Hit and Run

Chapter Fifteen

Butchers took an hour, an early lunch. He drove down through Rusholme, stopped on the curry mile for a beef biryani take-away and ate it in the car. From there he made his way through Withington and west towards Chorlton.

It was years since he’d been down here. He parked on a side road and walked up to the gates, feeling a lurch of anxiety: the place looked different and he couldn’t remember which way to go. After a while he got his bearings, walking through the huge, flamboyant graves with their biers and angels and elaborate carvings to the more modern sections behind.

He found the place. The lettering on the grey, mottled marble had originally been painted in gold. A lot of it had faded though the carved dedication still ran clear.

ANDREW COLIN BUTCHERS

1 MAY 1974 – 22 JUNE 1983

BELOVED SON AND BROTHER

REST IN PEACE

He gave a heavy sigh, felt the old sensation of grief lodge in his chest. Never done with it. He had been fifteen when Andy had gone, Andy just nine. He had been drenched in guilt and impotent rage. Why hadn’t he been kinder to his brother, why had it been him and not Ian? The last memory he had was lodged like a splinter in his heart; telling Andy not to touch his tapes again or he’d bloody batter him, the flash of resentment on the lad’s face. And Ian had driven himself half mad with blame. If he hadn’t yelled at Andy he might have gone out to play later. Five minutes – it would have saved him. Ian had worked away at the guilt, poking at the wound, helping it to fester and sting.

He had never said anything to his parents. Couldn’t. They had folded, collapsing in on themselves, behaving like zombies: blank, empty, hollowed out.

As that first Christmas had approached he’d found himself drowning. He barely slept, he stayed off school. He had stomach-ache and terrible migraines. There was no point to anything anymore.

One afternoon he bought a bottle of rum at the corner shop. He took it up into the little wood near the railway cutting. The trains went through every half hour. He drank the rum in big gulps, burning him as it went down.

It was cold and the light was fading as he finished the bottle. He checked his watch and scrambled clumsily down the bank. It was thick with brambles which cut painful gouges in his legs and his hands and arms.

He stood at the side of the tracks, feet unsteady on the large lumps of gravel. It was nearly dark and there was no lighting along this section of the track.

He strained to hear the train coming but the rails and the overhead wires were silent. He caught the sound of scrabbling from the bank opposite. Some creature moving about: cat or squirrel or hedgehog.

He waited but no train came. He couldn’t see to read his watch anymore. His eyes felt hot and his head spun. He felt the sudden clench in his guts, a wash of saliva flood his mouth and then the rush of vomit. He doubled over and was sick all over his shoes. Over and over until there was just a sour, watery foam.

Left with a raging thirst and a devastating headache he climbed back up the bank, lashing back at the thorns that lacerated him.

When he stumbled into the house, reeking and bleeding and insolent his mother flew at him. Her harsh words were the first sign of passion since Andy’s death.

His father, arriving back from work and told of his behaviour, had instructed him to pull himself together, sort himself out and get a bloody job if he was done with school. He then made Ian clean his own shoes and put his clothes in the washing machine.

After he had had a bath his mother had wiped the gashes on his limbs with TCP. It had been agony.

He applied for the police force the following week. Not with any noble intention: it was a job, and they said you got accommodation at a good rate too.

He wondered if his parents still came here, on Andy’s birthday perhaps. Or more often? He had no idea. He couldn’t remember the last time any of them had spoken of Andy. Their way of coping perhaps.

The name was unfamiliar now, making a strange shape in the mouth. Saying it aloud would be shocking, sharp and hurtful. A gust of wind tore through the cemetery, tugging trees low and sending leaves and vases and flowers rolling over the bright turf. Butchers shivered. Time to go.

‘See you, our kid.’ He felt a bit of a prat speaking aloud. The wind made his eyes water. He gave a good sniff and set off for his car.

Rosa had not needed a pregnancy test. As soon as she stood upright in the morning she would start retching. She admitted to Marta that her breasts were tender and she felt exhausted – they knew it wasn’t an illness. It had happened to one of the girls before; they reckoned she had been pregnant before she left Poland. It was fixed for her to go to a clinic, a private arrangement with no documents required. The fee, a thousand pounds sterling, had been added to her resettlement debt and she was back at work within the week. The same doctor came every thirteen weeks to give them the jabs. That was meant to stop any babies and it got rid of periods too so they could work all month, every month without any problems. When Rosa had become really down and also started to gain weight they let her skip the jab. She moved to the club then so she didn’t have to stay on the drug.

‘They won’t let you keep it,’ Marta told her.

