Looking for Trouble

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Friday. Waiting for word from Nina. I paced the office. Sorted half-heartedly through my files. Time and again I ran the scene in my head. I go to the house, Martin answers the door. He’s taken aback at first, reluctant to let me in, but I win him over. I tell him I have a letter for him, but that first I need to ask a few questions. He’s happy to co-operate. He’s already been through this with the police. Janice never called here on that Sunday night. Relief. Gently, I explain that Janice was his birth mother, that it was she who employed me to find him; the letter I have is from her. I tell him I’m sorry. He nods, understanding. I leave him both Mrs Williams’ phone number and mine. Time to go. I walk away sadder, wiser. Cleansed of responsibility.

Nina didn’t ring. By the time it got to twelve-thirty, I rang her myself.

‘The car’s still there,’ she said. ‘Looks like he’s staying home today. I guess it’ll be Monday before you can be sure he’s not just gone to fetch the papers and stuff. Jack’s not flying out till Sunday night, anyhow, so I’m not going to be able to do that much till then anyway.’

I paced around a bit more. Going nowhere. I could forget taking the letter till Monday, but I needed to do something. I decided to visit the sandwich bar where Janice had worked. I just had time to fit that in before school. Make absolutely sure that Janice didn’t have friends in the Cheadle area.

I’d reached the Dobson’s front door when I heard my office phone. I raced back downstairs. This was it. Fraser had gone out; Martin was alone. I missed my footing on the last stair, trod heavily into air and wrenched my foot on its side. Shit. I took a couple of steps to the phone, singing with pain.

“S that Sal?’

I didn’t recognise her voice, young, Mancunian accent.

‘Yes, who’s that?’

‘Leanne.’

I was blank for a beat or two. Then I remembered. Leanne of the dripping, ratty hair. JB’s friend. Leanne who’d been scared to tell me what she knew. Leanne of the light fingers.

‘I thought you better know,’ she said. ‘That bloke Smiley, he’s been asking about you, wanting to know if you’ve been round here again, asking questions and all that. I’d watch it if I were you.’

‘But why would…?’ I heard the click and the dialling tone. The little swine. Had it been a warning or a threat? Had Leanne rung me out of the goodness of her heart or was she working for Smiley? Why did she have to hang up on me? Sod Leanne. She wasn’t going to get away with it. I wanted to know exactly what Smiley had said; when, where, the lot.

I got to my feet, ready to drive into town, and gasped with the pain. My skin went clammy. I sat back down and examined my ankle. It was swollen already. There was a large, white lump beneath my ankle bone. The skin around it was puffed up. Well and truly sprained. Brilliant. I wouldn’t be driving anywhere.

Feeling slightly foolish, I crawled up the stairs and hopped along the road and round the corner home. Digger jumped up to greet me. I shoved him down. ‘Get out of the way, you stupid, bloody dog.’ He slunk off. I found a crepe bandage in the drawer where the odd things live. I drenched some lint with witch hazel and wrapped the bandage round, drenched that too.

I couldn’t collect the kids.

Ray was at college but I had a number to leave messages. I used it. If Ray could get Tom on his way home, then I could ask Denise over the road to pick up Maddie when she went for her own daughter. I limped over there. The pain made me feel sick. She apologised; Jade was at home poorly, they wouldn’t be going to the school.

Maybe Clive could do it. I’d never asked before. It was only a twenty minute job. Was he in or out? I rang the front doorbell several times but he didn’t appear. Well, Ray would just have to get both of them.

I lowered myself onto the sofa and sat with my feet up. I wanted to sleep. I could feel the weariness lapping up my spine, dissolving my bones. My head jerked. I lurched awake. It was nearly three and no word from Ray. I phoned a taxi, seething. The cost, the hassle, the injustice. I collected both children and got them home.

Maddie raced to answer the phone. I remembered Leanne’s call and shouted out to stop her, but she was already reciting the number.

‘It’s Chris,’ she said.

I hopped into the hall. ‘Hello.’

‘Bruce Sharrocks,’ she said. ‘He’s one of the principal officers involved in residential care. Bit of an innovator, well-liked, done a lot of work in the field himself, not just a bureaucrat. Workaholic. He set up the Dandelion Trust practically single-handed. That’s about it.’

I don’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t that. I felt deflated. It didn’t make the connection between Sharrocks and Fraser Mackinlay any clearer.

‘Is he gay?’

‘What?’

‘Do you know if he’s gay?’

‘Why the hell do you need to know that?’

I felt crass and my ears got hot. ‘Well…it’s just that I saw him with this missing teenager I was tracing. I’ve heard the boy’s been working as a rent boy.’

