Lost River

24

Diane Fry tapped the steering wheel of her car as she watched the dusk fall in Digbeth. It had turned into another warm evening. Humid as only a city could be. A stale smell bubbled off the pavements, and the factory walls oozed a sour, grey fluid, as if the city’s industrial lifeblood was being sweated right out of the brick.

One thought kept going through her mind. Was this really what she wanted to get herself into? Things were starting to get very complicated now. Soon events would reach a point where there was no going back, and she was afraid she might not recognize the time when it came.

She glanced at her sister’s expressionless profile. In fact, they might have reached that point already.

Diane realized she’d lost count of how many rules she’d broken. It no longer mattered, though. She was a civilian, after all. Not a part of the enquiry team, just the IP, the victim betrayed by the system, the one person whose actions couldn’t be predicted or controlled. The strange thing was, breaking all the rules had made her feel more alive than at any time she could remember in her life.

Angie was looking at her now, with that faint, sly smile on her face.

‘This is really cool, isn’t it?’

Diane tried not to show what she was thinking, even to her sister. She always had that lurking fear that her feelings might be used against her.

Best change the subject. This long half-hour sitting in her car might be the only chance they had to talk.

‘Sis,’ she said. ‘There’s one thing I’ve always wanted to ask you.’

‘Yes?’

‘After you left home, all those years ago, did you…go to somebody?’

‘What, to a bloke? No.’

‘I thought there must have been someone you fell for.’

‘I’ve been with men here and there, over the years,’ said Angie.

‘No one you fancied particularly?’

‘Get real, Sis. You don’t go with a bloke because you fancy him. You go with him because he’s there, because there’s nothing better on offer. Or because you want to get your own back on his girlfriend.’

‘So you were alone all that time, then?’

Angie shrugged. ‘I’ve always been on my own, one way or another.’

‘But — ’

Diane stopped. She didn’t really want to hear the answer to her next question. Why would she want to have her suspicions confirmed, to reinforce that nagging feeling that the relationship between them had never been an equal one? As a teenager, she had worshipped her older sister, been devastated when Angie ran away from their foster home and never came back.

But she must have known, if only at the back of her mind, that Angie didn’t care as much about her in return. She would never have left in the first place, would she? She would never have stayed out of touch for so long. She would definitely have found some way to let her little sister know where she was all those years. But she hadn’t done that. There had been nothing, only that silence, the pain of not knowing.

Diane knew that if she hadn’t figured this out for herself by now, she would have to be stupid. But figuring it out and accepting it were two different things. It was easy to sink yourself into a delusion, and ignore the evidence to the contrary.

So whatever Angie’s reasons now for being around, they surely weren’t because she cared about her sister’s welfare. Angie didn’t think of them as a partnership, as two people working together. She had always been on her own, she said. And she was on her own now.

Which meant that Diane was on her own, too. No one could ever share what went on inside her head, the dark world she really lived in, re-imagined from those fragmentary memories of her past.

‘The car is black, that’s good,’ said Angie. ‘Not too flashy. No one will take any notice of us.’

‘Two women sitting in car at night? We might attract the wrong kind of attention.’

‘Well, okay. Try not to look too attractive, then.’

‘At least I actually have to try.’

Angie smiled. ‘Cow.’

Diane nodded. That was better. That was the way it always used to be. Sisters together.

‘And, Sis…’ she said.

‘What?’

‘No heroics. They never work. All you do is leave somebody else with a mess to clean up.’

‘I wasn’t planning on any heroics,’ said Angie.

‘That’s your trouble. You don’t plan things, you just do them.’

‘A lot you know about me, then.’

‘I know you’re a junkie bitch.’

‘Sod you, filth.’

Diane felt her resolve harden. Her sister always knew which buttons to press.

That night, some kind of event was taking place at the Custard Factory — an exhibition opening at the Vaad Gallery, or a performance poetry night. The parking area on Heath Mill Lane was full, the wall of crushed cars surrounding and mocking the smart town cars and four-wheel drives. Tonight, the message was clear: You might be someone’s pride and joy now, but this is the way you’ll all end up, every one of you. Get used to it.