Rosa was sitting on her bed, her arms around her stomach, her face paler than usual. She stared at Marta. ‘I can’t do that,’ Rosa said.

Marta folded her arms. You might not have any choice, she thought.

‘No,’ Rosa said, her mouth set hard. ‘No.’ Flint in her eyes.

Marta left it a day or two, waiting to find a good time to talk again. But it was Rosa who had spoken first, as she spread margarine on toast, her back to her friend who sat at the kitchen table. ‘I’m going to keep the baby, Marta. I’m going to go home.’

‘You can’t! You still owe money.’

‘I don’t care.’

Marta had stood up, gone round beside her, and touched her shoulder, forcing her to look. ‘Rosa, see sense. They won’t let you. And what would you be going back to, stinking nappies in that crowded flat? What sort of life is that?’

‘It’s my baby.’

‘They’ll never let you go, Rosa. Don’t be stupid. Don’t even think about it.’

Tears had sprung in Rosa’s eyes and she had caught the side of her lip between her teeth. She had pushed away from the counter angrily and walked out, leaving her toast uneaten.

Shap was having another go at Andrea. He had enough experience of joints like Topcat to know there was always the chance of something a little more intimate if you asked in the right quarters. And he reckoned if Rosa had been doing more than dancing they needed to find out who she had been playing out with.

Andrea was doing her make-up in the cramped room that served as a changing area for the girls.

‘What if a punter wants something extra?’

‘Won’t get it here,’ she said flatly.

‘Come on, Andrea. You’ve got someone hassling you, he wants the full English… French… Polish?’

‘I dance, that’s all.’

Shap was getting brassed off with this. ‘And the other girls? Some of them would want the extra cash.’ He watched her apply lip-liner. ‘Did Rosa ever make special arrangements?’

‘I don’t know, I don’t think so.’

‘What if someone won’t take no for an answer?’

‘Like you?’ she snapped.

He sighed. He wasn’t convinced by her; he’d keep digging, talking to people round the place and have another go at Andrea later. Turned out it happened sooner rather than later.

He struck lucky with a drunk he met in the urinals. One of those blokes who get all mushy and genial after a few whisky chasers. Shap was trying the indirect approach. Playing up as one of the lads, having a grumble about the petty rules they had at places like this. ‘Honest,’ he told the soak, ‘place in town, my mate gives her a little squeeze and next thing they sling us all out. Sometimes you want more than just a look, don’t you?’

‘You tried the other place, in Openshaw? Anything you want there.’

Shap’s eyes lit up. ‘A club?’

‘Knocking shop. Nice girls, straight off the plane. Eager to please.’

‘I might just do that,’ Shap told him. ‘Thanks, mate. You take it easy now.’

Shap stuck his head round the door of the dressing room. She was fiddling with her hair, tweaking the ends as he came in.

‘Openshaw. Ring any bells?’

He saw her eyes flicker but she recovered quickly. She kept her mouth shut.

‘We’re not interested in soliciting or living on immoral earnings, Andrea. Rosa’s murder – that’s why we’re asking.’ He watched her, could see her hesitate. He kept waiting, reckoning that another push might mess it up. Then she grabbed her bag, the bracelets on her arm clinking together. She rummaged inside it then handed him a small business card. Just a logo on it; a couple of pen strokes suggesting a reclining woman, and a phone number. ‘I never gave you it.’

‘You ever work there?’

Andrea shook her head.

‘What about Rosa?’

She pressed her lips together, crossed her arms, looked away from him for a minute then back. Uneasy. Finally she gave a nod.

It was the break they’d been hoping for. When Shap rang and told her, Janine felt like kissing the phone. She instructed him to return to the station.

‘It’s all very hush-hush,’ Shap said, when the team met in the incident room.

‘Any bog-standard massage parlour they’d have an ad in the papers, number in the phone book.’ Richard agreed.

‘You think they’re illegals?’ Janine asked him.

‘Yes, like Rosa.’

‘The Polish connection,’ she mused. She called over one of the DCs and told him to get more on Sulikov, the owner of the Topcat Club and, in all likelihood, the Openshaw brothel. ‘See what Poland can give us, any criminal record, current activities and so on.’

She turned back to Shap. ‘Well – what are we waiting for?’

He held out the card Andrea had given him. ‘The address.’

‘Ah.’ She smiled. ‘You can be our Trojan Horse, Shap.’

‘Donkey,’ Richard corrected her. ‘New customer. After the full monty.’

Shap pulled out his mobile phone and began to dial. Then, to Janine’s surprise and amusement, spots of colour bloomed on his face. ‘Can I have a bit of privacy, or what?’ he said belligerently.

Shap shy. Who’d have thought it.