Moonlight Bones (A DI Fenella Sallow Crime Thriller Book 9), page 12
"I'm…" Fog filled Goose's head. "…doing no harm."
The redhead raised her voice, pink fingernails jabbing. "Shift yourself, man. Sling your hook." Her dirt-brown eyes challenged him to disagree. "Go on, get out of it, skedaddle!"
Goose said nothing. He had hitchhiked to the city, arriving late at night, bought a bottle of rum under the counter from a shack a street away, settled down to enjoy the booze, and must have fallen asleep. He glanced around, looking for the rum bottle, saw it was empty and groaned.
The redhead began to shout, her Geordie accent pronounced. "Get out of it! Hadaway, man! Hadaway!"
A sudden urge to place his hands around her neck seized Goose. He pictured her thrashing around as he squeezed until her throat made a choking sound, until red splotches of burst blood vessels speckled the whites of her dirt-brown eyes, until her face became as blank as the mannequin's.
She took a step closer, mean eyes glaring. "Hadaway! Filthy dosser. Get out of it, man."
Goose waited.
A whirl of warmth swirled in his stomach.
He did not move.
Not yet.
"Away with you! Hadaway!" She was screaming now, a high-pitched Geordie yell, and moving closer. "Hadaway, man!"
When her narrow mouth opened again, he sprang to his feet. His stiff joints worked together as he lunged.
"Police!" She fell back against the window, clutching her Louis Vuitton bag in a rugby grip. "Police! Help! Police!"
Goose knocked her aside, staggered from the shop doorway, scampered along Market Street, and darted into a narrow cobblestoned alley.
Chapter 74
Leaning back against a row of tall black dustbins, Goose sucked in the putrid air. Stillness cloaked the passageway. Tall brick buildings cast a shawl of shade. Nothing moved in the sweet-scented stink of rot. From the street, it looked like a blind alley but bent in an L-shape with a Judas gate at the hidden end. A seven-foot-high brick wall, topped with barbed wire, surrounded the corrugated gate. Goose wasn't much of a climber, nor did he have a key for the gate.
He didn't need one.
The two thick slats of metal at the bottom slid to one side, much like a dog flap. He knew this because he'd crawled through it many times.
Goose continued to breathe hard. He felt tightness in his chest, slightly dizzy and his pulse raced. He needed a few minutes to take it easy. Once he'd caught his breath, he'd move on.
Chapter 75
A shrill voice broke the stillness. The stout-legged redhead on stilt heels stood at the alley entrance, hands on hips, head bobbing. At her side were two police officers.
All three were looking his way.
Goose's heart ticked up. He dropped to a crouch.
The redhead was speaking fast, a torrent of broad and flowing Geordie. "He went for us and tried to hoy me bag off. I saw him run down that ginnel."
One of the police officers spoke, but Goose did not hear his words. He did hear the redhead's shrill reply.
"Aye, like I said, he tried to snatch my handbag and legged it down that alley. The swine is hiding between those bins."
Goose heard the officers talking to each other, followed by the click of a radio. He swiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. Then he crab-crawled deeper into the darkness, keeping close to the side wall, head pressed down. The stink of the cobblestones curled in his nose as he moved with the silence of a shadow.
When he reached the bend, he scrambled to his feet, sprinted for the Judas gate, fell once more to a crouch, eased the metal slats aside, and slithered through the gap.
Chapter 76
He was late.
Louise Bertram rested an elbow on the table and glanced at her green burner phone.
Ten in the morning.
She sipped her oat-milk latte from a recyclable cup then looked through the café window at Hood Street, Newcastle.
A gust whipped a crisp packet around the cobbled road until it was crushed by the wheel of a bus. The bus belched to a stop at a shelter, hissed open its doors, and disgorged passengers with shopping bags. They scattered across the pavement, some heading into the buildings, some up the hill, and others striding downhill. A group remained at the bus shelter, hugging, kissing, then waving a long farewell.
But he wasn't amongst their number.