Diane still wasn’t sure what she hoped to achieve. She didn’t expect to get any answers tonight. There was too much fog obscuring the truth — a fog of her own making, she supposed. But all the more impenetrable for that. Still, there were times when you had to do things without any hope of a measurable outcome. Action was a release, a way of finding out more about yourself, if not about the rest of the world.

Earlier, she’d picked up a copy of the Birmingham Evening Mail, and found the story she’d been expecting on the front page. She read through a series of tributes to former Detective Constable Andrew Kewley from his colleagues, including one from the Chief Constable, who had never even met him. Kewley had become a hero, now that he was dead.

The details she was looking for were sparse. Police were appealing for witnesses. They were also looking for the rider of a motorcycle seen leaving the scene at the time of the murder. She had given them that lead herself. But what she hadn’t done was tell the Major Incident Unit everything she and Andy had talked about the previous day. She felt sure there were individuals in West Midlands Police who knew more about Kewley’s connections than she did, anyway.

‘S-Man and Doors,’ said Angie. ‘What do they call this gang again? The one Marcus Shepherd and Darren Barnes are in?’

‘The m1 Crew.’

‘M1? As in the motorway?’

‘I expect so.’

‘Unless it’s after the rapper.’

‘Rapper?’ said Diane. ‘You’ve lost me.’

‘I guess you’re not up on hip-hop music. Never heard of Dead Prez?’

‘You got that right.’

‘Dead Prez are a political hip-hop duo. M-1 and Stic Man.’

‘Well, I suppose that could be it,’ said Diane. ‘Or the Ml carbine. But that’s an antique weapon, World War Two vintage. Not the sort of thing our Birmingham gangsters are likely to use, when they have access to MAC-10 machine pistols.’

‘No. It would be far too uncool.’

The Connemara was spilling out customers into the night. There were lights at the end of Heath Mill Lane, but they only made the railway viaduct looked blacker, the shadows of the factories darker. A stretch of fence by the waste ground glittered like a pattern of slug trails. The river ran under the road here, but you would never know it existed.

‘So, would you be able to get hold of a gun, if you needed to?’ asked Diane.

‘What? Can’t you?’

‘Well, not officially.’

‘You mean an illegal firearm, then?’ said Angie. ‘Is that it, Di? And you think I might have the contacts, I suppose.’

‘I hear it’s not too difficult, if you know the right people.’

Angie gazed out of the window. ‘No, it isn’t. Everyone knows you can get hold of a gun in a couple of hours. It’s a piece of cake.’

Diane felt she ought to be reading something into the tone of her sister’s response.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ said Angie. ‘I’ve just realized that you’re finally starting to know me a bit better.’

A man walked past their car, stopped, and looked back. He hesitated for a moment, then hurried on, his neck hunched into his collar, as if to avoid the evil eye.

‘So, did you actually want a gun?’ asked Angie.

‘No.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘Illegal firearms are too easy to trace now,’ said Diane. ‘There’s a NABIS hub right here in Birmingham.’

Angie laughed uneasily. But a few moments later, she seemed, to pick up on the train of thought.

‘Diane, it’s supposed to be just Darren Barnes, but you know…’

‘His mates might not be far away, of course. The first rule is not to trust anyone. He’ll know that.’

‘If this goes wrong, we’re dead.’

‘No,’ said Diane. ‘You’re not dead until three minutes after you stop breathing.’

‘That’s good to know. Oh, and by the way, it’s getting near time.’

‘Okay.’

Diane twisted in her seat and strapped on the scabbard for her extendable baton. Police officers called the baton an ASP, after the name of the American manufacturer. It consisted of six inches of heavy-duty steel, extending to sixteen inches when fully racked. It was supposed to have an unparalleled deterrent effect.

Most CID officers simply carried the weapon in their pocket, but on Diane’s slender build the bulge of the closed ASP was noticeable. So she’d bought herself a back pocket scabbard with a Velcro flap which stopped the baton falling out when she ran. When she put on her jacket, the outline was barely visible.

