Blue Murder

CHAPTER SIX

There was no bread left in the canteen when Janine called on her way out, but she managed to get a bottle of milk. She’d just got into her car, when Richard appeared. She wound down the window.

‘Fancy a drink?’

‘Can’t – kids.’

He nodded. ‘Maybe we could get a bite to eat some time?’

‘Be nice.’

‘Tomorrow – depending on…’

‘Yes. I’d like that.’

‘I’ll… erm…’ He waved his hand vaguely. She hadn’t got a clue what he was trying to say but she nodded anyway. He’d always had that quirky quality, as if his mind moved too quickly for his mouth to keep up. Richard would become inarticulate or his sentences trail off but it was often because he was distracted by some complex idea or insight.

He stepped away from the car and she gave him a farewell wave.

At her parents’ she felt a wave of exhaustion. The start of the second shift – so much to do before she could get any rest.

She was stunned when Pete opened the door to her. Knew immediately something must be wrong.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Someone has to pick up the pieces,’ Pete said.

Michael came into the hail. Oh, God. He was hurt, his face cut and bruised. ‘Michael! What’s happened?’

Tom ran out from the lounge. ‘Mum, Mum. He was mugged.’

He’d rung her, the Trafford Centre. He’d rung her and she’d practically ignored him. Her stomach lurched with guilt. She put an arm round Michael’s shoulder. ‘Are you all right? Why didn’t you say?’

He shrugged her off. ‘You were busy.’

That stung her.

Tom started fooling about, miming a hold-up.

‘What happened?’ she said again.

‘They tried to get his phone,’ Pete told her, his face set and anxious, ‘then they duffed him up.’

‘You should have just given them it,’ Janine told Michael.

‘I was going to,’ he shouted, ‘then they just ran off.’

She rounded on Pete. ‘You should have rung me.’ He glared back at her. She looked away. She didn’t want to start arguing in front of the kids. Michael had been through enough for one day.

They were halfway home, en route to the take-away pizza place, when Janine asked Michael what the police had said. In the rear-view mirror she saw him look away. There was an uncomfortable silence. He hadn’t reported it. She was shocked, he should report it, of course he should. She bit her tongue. Now wasn’t the time.

She got a chance later, after they’d eaten and she was in the middle of clearing up.

‘Michael…’

He guessed what was coming. ‘I don’t want to.’ He yelled at her and stormed out.

‘Bad time?’ Sarah, her neighbour and friend, was at the back door.

‘Depends.’ Janine said. ‘ If you came bearing gifts

‘Red or white?’

Janine gestured to her bump. She was on the wagon for the duration.

‘Milk or plain?’ Sarah amended. They shared a love of chocolate.

Half-an-hour later they were ensconced in front of the telly. Eleanor sat between Janine’s knees, a towel round her neck. Janine drew the comb through another swathe of slippery hair. Spotted the telltale grey blob on the comb. ‘Eleven. Other children bring home gerbils, hamsters.’

‘When I grow up I’ll invent a death ray for nits: one zap and they’re dead. And we’ll be dead rich and you’ll never have to work at the weekend.’

A little dig. Janine exchanged a glance with Sarah. Ellie hated being sent to Grandma’s. And Janine worried that the kids needed her around more now that Pete had gone.

Sarah scratched her head.

‘Sarah’s got them too,’ Eleanor said gleefully.

‘The whole school’s got ‘em, not just you kids. Occupational hazard. Staff room stinks of Tea Tree.’

‘Done.’ Janine told Eleanor. ‘Off you go.’

‘Remember the present for Holly’s birthday.’

‘Yes.’

Once she was out of the room Janine rang Pete. ‘It’s me. I’ll have to drop them early.’

He sighed. ‘Can’t your mum have them?’

‘No, you know she had them today. They want to see you, Pete.’ She lowered her voice and muttered, ‘God knows why.’ Flicked a glance at Sarah. ‘Be about half-seven, see you then.’

Janine told Sarah all about Michael’s ordeal. ‘I felt so flamin’ helpless. And he won’t report it. I started thinking, if I’d only realised, if I’d been home…’

‘If you weren’t such an awful mother.’

Janine acknowledged that. ‘I’m a Detective Chief Inspector, I’m leading a bloody murder enquiry and I can’t protect my own kids. Can’t even keep up with the shopping.’

‘What? Not still baking your own bread?’

Janine stuck her tongue out. ‘How do we all keep going though?’

‘What’s the alternative?’

She took another chocolate and passed the box to Sarah.

‘How was work,’ Sarah asked her.

‘Murder,’ she said dryly. ‘You see the news?’

Sarah shook her head.

‘They didn’t give details but you know the saying hung, drawn and quartered? Well, this poor bloke had been drawn. Enough to give anyone morning sickness.’

‘Janine!’ Sarah exclaimed. ‘That’s revolting. God. I don’t know how you do it. I’d be in bits. And then after seeing that you’ve got to go after whoever’s done it. I couldn’t do it, no way.’

‘Well, I couldn’t cope with a roomful of screaming eight-year-olds all day long.’ She poured more wine for Sarah, helped herself to some cranberry juice. ‘However – there is good news, too.’

Sarah was all ears.

‘Well, I think it’s good. Richard.’

‘Richard?’

‘Richard Mayne. D.I. We were probationers together. He transferred south when Tom was little, now he’s back. Assisting me. And he is seriously sexy.’

