Marked Men, page 14
‘Christ, you’re right,’ Ransford said. ‘He’ll go after the person himself. This bloody case gets messier. DS Fuller, have that image of the suspect circulated immediately to all city centre patrols. Top of the list, please.’
‘Will do.’
‘A couple of other things worth mentioning,’ Magda announced. ‘Toxicology is back for Lee Goodwin and Phil Nordern. Both had high levels of Ketamine in their blood.’
‘How much?’ Ransford demanded.
‘Enough to severely incapacitate them. It would explain how they had their wrists bound before going into the water. Also, they were alive when that happened: both had water in their lungs.’
She let that sink in before continuing.
‘Two of the victims – Phil Nordern and Kevin Rowe – had identical tattoos on the back of their left shoulders. Lee Goodwin may also have had one, but the skin of that area was badly damaged.’
‘Tattoos of what?’ Ransford asked.
Magda looked at Sean.
‘The letter M and numbers one and eight,’ he stated. ‘I had a check of the database we keep on gang tattoos. No luck so far.’
‘You’ll be searching a long time,’ Fuller said, raising himself up in his seat. ‘It’s the postal code for the area around Gorton they all came from. The M18 crew. I imagine it’s what they called themselves.’
Ransford eagerly nodded his agreement. ‘Yes – that would fit.’
Fuller floated a gloating look to Magda and Sean.
‘DS Dragomir,’ Ransford said, ‘I think you need to look closely at their juvenile records, social services reports, cautions, warnings. The lot. See exactly who else was in that gang.’ He consulted his notes. ‘DS Fuller, was there not something else from the Kevin Rowe crime scene?’
Fuller’s eyes were guarded. ‘Sorry?’
‘Forensics. Did they not locate something on the exterior of the property?’
DC Moor turned to his partner. ‘On the glass of that sliding door.’
It speaks, thought Sean. At last, it speaks.
A flash of irritation was in Fuller’s eyes. ‘Oh. Yes. That’s being processed at the moment. I haven’t had an estimate of when we can expect anything …’
‘What, exactly, are we talking about here?’ Magda demanded.
‘A handprint left behind on the glass. Forensics were able to lift three good fingerprints.’
Sly bastard, Sean thought. You were trying to keep that back.
‘Well,’ Ransford said, ‘let us know how it turns out. In the meantime, we want Army Coat’s circulating.’
‘I’ll get Katie May on it straightaway,’ Fuller responded.
‘Good.’ Ransford directed a serious look at both pairs of officers. ‘Keep at it all of you – this thing needs to be resolved quickly.’
TWENTY-SIX
The pub’s bright lights contrasted sharply with the dingy terraces of housing that surrounded it. Proper locals’ place this, Jordan Hughes thought, making his way to an empty table. He placed his pint down and sat with his back to the wall.
It was weird to be back after so many years away. He could remember them coming here once he and Anthony looked old enough to get served. The rest of them lurking out the back, waiting for their drinks to be ferried out. Except Lee, Jordan smiled. They couldn’t risk bringing him: poor bastard never did look more than about twelve. Then he remembered seeing the state of him on that pavement by the cashpoint on Portland Street. He had still looked young, but it was a ruined young. Face sunken, skin all blotchy. Pathetic. Maybe he should try and find him next; finishing the bloke off would be doing him a favour.
He took a gulp of lager and looked about. The interior was pretty much as he remembered. Except for the big bastard TV screens. Those things were bloody everywhere. The sport seemed endless. Match after match after match. When it wasn’t football, they’d find something else to show. Tennis. Car racing. Ice hockey, even.
There were a few other drinkers in, but none sitting very close. He removed the bits and bobs from his coat pocket. Flyers for Anthony’s venues round town. The envelope with Anthony’s address. The cash-point card he’d taken off Kevin. The menu card for the pizza place he liked to use.
He tried, once more, to sift memory scraps from his missing two days. The mad bender he’d gone on after buying the bottle of vodka with the young lads’ money.