She’d brought the baton with her from Derbyshire. But the one thing she didn’t have with her was a stab vest. She realized she was thinking like a police officer again now, performing a mental risk assessment before an operation. It felt wrong to be putting her sister in jeopardy, just as she would worry about sending one of her team into a dangerous situation without proper back-up and the right equipment. Once you learned those ways of thinking, they were difficult to get out of. Habits were so hard to break.

She had no personal radio tonight either. But a mobile phone turned to vibrate was almost as good. She looked at her sister. Whether she could rely on her back-up, she wasn’t so certain. She ought to accept that she was alone from the word ‘go’.

‘I’m not sure we’re doing the right thing,’ said Angie. ‘But I’m trying to think of it as restorative justice.’

Angie looked at her sister, surprised by her silence, and blinked at her expression.

‘Diane, say something. You’re scaring me again.’

Trouble was waiting for Ben Cooper when he arrived home in Edendale. Liz was in his flat in Welbeck Street. Had she used the front door key he’d given her, or had Mrs Shelley let her in? He didn’t get a chance to ask.

Liz stood up when he came in. Her body was tense, her eyes challenging. She had come ready for an argument.

‘So. What’s going on, Ben?’

‘Not even a hello?’ said Cooper.

‘Answer me.’

He wanted to move towards her and put his arms around her. It was what he would normally have done. If he could do it now, everything would be all right. But her attitude held him back. It was as if she’d erected some kind of force field between them that pushed him away.

‘I’ve been to Birmingham,’ he said. ‘I told you.’

‘No you didn’t.’

‘Yes, I — ’

‘No. You haven’t told me the truth. I know you too well, Ben. I can tell when you’re keeping something from me. I’m just wondering now how long this has been going on.’

Her face was a mask, her lips set in a hard line. Cooper could feel the chill in the air. He looked around for the cat, but it was hiding somewhere. Sensible animal.

‘How long what’s been going on?’

‘You tell me. That’s what I’m here for.’

Cooper tried to think of a way of getting Liz to relax, to persuade her to sit down at least. There had to be a means of defusing the situation somehow. Otherwise the conversation would follow a predictable script, accusation following denial, suspicion becoming anger, until it had degenerated into an exchange of insults.

‘Look, Liz, let me get you a coffee. A drink, maybe? And then we can talk about things calmly.’

‘I am calm.’

‘No, you’re not.’

Her voice was beginning to rise. Cooper winced as a shrill edge entered her tone. He paced the room nervously, hoping against hope that she wasn’t going to throw the one accusation at him that would take the situation beyond recovery.

‘I want to know about you and Diane Fry,’ she said. ‘I know there’s something going on. Ben, I want to know whether it’s the end of the road for you and me.’

And then Cooper knew there was nothing he could say that would avoid a blazing row.

On a back street in Digbeth, Angie Fry sat up suddenly, adjusting the car’s rear-view mirror to look over her shoulder.

‘He’s here,’ she said.

‘Are you sure it’s him?’ asked Diane.

‘Well, he doesn’t look as though he’s going to the poetry reading.’

‘How many?’

‘Just him.’

‘Darren Barnes?’

‘If Vince has done his job right.’

‘Well, he’s not exactly Mister Reliable.’

Diane remembered the description in Louise Jones’ witness statement. The first male was white, skinny build, I would say probably approx five feet eight inches tall. He was wearing a dark sweatshirt and jeans. She recalled that the other man, Marcus Shepherd, had been much bigger, a six footer, and more powerfully built. She hoped Vince had made the right choice.

Barnes had parked down the street, beyond the pub and the car park. His vehicle looked like some kind of convertible.

‘Can you make out the registration?’ said Diane.

‘No.’ Angie put her hand on the door. ‘Do you want me to…?’

‘No. Stay where you are.’

‘Why?’

‘Remember what I told you — no heroics.’

‘I was only going to get a sodding number plate.’

‘Well, wait.’

Maybe it had been a mistake to let her sister come with her tonight. ‘Loose cannon’ was an expression which fit her perfectly. If there was going to be trouble, Angie would cause it.

Diane watched the man cross the road, stare through the fence, and stop at the bridge to light a cigarette.

‘Okay.’

