuffed in pockets, while others were blown away down the parade of shops. Sean couldn’t help thinking that this was not the target audience. This lot were more at risk of an overdose of trans-fats than heroin.

A woman pushed a double pram across the zebra crossing, a baby in front, a toddler behind and a little girl of about four standing on the back axle. Her face was pale and the knuckles of her hands were hard and white. Alongside her, a youth kept pace, his hands in his pockets and his head down. Sean couldn’t decide if he was the father of the children or an older son. The way she launched her family off the pavement and across the road, without looking, was beyond careless. It was beyond caring. Sean decided that this one needed his leaflet.

‘Excuse me.’ He stepped forward. She was level with him but her eyes were fixed on the glass door of the health centre. ‘We’re giving out information and a helpline number. A potential risk from high-grade heroin…’

‘Come on Neesha.’ The youth was holding the door open for her. The hood of his sweatshirt framed his profile and Sean had a feeling they’d met before.

It was starting to rain. He stepped back under the over-hanging roof, but the wind was gusting the rain in horizontal sheets. Carly had gone to put up a poster in the little branch library at the other end of the parade. She was taking her time, but it was warm in there and she’d probably been offered a cup of tea. Ten minutes later, and nobody else had taken a leaflet, when the door opened and the overloaded buggy was shoved back out on to the pavement. The youth was pushing this time and as he reached the crossing the woman turned back.

‘Give us one of your leaflets then.’

‘Right.’ Sean fished a dry one out of the middle of the stack. ‘And if you have anything you’d like to tell us, anything at all that could help, you can phone the number, here…’

She looked like she wouldn’t take it, but a glance over at her family told her that nobody was watching. The leaflet disappeared inside the pocket of her thin jacket and she set off across the road.

‘Oi, you lot! Wait for me, you bastards!’

Sean watched her go. Her thin legs were bare below her leggings and, despite the cold, she was wearing those plastic clogs that everyone bought last summer.

‘Take care,’ he said, knowing she couldn’t hear him.

Sean handed his radio in at the end of his shift. He had no plans for the evening. A DVD and a take away with his nan would suit him fine. He saw Lizzie Morrison rounding the corner of the corridor a split second before they would have crashed into one another. She was sending a text and looked up at him, startled and slightly embarrassed, as he jumped out of her way. He liked how it made her eyes extra large, like a cartoon rabbit. There was one in a chocolate advert when he was a kid with a really sexy voice; only later it turned out it was just some old actress. Lizzie was saying something but he couldn’t get the advert out of his head. Caramel, that’s what it was for.

‘Did you hear a word I just said?’ Lizzie was laughing. It was his turn to look embarrassed. ‘I said, it’s like there’s been a nuclear holocaust and nobody’s told me. I can’t find a single person who’s up for going out tonight. It’s like, I have literally no friends.’

‘Where do you fancy going?’ The words were out there before he realised he’d said them and there was no way to haul them back in.

‘Well. I have to eat something or I’m going to pass out. Don’t mind what, but I could eat a horse.’

‘Don’t know any horse restaurants, but there’s a nice Chinese near the swimming baths.’ He made her smile. Almost made her laugh. She checked her phone again as if it could tell her what to do.

Twenty minutes later, they were sharing a basket of prawn crackers at The New Moon Restaurant and Take Away. They’d agreed not to talk shop. Which left them sitting in silence after a brief attempt at ‘where did you grow up’ and ‘where do you live now’. Her one-word answers told Sean everything he already knew about how little he had in common with Lizzie Morrison. Half way through the spring rolls, she broke first.

‘Did you know that the second overdose girl, the one in Balby, had form?’

‘What for?’

‘She was known to Vice. Three arrests.’

He nodded. ‘What about the girl who found her?’

‘We’ve got nothing on her. She was from Kosovo too, but is technically married to an Englishman. The dead one, it’s really sad, she came as a refugee when she was only a kid. Her parents died in the war over there.’

‘Shit.’ The waiter put a dish of chow mein in front of him, but he felt his appetite going. ‘What a waste of a life.’

She picked up a pair of chopsticks and hooked a bean sprout into her mouth. ‘We can’t stop people destroying themselves.’

She was right. He thought of his dad, his voice cracked with whisky and his memory gone. He looked like an old man and he wasn’t even fifty.

‘The job of the police, and we humble civilians who’ve thrown in our lot with the Force,’ Lizzie saluted with her chopsticks, ‘is to lock up the people who are making money exploiting the vulnerable.’

‘Okay, Wonder Woman,’ he raised his pint to her, ‘I’m right behind you.’

He’d imagined them going on somewhere, a club or maybe the little Spanish bar near the Civic, but when she’d cleared her plate, she sat back and thanked him for saving her from boredom. She fancied getting off home now for an early night. They paid the bill and got their coats. Outside on the pavement, ready to go in opposite directions, she turned to him.

‘There’s something I wanted to ask your advice about.’

‘Mine?’ he said.

‘I started at Donny Central the same time as you, so we’re in the same boat.’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’

‘Just between the two of us - I’m not sure how to put this - but if you thought something, or someone, wasn’t quite right. Let’s say, someone wasn’t playing it straight, who would you go to?’

Sean walked up from the bus stop, round the curved crescent of Winston Grove and into Clement Grove. There were lights on in the front rooms and the silver-blue flicker of TV screens. Beyond the Groves, the first block of the Chasebridge flats loomed in the dark.

There was a woman in a navy tracksuit sitting at the kitchen table with his nan.

‘You know Carole, don’t you?’ Maureen said, as she got up to put the kettle on.