But all he got was haze. Mist. Mush. Too much of this, he thought, draining his pint and heading to the bar for another. A flurry of people had appeared while he’d been sitting down. When handed his change, he thought she’d made a mistake. Two quid fifty a pint?
The barmaid read his expression. ‘Happy hour’s just started, love. Till nine. Triples and a mixer cost the same, too.’
‘Fuck me.’ He grinned. ‘I’ll have a whisky, as well. Straight.’
He knocked it back while standing at the bar. As he was carrying his pint over to his seat, he spotted a corner of a newspaper poking out from the top of a fruit machine. He slid it down. The thing was a couple of days old, but it would do for something to flick through. The front-page headline about a double-murder barely registered, until he reached a name. His drink froze inches from his lips.
Lee Goodwin. He was dead? Murdered?
Jordan placed his drink to one side. The paper said he’d probably been in the water for over forty-eight hours. A quick mental calculation: must have been after I’d seen him begging by that bank. Maybe that same night.
He rubbed at the sides of his face with both hands. The morning he’d gone into town looking for Lee, his trainers had been muddy. The paper said his body had been in a canal lock, down near Castlefield. He lifted the fingers of his right hand to the cut on his forehead. Blurred impressions of an argument at the front of a fire-lit cave. He thought it had been a dream. He knew there were no caves in Manchester – but there were railway arches.
But, he said to himself, the first time I went looking for Lee at that spot was the morning when the young copper tried asking me some questions. Wasn’t it?
Realization caused him to slump lower in his seat. The policeman had been talking about Lee. That’s who had died. Jesus, Jordan thought. Could it have been me? Did I wander down there after I’d been on that vodka?
He turned to the rest of the story, needing to know more details. The headline on the inner page read: Foul Play for Dead Pair?
Victim’s hands had been secured behind his back.
Of all the endless hours, Jordan thought, that I spent imagining how I was going to kill them, never once did I think about drowning them. Usually, it had ended up with me strangling them or beating them to death. Or, for Carl and Anthony, setting them on fire. Just like they did to the old hobo in the graveyard.
He read the last part of the article. Second victim was believed to be a council worker night fishing in Debdale Park. Jordan sat back, torn between laughing and gagging. He stared dumbly at the page: that had to be Phil Nordern. Fuck, he thought. The lake in that park was where I’d been planning to get him; when he was on his own, fishing beside that miserable patch of water.
He crossed his arms tight and rocked himself back and forth. Feelings of despair were welling up. Surely I’d have some memory … Shaking his head, he reached for his pint and pulled half of it down his throat.
By half eight, he was having trouble counting the empties on his table. The pub had been getting steadily busier during happy hour, though most people were happy to stand in the area before the bar.
Every now and again he’d glance at the front page. At times, he wanted to tear the paper apart, the sense of being cheated was so sharp. At least with Kevin Rowe he could recall making the bloke suffer. The way he’d begged and cried and whimpered. Lee and Phil? He couldn’t remember a thing. Not the sensation of binding their wrists, dragging them to the water’s edge, nothing.
His mind kept going back to the bit of paper with Anthony’s address on. He’d meant to go over there tonight, have a good look at the place. See if there was any way to get in. Once he’d dealt with Brown, it was going to be the rest of their turns, starting with Carl. Last would be the little scratty one, Nick.
But now this … he stared at the paper for a bit longer then tossed it further along the padded bench. Have I, he wondered, completely lost it?
‘Here you go.’
A wet slice of lemon plopped down onto the table. He regarded the moist yellow rind. Had someone just spoke to him? With a bit of effort, he lifted his chin.
The first thing he saw was a pair of jeans: tight fitting. Leather jacket, black. Shirt that was all shimmering, top buttons undone. She was grinning down at him. Light brown hair, piled up on her head. About thirty years old, though he always found it hard to tell with women. He glanced past her. No one else was nearby. ‘Did you say something?’
‘Yeah.’ She plonked herself into the chair opposite. Nodded at the bit of lemon. ‘Thought you’d want it.’
He frowned. ‘Why?’