‘Oh, yes?’ she said. ‘And if Sharrocks is gay, he’s bound to use boys, isn’t he?’

My heart sank. Chris was a lesbian herself and quick to spot oppressive behaviour. I’d blundered again.

‘No. But it might be relevant,’ I protested.

‘People say that a lot,’ she countered. ‘They usually mean they want information that’s none of their business. What if he is gay? That make it easier to see him as a potential criminal? After all, that’s often how we’re seen, isn’t it? Deviants, perverts.’

‘Oh, come on Chris…’

‘Sal, I don’t like it. You’re asking for personal information, sensitive stuff. I’ve no idea how you’re going to use it.’

Maybe she was right. Did I really need to know? Search me. In investigative work, it’s only later that you can see what’s relevant and what’s not. There was an uncomfortable silence. As it stretched out, I tried to think about what I’d said and what I’d been accused of. I was the first to speak. ‘I’m sorry.’ It was pretty lame but it was all I could come up with in the circumstances. I wasn’t clear enough in my own mind whether I was making unfair assumptions, pigeon-holing people. There could well be some truth in Chris’s view of how I’d been leaping to conclusions.

‘Yeah, well. I’d prefer it if you didn’t ask me about people at work again. It puts me in a terrible position.’

‘Okay. See you soon.’ I rang off.

I had a hot little stone of shame in my belly, souring my saliva. Guilt. Neither use nor ornament. But maybe I could learn from my mistakes.

I rang up and ordered pizzas to be delivered. No way was I going to cook. We’d just finished eating when Ray arrived.

‘Sal’s broke her leg,’ Tom announced.

‘She can’t even walk,’ added Maddie. Ray raised his eyebrows at me.

‘Sprained, not broken,’ I said.

He moved to the kettle. ‘Does it hurt?’

Stupid question. ‘Yeah. I left a message at college. I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t pick up the kids.’

‘I didn’t get any message.’ He bristled defensively.

‘I know you didn’t get it.’ I hated the carping edge in my voice. ‘I had to get a taxi in the end.’

‘So it’s my fault.’ Ray turned to face me, hands on hips. He ducked his head as he spoke. It reminded me of a goat butting its horns.

‘I didn’t say that. But it’s not much of a system, is it? Suppose something really bad had happened…?’

‘It didn’t did it. Jesus!’ He turned back to throw tea bags in the pot. The set of his shoulders said everything. ‘I’ll find out why it wasn’t passed on. Okay?’

No, not okay. Not at all okay. My ankle hurt, Chris was pissed off with me, Ray didn’t care, a thug called Smiley was asking about me. ‘I’m going to lie down for a bit,’ I said. I shuffled out of the room.

‘Don’t forget we’re meeting Clive,’ Ray called after me.

Shit. ‘I won’t,’ I said. I had.

So had Clive. Least that’s what he claimed on Sunday when he finally reappeared. Friday night, Ray and I had sat waiting for him to show. At ten o’ clock we put the telly on. The Maltese Falcon was just starting. When it finished an hour and a half later, there was still no Clive.

Ray stood up and stretched. He still wore the navy bermuda shorts and white T-shirt he’d arrived home in. His legs were covered in long, straight, black hairs, unlike the curls on his head. He yawned, smoothed his moustache. I tried to recall what sort of hairs Harry had on his legs, caught myself at it and for an awful moment wondered if I’d said anything aloud.

‘So now what?’ I asked.

‘Rearrange it.’ Ray yawned again. ‘Your turn.’

Groan. I lay back and watched two flies buzz in and out of the lampshade.

‘Digger.’ Ray whistled and the dog appeared. ‘Walk.’ Ray had taken to walking him last thing at night.

‘Where do you take him?’ I asked.

‘Park and back.’

‘Ray, I don’t want him fouling the park.’

‘He doesn’t. He’s a good boy, aren’t you Digger?’ He fondled the dog’s ears. ‘He still goes in the front; I clear it up.’

‘I should never have brought him home.’

‘He’s fine,’ Ray protested. ‘I like him, the kids like him.’

‘But I can’t be bothered with it all, the feeding and the walking…’

‘I’ve noticed. Let’s just say he’s my dog now – I’ll look after him – no longer a shared responsibility.’

‘You sure?’ I stared at the dog. I didn’t feel any affection for it at all. Just a tinge of guilt. ‘We could always send it to a home or whatever.’

‘Bloody won’t.’

There was real urgency in his voice. I propped myself up on my elbows to look at him. ‘You really like that dog, don’t you?’

‘We’re not all cold and unfeeling.’

They left. I watched the flies a bit longer, then left myself.