Maureen didn’t wait for an explanation. She went downstairs to the kitchen and soon the smell of bacon was drifting upstairs. Having another breakfast at teatime wasn’t going to help his sense of disorientation, but his stomach was rumbling. He got out of bed and pulled on his clothes.
In the kitchen, one place was laid at the table, and a cup of tea was waiting for him.
‘They’re saying there’s been a murder up at the flats.’
She was wiping down the surfaces, her back to him so he couldn’t read her expression.
‘Who’s they?’ Sean said through a mouthful of toast.
‘I know you’re not meant to say, but did you … was it on your shift?’
‘Did I see him?’ Sean nodded. ‘I found him.’
‘Are you all right?’ She turned and gave him a look that demanded a truthful answer. She knew him too well.
He was all right, or at least he would be if he didn’t have to talk about it. The body curled on the stairs wasn’t the worst of it; the thing he couldn’t get out of his head was the mother’s cry of grief.
‘If I can nail the bastard that did it, then I’ll be all right.’
He told her about being seconded to work on Khan’s team and a beaming smile lit up her face.
‘I’m so proud of you. You know that, don’t you, love?’
That evening, he found Carly, Rick and a couple of others in the corner of the pub.
‘Well, well, if it isn’t Acting Detective Constable Denton, the fastest promotion in the west, or make that the north, or shall we just call him, “South Yorkshire’s finest recruit!”’ Carly stood up and gave him a huge hug.
‘Steady on,’ he could feel his ears going hot. ‘Not until tomorrow morning, technically. And it’s only a secondment, I’m hardly …’
‘Ah, leave it out! You’ve done well, and I, for one, am going to buy you a pint to celebrate.’ She went over to the bar followed by calls from a couple of others to get one in for them.
Rick leant forward and spoke quietly.
‘Keep me in the loop, mate. Khan’s not known for being a team player, but the victim was part of an old case of mine.’
‘Oh?’
‘Mohammad Asaf seems to have been keeping his hands clean, but some of his associates are still on our radar, including the cousin.’
‘Saleem?’
‘You know him?’
‘We’ve met.’
‘Yeah? Well I hope you’ve still got your wallet, he’s a light fingered little bastard.’
‘To be honest, Rick,’ he looked round to check nobody was listening, ‘it’s all a bit over my head. I’ll do what I can, but I don’t really know what’s going on. There must have been someone more experienced available, so why did DCI Khan ask for me?’
Rick took a sip of beer and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
‘Because you’re young and impressionable,’ Rick said, ‘and because he’s got no mates.’
‘Funny!’ Although Sean wasn’t sure Rick was joking. ‘Saleem Asaf thinks it’s a turf war. His boys versus the white boys off the Chasebridge estate.’
Rick grinned. ‘That’s your real answer.’
‘To what?’
‘Why Khan wants you on his team. People trust you. They tell you stuff. Wish I’d thought of it first, you could have come along with me.’
‘We’re all in it together, mate.’
‘Are we?’
Carly approached the table with their drinks and the conversation drifted away from the case and on to the scandal of the Doncaster Belles being relegated, simply because the dressing rooms at the stadium weren’t up to standard.
‘It’s bloody typical, just because the men’s game is shit, the women have to suffer,’ said Carly, slamming a swiftly emptied pint glass on the table.
The jukebox was playing David Bowie’s ‘Fashion’ and Sean’s mind was focusing on what the hell he was going to wear tomorrow. Khan and Simkins wore suits. He’d have to dig his own out, and pray he hadn’t put on any weight since the last time he went to a funeral.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Halsworth Grange
Bill lets Chloe ride the mower. It’s not the same model she used at her last place, so he takes her through its attributes one by one, as if he’s selling it to her.
‘Best thing, in my opinion, is this safety feature. Soon as you’re not in contact with the seat, it cuts out. On these slopes, that could save your life if it topples over.’
He offers her a Halsworth Grange baseball hat to keep the sun out of her eyes and she pulls it low, hiding her face.
‘There you go, much better!’ He laughs a big belly laugh, but she doesn’t see why. ‘Only kidding,’ he adds, holding up his big hands in supplication. ‘Don’t mind my sense of humour, no one else does.’
He explains where he wants her to go, behind the house to the orchard.
‘Leave the grass long around the base of the trees,’ he tells her, ‘it’s good for the bees. You’ll have the place to yourself. Closed to the public.’
She nods and wonders if he knows that she wants to hide. Perhaps he read her disclosure letter before handing it over to his boss, or he’s seen the same headline that she saw in the local paper. All he needs to do is put two and two together. A quick search on the Internet will do that for him in a matter of seconds. She wonders what pictures they’ve got of her, and whether she’ll need to change her hair again.
A pair of magpies spring up as she drives the mower into the orchard. She takes off the ear defenders and listens to their shouts. But they’re not like her Jay, they don’t have any message for her. She smiles to herself. If people knew what was going on in my head, she thinks, they’d lock me up again for sure. Birds don’t talk; everyone knows that.
She puts the ear defenders back on and muffles the noise of the engine as she starts the mower. She guides the machine carefully around each tree trunk just as Bill asked. In her muted world her mind wanders back to the bird with the blue tattoo, laughing like static. The boy and the bird, the bird and the boy, one in the same.
Damn. She’s mown too close to a tree. The circle of long grass and wildflowers is lopsided, more like a half-moon. She hopes Bill won’t be annoyed. Her mind is messing her around; it might be because she’s not eating enough. She’s been trying to ignore the hunger, telling herself she can manage, but other people have noticed, so it’s becoming more difficult. Emma kept some shepherds’s pie for her last night. She wolfed it down cold while her friend stood watching her.
‘You need to get something in,’ Emma said. ‘Some Pot Noodles or something. I’ll lend you if you’re strapped for cash.’
Chloe said she would, but she knows if she starts borrowing, she’ll have to pay it back with interest. She’s not getting into all that again, not now she’s out of prison. A debt is a dangerous thing. Another protected circle of long grass is cut in half, too close to the tree. She needs to concentrate, but a thought is hanging on, the thread of a thought, pulling her back to sitting in Taheera’s car, outside the smart house that appeared to have been built in an orchard. While Taheera was talking to her brother, there was a man getting into a dark blue car, and the eyes of the man in the car were eyes she thought she knew.
‘Chloe!’ Bill is shouting from the orchard gateway. ‘Lunch break! Kettle’s on, d’you want a brew?’
She snaps back to the present and cuts the engine. When she gets back to the potting shed, ready to confess to making a mess of the mowing, a woman is there. It’s Brenda from the ticket office, Bill’s wife. She’s broad, like him, but not as tall. Chloe feels the other woman sizing her up and not looking too impressed with what she sees.
‘I see what you mean, Bill; there’s nothing to her.’
Chloe is frozen to the spot. Brenda Coldacre must have seen the newspaper reports and she’s come looking for a killer, a monster, but she’s just found a woman with no strength at all, a woman with bones like a bird who can be snapped in two with one hand.