Le Petit Toon Café once cheered Louise. Quaint, quiet, with waiters in black with white aprons. Her stomping ground in the days when she was single. A hidden gem in the big city. An upscale café where rich folk drank expensive shots of espresso or its stronger cousin café serré or oat-milk lattes served in recyclable cups. A place where single women wearing high-end fashion hung out in the hopes of catching a man in a sharp suit with a cute chat-up line and a fat wallet.
The café where she and Guy first met.
A pimple faced youth in a black hoodie, blue jeans and white trainers sat at the bar sipping a tall cappuccino. Louise assessed everything about him in an eye blink. Hoodie: Louis Vuitton. Blue jeans: Saint Laurent. Trainers: Brunello Cucinelli. No. She was wrong about the trainers. Definitely Balenciaga. Not a Newcastle yob. Wealthy parents with a big house in the suburbs.
She sighed and glanced again at her phone. He was twenty minutes late. Not for the first time, she thought he might not show.
Her mind went over an everlasting sequence of dismal, guilt-laden thoughts. It had been a struggle to keep her meeting a secret from Guy. At first, given her muted response to his new job, she thought he might suspect something. But what is a wife expected to say when her husband tells her he is now a toilet attendant?
Louise had said nothing.
Guy had looked at her long and hard, his sad gaze rolling over her abdomen. Then, as moisture sparkled in his eyes, he began to sing in Italian.
"O mio babbino caro…"
Louise needed peace when it came to money and that didn't come at the end of a toilet brush. It didn't come from scrubbing urinals clean. It didn't come from menial work. That path led to struggle and strife with bills chasing you and debt collectors knocking at your door.
She turned to the café window to watch the street. An old woman in a ragged brown dress pushed a shopping trolley filled with rubbish. She stopped by the café window, pulled out a wooden hand mirror and stared at it scowling. She dropped the mirror back in the cart, turned, waved at Louise, then moved on.
Louise drained her cup, snapped open her compact mirror to check her make-up. She couldn't bring herself to think about what she would do if he didn't show.
If it goes wrong…
Once more, she turned to watch the street. A skeletal woman in a pink puff-sleeve maxi dress hobbled along the street. She stopped at the café. Her gaunt face turned to look in the window. A gold hoop hung from her nose. Her sunken eyes peered deep into the café.
With a start, Louise realised the woman was grinning; that she knew the woman; that a skeletal hand was waving at her.
Chapter 77
Miss Enid Singleton tapped a fist on the café window and tapped it again. What was Vicar Hume's housekeeper doing in Newcastle? Louise didn’t know and didn’t want to know.
Oh God, don't let Enid come in the café.
Louise waved back. Miss Singleton's grin widened. She glanced at the door and then the menu board, waved and then shuffled away.
When Miss Singleton vanished from view, Louise scrambled to her feet, chose another table, still by the window, but deeper in the shadows.
She continued to watch the street.
A round man with a round face and spiky red hair walked a fluffy black dog. The dog looked at Louise, wagging its tail. Some sort of pedigree, she thought before turning away, her mind racing over all the ways the day could go wrong. When she looked back out at the street, a gigantic man in his fifties, wearing tight jeans and a cream shirt, ambled arm in arm with a pretty young woman in a peach floral dress. It was an expensive dress, although Louise couldn't figure out the brand. Designer, for sure, the same for the man's shirt and blue jeans. She assessed the man. He was a fat man with a fat wallet and a cute chat-up line, no doubt.
The couple leaned together, intoxicated with each other. A pang of envy curled in Louise's chest. The woman turned to glance through the café window. Louise met her gaze. The woman threw her head back, a bark of laughter bursting from luscious lips.
And then they were gone.
Chapter 78
"Mind if I join you?"
The middle-aged man gazed through soft, plum-coloured eyes, his trimmed beard lifting into a friendly smile. He wore a pinstriped suit. Tailored. Italian. Expensive. The sort you'd send to the dry cleaners with instructions to take extra care.