She used the tip of her tongue to line up the straw jutting out of a tall glass that clinked with ice. ‘Because you look like you’ve been sucking on them all night!’
Her laughter was loud. Raucous. But not unkind. He didn’t understand the comment, but it caused him to grin uncertainly. ‘You what?’
‘Sucking on lemons. You.’ She reached across, cupped a hand over his. ‘Aaaar – just messing with you. See, you’re smiling now. Better already.’
She sat back and looked towards the bar. ‘Fuck’s sake, Jacks. Always late.’
He stared at his hand, still feeling the tingle of where her skin had made contact. Warm waves ran right up to the crook of his elbow.
‘So, you waiting on a mate like me?’
He looked across the table, saw her eyes were on him once more. Bright green they were. Like those jewels. Emeralds. Her accent was local. Manc lass through and through.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘Just … just having a couple. Before I head home, like.’
‘Mmm.’ She hooked the straw into her mouth, took a big sip. An eyebrow arched as she surveyed his cluster of empty pint glasses. ‘Looks it.’
‘You’re proper cheeky, aren’t you?’
‘Better believe it,’ she shot back, checking the bar again. Her phone must have buzzed because she reached into a little clutch bag and checked the device’s screen. ‘Bollocks!’
‘What’s up?’
‘Jacks. Blown me out, hasn’t she?’
‘Jacks is a woman?’
‘Yeah. Jacqueline.’ She sipped again, assessing him now. ‘Looks like you’re stuck with me. At least until this happy hour finishes.’
He wasn’t sure when they fell out of the pub. She’d looped an arm in his as they stumbled along the street. It all felt surreal. The woman was … he hardly dared let himself think it. Could she really be keen on someone like him?
‘Where’s somewhere we can get more booze?’ she sighed. ‘Normally, I meet Jacks over Beswick way.’
Short of going into town, he wasn’t sure. ‘I’ve not been around for a bit … probably a curry house?’
‘Curry house? Fuck that. Where do you live, anyway?’
‘Over that way.’ He waved to their left.
‘Got any tinnies in your fridge? Bit of Baileys or something?’
He came to a halt, waiting a brief moment before her arm tugged at his. Realizing he’d stopped, she looked back at him questioningly.
‘You want …’ He squeezed his eyes shut. Tried again. ‘You’re talking about coming back to my place?’
She tipped her head to the side. ‘What? You’ve not got a wife tucked away back there, have you?’
‘No … it’s just that … I don’t know. Look at me, for fuck’s sake. And look at you.’
She lifted her free hand, circled it above her head. ‘Don’t be going all cosmic on me. This is fun, isn’t it?’
He nodded cautiously. ‘Yeah.’
‘Let’s crack on, then,’ she laughed, yanking him forward. ‘Besides, as the rough look goes, you’re fucking it.’
Starting to unlock the door to his bedsit made him nervous. The place was a straight-up shit tip. He was certain she’d take one look and run in the other direction.
‘Is there a toilet along there?’ she asked, pointing down the corridor.
‘Yeah,’ he said, relieved at the chance of tidying it gave him. ‘At the end.’
‘Line them up, cowboy,’ she said, walking away. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’ Once inside, he surveyed the amount of rubbish. He wasn’t used to this amount of stuff. Inside, you had to keep things tidy. With the side of his foot, he scraped all the empty cans, food wrappers and other crap toward the bed. Then he dropped to his knees and swept the lot beneath it. Next, he thought, is to open the window: the place had to whiff. He’d just wiped furiously at the sink when there was a knocking on the door.
‘Little pig, little pig, will you not let me in?’
‘Here you go,’ he mumbled, swinging it open and stepping back. ‘Cans on the table, there.’
‘Cheers.’ She made a beeline for them, cracked two open and glugged from one as she held the other out to him. ‘Any tunes?’
‘What?’
‘Tunes. Music? You got any music?’ She looked around. ‘You even got telly?’
‘No. Not yet. Still sorting myself out.’