‘All right?’ Sean greeted the woman. ‘No tea, thanks Nan, I’ll get a beer.’

‘Carole’s got some nice T-shirts, only a fiver, all good labels.’

A few months ago, Sean would have shown more interest. It never would have crossed his mind to ask where things came from. A bargain was a bargain. As he bent down to get his beer from the fridge, he caught sight of Carole reaching for the zip of the holdall on the floor beside her. She closed it quickly.

‘Mostly just kiddy sizes. I don’t think I’ve got anything that would fit you.’ She must know what he did for a living.

‘I’m going up.’

Maureen wasn’t thinking straight, letting Carole bring her knock-off gear round here. He’d have to find a time to tell her, but he had stuff to do just now. In his bedroom he hooked his phone up to the computer and uploaded the photos from the conference room. When they were printed, he added them to his flipchart. He sat on the end of the bed and took a long drink from the can. Bloody hell. He’d been out for dinner with Lizzie Morrison. And she’d asked his advice, although he wasn’t sure whether he’d given her the answer she was looking for: keep your head down and your mouth shut. All the same, he couldn’t help wondering who she was talking about.

She tested the pedals in the hire car and tried to adjust the seat, wishing she’d paid extra for an upgrade. She put her foot on the accelerator and the tiny vehicle lurched out of the station forecourt. The one-way system drew her through the town and out on to a main road that led east, through semi-industrial villages, past farms and warehouses, until finally she came to a signpost telling her that Moorsby-on-Humber was just two more miles. The road began to look familiar and soon she was on the outskirts of the village, passing the pub where Phil had been working last time she came. She had a feeling Stacey worked there now. She rounded a bend and pulled up in front of a row of terraced farm cottages. She cut the engine, pulled on the handbrake and sat still, waiting. Stacey hadn’t told her not to come, but she hadn’t sounded particularly welcoming either. Karen took a deep breath and got out of the car. The house was in the middle of the row. It was rented from a local farmer. She noticed that the windows and door had been recently replaced with PVC double-glazing. She’d come this far with the conviction that she should do something, support Stacey, help her and help Phil, if he could be helped. Now she wasn’t so sure. She rang the bell. The chime triggered the frantic barking of a dog and a weight hurled itself against the door.

‘Marvin! Get back, you stupid mutt!’

After a scuffle, Stacey opened it. She’d become thinner, but harder. Still pretty, but some of the effortlessness had gone.

‘Karen. Hi.You’d better come in.’

‘Marvin? I didn’t know you’d got a dog.’

‘She’s Phil’s.’ Stacey said. ‘Silly bugger didn’t ask what sex it was. Got her from a feller whose house he was decorating. Called it after Marvin Gaye.’

Typical Phil, Karen thought.

Stacey disappeared into the kitchen to put the kettle on, while Karen sat down in the front room, taking in the tidy toy corner and the neat row of framed pictures on the mantelpiece. One was a photograph of Phil on a beach with Holly on his shoulders, her white blonde hair against a sky full of rain.

‘Cleethorpes.’ Stacey handed her a mug of coffee. ‘You wouldn’t believe it was July. He had a summer season with an end-of-the-pier band.’ Karen winced at the chemical smell of instant. ‘Is that all right? You do take milk, don’t you?’

‘Yes, it’s lovely. Thanks.’ They sat in silence for a moment. Karen wasn’t sure how to frame her questions. Max said she mustn’t be too bossy, so she chose her words carefully. ‘Have you thought any more about talking to the police?’

Stacey looked into her mug. ‘I told your dad. There’s no point.’

‘What about a helpline? There’s a missing person’s helpline.’

Stacey pressed her toes into the pile of the carpet. Her nails were painted the same shade of purple, like chameleons disappearing into their habitat. Karen could see Holly’s features in her, the same wide brow and open face.

‘Would you like me to do something?’ Karen offered. Stacey shook her head. ‘Are you in some kind of trouble? I don’t really understand.’

‘Look, Karen, I don’t want to be nasty, I thought we were all right, me and Phil, apart from the fact he’s never had a proper job, but it turns out it’s worse than that, he’s been a right bastard and I didn’t know the half of it.’ A rush of air and water gurgled through the radiator. Marvin pushed through the kitchen door and wagged hopefully at Stacey’s feet. ‘Now he’s buggered off and I haven’t even had the chance to have it out with him, face to face.’

Getting no response, the dog turned to the visitor and pricked up one ear. Karen reached out a hand and Marvin sniffed it.

‘I’m sorry…’ She wanted to say something else, defend her brother, but she wasn’t sure what the charges were.

‘It’s okay. I was proper worried and all, the first couple of days. But then a friend set me straight. Told me a few home truths. I think he’s just legged it, if you must know.’

‘Has he gone off before?’

Stacey shook her head.

‘Dad said...’

‘I’m sorry for your dad. He looked, right, I don’t know, disappointed. I told him Phil gets cold feet about marriage, and being part of a family and that, because it didn’t sound as bad.’ She took a slurp of coffee. ‘Look, this friend of ours, Johnny, came round and told me some stuff about Phil and, well, it weren’t just one other lass, but a few. Johnny says he’s been covering for him ever since we’ve been together.’

‘And Phil’s with one of these women?’

‘There’s a married one. Don’t know her name. Her husband left her and she was doing up her house to sell. Phil worked out there for a few weeks, decorating. I never thought.’ Stacey rubbed a mark on the arm of her chair with her thumb. It looked as if she was trying not to cry.

‘And where is she now?’

‘Johnny says, last he heard, she’s got a place in Florida. He reckons they’ve gone there.’