Louise said nothing.
"Thank God I just bought life insurance." He held her gaze. "You almost made my heart stop."
He had a deep, rich voice, full of bass with little treble. His smile broadened to reveal pink gums. Healthy. This was a man you'd expect to drive a fast sports car. The type you'd expect to carry a gold-tipped umbrella with a Macintosh slung over his arm. The type you'd expect to be married to a slim woman with smooth skin, perfect teeth, and expensive tastes.
But he wore no wedding ring.
Heat rose in Louise's cheeks. Her left hand went to the black beads of her necklace. She massaged them with heavy fingers.
"What the hell do you want?"
He was still smiling. "I couldn't believe my eyes. I saw you through the window and thought I was dreaming."
"You haven't answered my question." Louise's left hand moved to her cheek. She wanted a mirror to check her face but didn't reach for her compact. "What are you doing here?"
"Don't I get a smile?"
Her left hand dropped to touch the olive-wood crucifix. "After what you did to me?"
He laughed. In that crinkled face, she recalled what she once found so attractive about Liam Finch.
He stepped closer. "If my memory serves me well, it was you who dumped me."
The last time she saw Liam, his face was cadaverous, filled with worry.
It had been fifteen years.
Details flooded back. His hauling business with its rusted truck. His faith it was the first in a nationwide fleet. His bankruptcy. The day he broke the news, Louise dumped him on the spot. She didn't have time for a rogue and a chancer. She didn't date lorry driving losers.
She'd seen Liam once after that — a fleeting glance from the bus as he worked the broom in the yellow jacket of a street sweeper.
She'd turned away in disgust at the sight.
Liam gazed at the chair next to her but didn't sit. "I saved the pennies from my council job to invest in computers — hard drives, then cloud services." His smile curved so his lips almost touched his ears. "It took off. I sold the business last year and retired."
"Really?" Louise offered her best smile. Liam always said he would retire early. Then he would have a child — a boy to play football with and teach the money-making ways of business. Louise touched her abdomen. "I always said you'd make something of yourself. Something big."
"And you?" He returned her smile with a grin. "How goes it?"
Louise didn't get to answer. A thin-lipped twenty-something woman with smooth skin and perfect hair appeared at his side. The woman took his arm.
"I'm ready." She didn't look at Louise. "Don't want to miss the flight."
And Louise couldn't miss the woman's bump. Pregnant.
"We're getting married on Saturday." Liam's face crinkled. "In Paris. Have a little place over there and another in the south by the Mediterranean. Lovely this time of year." He patted the woman's abdomen and let out a satisfied laugh. "Our baby, when it comes, will be a boy."
Louise tried to smile though the stiff parchment that had become her face. She opened her mouth, the only sound coming out, a soft croak.
The woman looked down her nose and sniffed. "We'll need childcare. Someone reliable and mature, who we can trust." She shook her head as if considering a question. Then her thin lips twisted in a mean way. "No, you'll never do. I want a nanny, not a governess, and Liam prefers a much younger woman."
Arm in arm, Liam and his fiancée wandered away.
Chapter 79
Louise swore under her breath.
She snapped her eyes shut. When it came down to it, she didn't like younger women. They were always grabbing and grasping and snatching the thimbleful of eligible men and whisking them away to their lair. Nor did she like the women in the country club. They were always crowing and boasting about their catch. But it was Guy she thought of now, and Liam Finch, and the feeling it wasn't her fault she was ageing. Why the hell did she have to play this game? Why the hell did she have to pay?
The sound of the coffee grinder tore into the air. A young woman's laughter tinkled from a nearby table. The sweet scents of the café touched her nose but Louise tasted only bitterness. And again she thought of Liam Finch with his mountains of money made in computing hard drives, his posh houses, his skinny pot-bellied wife and she thought of Guy on his knees scrubbing toilets.
Nausea gripped her hollow stomach, tilting it with sour waves. Her hands began to shake. Clammy sweat beaded her forehead. Today was going bad, and she sensed it wasn't over.