‘Whoo-oo-oo

‘Lovely eyes, nice hands, nice lips, gorgeous lips, really, really…’ she became tongue-tied. ‘Good bloke too.’

‘You fancied him before?’

‘Oh, yeah! One night we were off on a training course, got as far as the bedroom but changed my mind. Pete and I were engaged. Left Richard all hot and bothered.’

‘You’re blushing.’

‘Blame the hormones. There was something special. That spark? But I realised too late. I’d already said yes to Pete.’ She paused. How long before the separation would lose its power to hurt her? Before she could talk about Pete and feel neutral, normal? ‘And where’s it got me?’

‘Maybe this is second time lucky?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Janine said dismissively. ‘He’s asked me out for a bite to eat, whatever that means. I think he was going to book somewhere but he trailed off. This habit he has, not finishing his sentences. Must have missed that bit of literacy hour.’

‘Think he’s interested?’

‘In me? In this state?!’ Janine pulled a face. ‘Get a grip, Sarah. Bit of flirting, I reckon. Good for the soul. Besides, first shot as senior officer in charge of a rather gory murder, six months pregnant, romance isn’t exactly on the agenda.’

She saw the news was starting and turned the sound up. ‘Here we go.’

Michael looked in then, glanced at the TV, sneered and walked off. Time was he’d have been chuffed, Janine thought. Proud of her even. Not now. Rebellion, she supposed. Wanting to be different from his parents.

It was the lead story.

“The body of deputy head-teacher, Matthew Tulley, aged forty-two, was found on allotments in the Whalley Range district of Manchester today. Police have launched a murder enquiry…”

Sarah got up and took a step towards the telly.

They were showing a shot outside the Tulley’s house and Janine and Richard leaving. ‘That’s not my best side.’ Janine pointed out.

“… In Lancashire another two in a series of off-licence robberies…”

‘Oh, my god!’ Sarah turned back to Janine.

Janine turned the sound off. ‘You know him?’

‘Know of him. Through the union. He was disciplined for hitting a pupil. And last year, the lad he’d assaulted came back to school and stabbed him in the playground.’

Janine’s mind was racing. Someone had stabbed Tulley before?

‘Can you remember the boy’s name?’

Sarah nodded. ‘Yeah, Ferdie Gibson, became a sort of shorthand for dangerous pupils, anyone like that we’d call it having a Ferdie in the form.’

Janine grabbed her phone. They needed everything they could get on this Gibson.

Sarah watched her. ‘What?’

‘First solid lead,’ Janine told her. ‘Sounds like this could be the bloke we’re looking for.’

Dean lay on the sofa bed in Douggie’s lounge with just the glow from the VCR to take the edge off the darkness; he waited till he reckoned the others were asleep. There’d been no sounds from upstairs for a while. The place had cellars: one room with a washer/dryer in, two others derelict under the back of the house. One of them would do. He could have asked Douggie for a safe place but, since he’d learnt what Douggie was wrapped up in, he knew he should be cautious. Safer all round to keep it to himself. He had stretched over and switched on the table lamp, retrieved the carrier bag from his holdall.

The lounge door creaked when he opened it but he figured if either Douggie or Gary heard him they’d assume he needed to take a leak or get a drink. The light in the cellar worked, he went carefully down the wooden steps. Washing machine straight ahead. Turned back on himself to the empty cellars. Doorways into gloom. The first took a bit of light from the bare bulb hanging on the wire at the bottom of the stairs. Enough to spill across the dusty floor over bricks and old milk bottles and to the edge of a pile of junk up against the far wall. The place reeked of coal, the tarry smell rich in the cold, damp air, a whiff of mould too, catching at his throat.

Dean stood and examined the possibilities. He moved closer to the pile of junk. The chassis of an old pram, thick with rust, cardboard boxes, rags. There was a folding chair, striped canvas clotted with black mildew. Dean opened it a little and put the bag in the middle, folded it shut. He lifted up a piece of rotting blanket from the floor and draped it over the chair. Pushed the whole thing round to the right hand side of the rubbish, the darkest part. It wasn’t perfect, Douggie or Gary could come down here and start rooting about but it was better than leaving it lying around upstairs. Ripe for anyone to pick up. That my shopping? Bloody ‘ell, look at this. What you doing with this, Dean? Looking at him in a new way, thinking all sorts because of what he had in the bag.

He was lying on the table in the garden. Lesley called to him but he didn’t answer. She walked over to him but suddenly there was a crowd around the table and they wouldn’t let her pass. ‘He’s my husband,’ she shouted to them, ‘please, I have to help him.’ People pushed and jostled her, called names. She fought her way through them with a terrible urgency.

Then she was beside him, the others fell silent.

‘Matthew,’ she took a pace back, her breathing heavy, the sweat cooling rapidly on her arms and legs. Matthew moved. He raised himself up and turned to face her. He smiled.

Why had she been so frightened? He was fine. ‘Oh, Matthew.’ He held out his arms and she walked into them, he embraced her and she let her tears fall on his chest.

‘I thought you were dead,’ she said.

‘I am.’

She pulled back and he was all bones, a grinning skull.

Lesley woke with a jolt. Her stomach twisted tight, her heart batting against her chest. Sweating. Oh, Matthew. She missed him so. Dread came washing through her. Would it always be like this? How could she bear it?