She pulled her phone out. ‘Sounds shit through this, but better than nothing.’ She sat on the end of the bed and her forefinger began to move to and fro across the screen. ‘What do you like?’
‘Oh … you choose.’
‘Soul? Bit of Barry White?’
Wasn’t that, he thought, shagging music? His nerves were back. Palms felt wet enough to drip. ‘Now I need to go. Two seconds.’
‘Don’t mind me.’
In the toilet he tried to get a grip. She was so out of his league. Crazy. He splashed cold water on his face, rubbed wet hands across his scalp. What if he couldn’t make anything happen? Like in that massage place? He remembered the humiliation of that. No, he told himself. This is different. This lass – for some weird reason – actually wants me. He stared at himself in the mirror. ‘Come on Jordy. Just play it fucking cool, man.’
Going back up the corridor, he agonized over what to say to her. His mind was racing too fast. Something about her being beautiful? Maybe how amazing her eyes were. So green. Yeah, tell her that and then leave it. She said she likes rough, so she won’t be expecting a load of soppy chit-chat.
But when he opened the door, she had gone.
TWENTY-SEVEN
‘You don’t think there’s anyone else?’ Magda asked.
Sean surveyed the printed sheets spread across the table. ‘As far as I can tell from this lot, no. But it’s tricky when there are this many people. And they’re all so young.’
By trawling through the juvenile records system on the PNC, he’d gathered all information relating to Lee Goodwin’s, Phil Nordern’s and Kevin Rowe’s involvements with the police and social services. He’d then spent the morning colour coding their names and those of anyone else who had been mentioned.
Lee Goodwin was red, Phil Nordern was yellow and Kevin Rowe was blue.
‘You see how some of the incidents involved only the three of them?’ Sean pointed to some sheets. ‘But then other names feature in different reports. Carl Parker, for instance – who I’ve indicated with pink. He was active especially if it involved antisocial behaviour. Cautions for breaking into cars. Then, of course, there’s Anthony Brown: he’s orange.’
‘That man.’ Magda’s voice was bitter. ‘He’ll be at the heart of this, I’m certain.’
‘And this one,’ Sean lifted another sheet. ‘A lad called Nick McGhee – he’s purple. He appears on and off, so perhaps more of a peripheral figure. Petty vandalism and shoplifting, mainly.’
‘And that one,’ Magda said, eyeing a few sheets marked with a green tag. ‘He doesn’t feature nearly as much.’
‘Jordan Hughes. Yes – maybe he formed a new friendship group. Notice how he’s a year older, too?’
‘Perhaps he moved to a different school?’
‘Could well be.’
‘I think we should try and speak to a member of the school’s teaching staff; try and get a first-hand account of what these lads were like. We’re assuming they were operating as a gang – we need to know that for certain.’
‘I agree.’
‘Good. And we need to find out which of them are still in the area; we could put Katie onto that.’ Magda glanced at Sean. ‘She’s very good at what she does, isn’t she?’
Sean narrowed his eyes.
‘What?’ Magda protested. ‘Always so suspicious with your looks! You don’t think she is?’
‘No, I do. She is.’ He started gathering in the sheets.
‘And she can help us keep an eye on what DS Fuller’s up to.’
He paused to look at his partner. ‘Hang on. That’s not fair to put her in that position.’
‘Did you see how he was keeping quiet about the fingerprints from Kevin Rowe’s crime scene?’ Magda stamped a foot. ‘So sneaky.’
‘And did you notice the little notebook he was writing in? It disappeared as soon as we’d finished our summing up.’
‘Was that what he was writing in? A notebook?’
‘I think it went into his jacket.’
‘Not with his main file?’ She moved to the door and peered through its window into the main operations room. ‘He always drapes his jacket on the back of his chair. I can see it from here.’
‘So?’
She glanced back at him, eyes sparkling mischievously. ‘You know, I’m very good.’ A hand extended out from her side, thumb and forefinger like a pincer as she daintily fished in an imaginary pocket. ‘A boy at my school taught me.’
Sean shook his head. ‘No way. You can’t.’
