“How did you get on with Ticker?”
Butler double-checked that Wooderson's door was closed then in a lowered voice said, “Listen, can we meet up tonight? Better still, come to dinner.”
“This isn't like you, Sam. You seem worried?”
That was a joke although Butler didn't get it. The DS wasn't happy unless he had something to worry about.
“I saw Ticker, filed the report.”
“Good.”
“Come to dinner. Janet would love to see you again.”
“Does she know I'm coming?” A long silence answered the question. Eventually Cole asked, “What time?”
“Make it eight.”
Butler sat with the phone tapping against his chin before he nodded purposefully and said to Anian, “You're coming to dinner tonight, eight o'clock. It's business.”
“Overtime, Sarge?”
“Don't take the piss, Anian, there's a good girl.”
Chapter 7
Rick Cole showered and changed and downed a large Teacher's before driving out towards the Butler's place. To get there he had to drive across town.
Cole knew the city. A lifetime ago he had plodded there, to begin with under the guidance of a parent constable. Now they were called street duty PCs. A dozen years later he was wearing plain clothes at the Yard but those days were so distant that he sometimes wondered if they’d really happened. For one reason or another everything had come unstuck and he had ended up at Sheerham. It could have been worse. He was acting up and had an office to himself and that in itself was a luxury for a DI. It wouldn’t last indefinitely and the grapevine buzzed with rumours of a fresh-faced DCI coming over from the Yard. Driving through town most people would use the main road that passed through the south on its way to the city, and they'd find it one of those places that didn't register. Perhaps unconsciously, they'd closed their eyes. The south was where most of the blacks lived and was congested,, noisy, filled with litter. It was a place to leave behind.
The MP was black, Gilly Brown, and his heart was still in the West Indies. He controlled the council, or at least his siblings who made up the majority, and on his behalf they spent more council tax on coffee mornings than libraries, more on banning the black from blackhead than bus passes for the elderly. But he was laughing at the system. His pockets were comfortably lined. Gilly Brown was living proof that enough split votes would let in the wackos. He'd swear allegiance to the Queen and country, Princess Anne too. He'd swear to anything that moved so long as it added to his bank balance.
Tower blocks littered the skyline, council estates were run down. Finer roads ran through the north of the town where properties had their own drives and bordered a well-maintained parkland. Most of the Jews – outside of Hampstead Garden and Golders Green – lived there along with the Maltese gangsters and Gilly Brown. And Ticker Harrison.
The Sheerham High Road ran through the centre of town. It was the main shopping precinct which was dominated by the Carrington Theatre, a huge red-brick building that once, long ago, attracted the stars. Narrow side-streets criss-crossed the High Road but the shops on these petered out quickly to the odd Asian grocery that sold everything day and night and Christmas Day. Then it was row upon row of terraced housing. The front gardens were about a yard wide and out back was enough room to keep the lawnmower. Most of these buildings were in poor shape, windows were cracked or boarded and doors were blistered. It was a place covered in graffiti and litter. It was the place that produced most of the criminals and the highest unemployment figures.
As the night fell and the neon took over, the pensioners barricaded themselves indoors and the youngsters came out to play. It happened in every town and city across the country yet here it was concentrated, the overspill from the city, and the energy was frightening. The bars and clubs were packed with young drinkers slamming down their highpowered bottles.
This was Sheerham.
Cole's patch.
While he waited at the crossroads before the Carrington Theatre he noticed that something from the past was stirring. Lottery money and local taxes had revamped the Class A building and given it an exotic quality. The red brick glowed like a furnace and threw out a ray of comfort over the Romanian beggars as they pushed their smack-faced kids at the box-office queue. There was a woman on the billboard, eight-feet high, in skimpy black underwear and high heels.
Rick Cole took a second glance at the cardboard blonde, Anthea Palmer, ex-weather girl, and while traffic lights held him back he decided that the smile on her face was as false as the promise of the theatre’s new dawn.
Janet Butler was forty and a rinsed blonde. She might have walked in from the sixties. She had settled comfortably into motherhood, surprising most who knew her, including her husband. She'd met Cole on a dozen or so occasions, mostly police functions when Cole used to go to them. Her eyes, like only an older woman's could, promised everything and nothing at all. She flirted and he let her. It was all very cosy, like an afternoon tea dance without the afters. Safe and easy and none of it serious. At the door she gave him a decorous little hug and her perfume touched a memory.
“Rick, it's been a long, long time.”
She was warm and familiar. It took him a moment to adjust. To remember that beneath it all she was as cold as the rest of them. That once upon a time she'd had an affair and left her husband devastated. “Too long, Janet. You're looking good.”
“Better than good. Take another look.”
She gave him a little twirl.
“Agreed. How's the baby.”
“The baby's name is Lucy and she's good too. If you're very, very quiet you can take a peep into her bedroom. That'll be a treat for you. Come on in.” She fumbled for his hand, more of a caress really and, rubbing his hand all the way, led him into the dining room. Cole heard voices before the door was opened so finding another guest was hardly a surprise. Discovering that it was DC Anian Stanford definitely was.
She stood by the CD, glass in hand, while Butler knelt searching through a pile of discs. In place of her working clothes were black jeans, brown vest and sneakers that left a strip of olive instep. There was nothing under the vest. Her nipples stuck out like a couple of filter-tips that looked good enough to smoke. Her hair was down, black as tar and elbow length. He noticed for the first time how tall and skinny she was.
Janet spread her hand and said matter-of-factly, “You know Anian?”
Cole nodded briefly. Anian returned his acknowledgement with a quick nervous smile.
Butler found his CD and waved the disc toward his guest. “Guv.” “Sam.”
The DS struggled to his feet. “Drink?”
“Good idea.”
Leaving Anian to load the music, they moved to the drinks cabinet, out of earshot, and while he poured, Butler said, “Anian's working the case with me.”
“Right.”
“You don't mind?”
“You should have mentioned it, that's all.”
Butler tut-tutted the idea. “Didn't seem important.”
“She's not my type.”
Butler fell in. “Colour? You?”
“Figure. She hasn't got one.”
“Nor have the fashion models. It’s the fashion."
“I’m an old-fashioned guy.”
Butler smiled and raised his glass. “To old times, Guv.”
Cole nodded. “I'll go with that.” He emptied half his glass. Butler held on to the bottle, waiting, then topped up as Red Red Wine filled the room.
“I want her to be in on this. She's done most of the legwork.” “Talking shop. Janet will love you.”
“I've primed her. We'll get shot of it while she's serving up. That all right with you?”
Cole shrugged and wondered whether he'd made a mistake. He was already feeling the limb that he knew Butler was going to put him on. The women were on the sofa, drinking Jacob’s Creek and jabbering like women do. Their conversation ended abruptly as the men approached.