He isn't going to show up.
With a trembling hand, she picked up her phone but did not open her eyes. For several seconds, she toyed with sending him a text message but hesitated. She'd read an article about a husband hacking his wife's phone and uncovering her darkest secrets. When the divorce case went to court, the man was awarded three quarters of everything they owned. He got custody of the children. And the house. But Guy didn't know about her burner phone, did he?
I'll wait until noon.
She set the phone down, let her eyelids lift, and watched people stroll by the café window. The crowd ebbed and flowed, each new wave swelling with the surge of an incoming tide.
But she could not stop her toxic thoughts.
About Liam Finch.
About his young girlfriend.
About Guy working foul toilets as a cleaner.
That was the furthest thing from her mind when she first met him in this café. He was to become a big-time screenwriter. He and she were to walk the red carpet, basking in Hollywood fame and building a huge fortune. She'd salivated over those daydreams; drooled over her fantasies with the naivety of a child tossing a coin into a wishing well. How had she been blind to the truth for so long?
Now reality chilled her marrow. She was over the hill at thirty-eight and married to a man whose career highlights included pushing trolleys in a supermarket car park, hauling tarpaulin as a circus hand, not to mention his criminal record. And now he was doing his best to hold down a job as a toilet cleaner.
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
Louise's heart thudded. She pictured the women in the country club clucking their sympathies; their throaty gobbles; their high-pitched yelps; their eyes stretched wide in wondrous delight; and their plump lips, oh God, curved up in gurgling, told you so smirks.
Shame flushed through her.
They are nothing but a pack of gold-digging devils.
How was she to know that she'd picked a man whose dreams were as empty as his wallet?
Again she thought of Liam Finch and again she brooded over Guy. Why were men so… unreliable? Why had her life been blighted with louts who were filled with nothing but spite? She wouldn't trust a bloke again, let alone love one. She cursed under her breath and spat a glob of phlegm into her coffee cup.
And it struck her then.
Hard.
Guy must pay for what he has done. All men must pay!
She gazed through the windows, still thinking murderous thoughts and wishing she'd never visited this stupid café, wishing it had burned to the ground. With every second that slipped by, the thump of her heart ticked faster and faster, until her lungs sucked in a deep breath and held it; until the thuds in her chest slowed to match the constant beat of chatter filling the café; until her pulse fell to a steady dismal beat of acceptance.
He isn't going to show, is he?
And then she saw him.
He leaned against the café doorway, waving at her and smiling.
Chapter 80
The breakthrough came the following morning — a text message from Detective Constable Maggie Banville. She'd found the last known address of Peter Quelch.
Fenella told herself she would leave the legwork to her team, but at seven, with the sun bright and hot, she bustled along Nun Street in Newcastle with Dexter at her side. She was eager to have a poke about in Mr Quelch's home. A torrent of questions swirled. She fretted over whether they'd turn up some new leads on who killed him and why.
That turned out to be the least of her worries.
"Ain't been down this way for some years, guv." Dexter was looking around: at the tall brown buildings; at the bus shunting along the road; at the narrow alley with the words Grainger Market on a sign in giant gold letters above the archway. "Ain't had me breakfast neither."
A round man with a round face and spiky red hair walked from the alley with a fluffy black dog at his side. The dog stopped by Fenella's feet, wagging its tail.
She stooped to pet it. "A Bernese Mountain Dog, eh?"
The round man grinned. "Aye, few get the breed. She's a beauty, ain't she? A sweet, affectionate soul."
He wandered off, the dog trotting at his side.
Dexter stared down the mouth of the alley, leaning forward and sniffing. Rich scents of fried foods carried along the dark passageway: eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms and roasting meats.
Fenella's stomach grumbled. She'd had nowt but a mug of coffee since leaving home. "Do you think Benny's is still in business?"
Later, she was to wonder what would have happened if she had not asked about Benny's. If they'd walked on the other side of the street. If Dexter had shaken his head and they had continued on their way.