She got out of the car and began to walk towards the bridge. It wasn’t the walk she’d imagined making when she came to Birmingham. She’d pictured herself taking that long walk down the corridor from the witness room to take the stand in a crown court trial. Only a few yards, but a million lonely miles when you were going to face your own demons.

Barnes took no notice of her, even when she came right up to him. She stood carefully a couple of steps away, the best position for defence.

‘Darren Barnes?’ she said.

‘Maybe.’

‘Or should I call you Doors?’

‘And who the hell are you?’

‘You don’t recognize me? Well, no — you wouldn’t. I was never a person to you, was I?’

He looked at her then. ‘You know what? I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.’

‘Let me explain.’

‘No, no explanations. I heard there was something in this for me, right? Or am I being fed some crap?’

‘I want information from you.’

Barnes smiled. His eyes were half closed as he peered at her through his cigarette smoke. He smelled of some expensive deodorant or hair gel.

‘Oh, information is it? I don’t know who you are, but you’ve come to the wrong guy with your bullshit. The last bloke who messed with us ended up in that canal. They needed three bin bags for the bits. You get me?’

‘It’s a river,’ said Fry.

‘What?’

‘It’s not a canal, it’s a river.’

‘Like I care. This is some kind of joke, right?’

Fry could read the contempt in his face. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, and blew the smoke towards her. Then he spat towards her foot.

‘I’m going to ask you some questions,’ she said.

‘You,’ he said, ‘ain’t going to do shit.’

Before Fry could react, Angie’s voice came in her ear.

‘Diane, we’ve got more company.’

‘Damn. Don’t leave the car.’

Quickly, Diane turned, and Barnes laughed.

‘Hey, where you going? I was just getting to like you, kind of.’

She ignored him, moving back across the waste ground to the wall. Though she’d brought a torch, the narrow pool of light it cast only seemed to emphasize the blackness outside its reach, to make her isolation total and threatening. From beneath the railway arches, the shadows had begun to sidle towards her, bringing back the memories. They were memories that were too vivid to be erased, too deeply etched into her soul to be forgotten. They merely wallowed and writhed in the depths, waiting for the chance to re-emerge.

Standing back in the darkness, watching, laughing. Voices murmured and coughed. ‘It’s a copper,’ the voices said. ‘She’s a copper’

She’d always known those old memories were still powerful, and ready to rise up from the darkness. Desperately, she tried to count the number of dark forms that loomed around her, some of them mere smudges of silhouettes.

The memories churned and bubbled. Brief, fragmented glimpses of figures carved into severed segments by the streetlights, the sickly reek of booze and violence. And then that rough, slurring Brummie voice that slithered out of the darkness. ‘How do you like this, copper?’ The same taunting laughter moving in the shadows, the same dark, menacing shapes all around. Hands grabbing her, pinching and pulling. Her arms trapped by fingers that gripped her tightly, painful and shocking in their violence.

Then she saw that Angie had left the car and was surrounded, dark shapes on all sides of her. Diane began to run across the waste ground, feeling the energy pouring into her limbs, drawing in the deep breaths that expanded her lungs and quickened her muscles. The group turned towards her, astonished at her charge.

‘Who’s that?’

‘It’s another woman.’

She could smell them in the darkness, see their shapes moving towards her as her brain began to flood with the memories. It was the same old film that had run through her mind constantly, no sooner reaching its climactic end than it would start all over again. A great rage came over her, swamping her resistance, and she badly needed something to hit out at.

Automatically, her hands closed into fists, the first two knuckles protruding, with her thumbs locked over her fingers. Concentrate. Pour the adrenalin into the muscles. Get ready to strike.

The men were grinning. They weren’t taking her seriously, even though she was now within reach. One of them turned to reach out towards Angie, and Diane reacted. She hit him in the kidneys, swept his legs from under him and split his nose with the edge of her hand.

With a startled shout, a second man came at her from the left. But he had hesitated too long, and she diverted his fist with a forearm block. She swivelled, cracked his kneecap with a side kick.

Then an arm closed round her throat as she was grabbed from behind. The third man was strong and much heavier than she was. The impact of his body forced her up against the factory wall, trapping her arms and banging her forehead on the bricks. Her face to the wall, she clutched at the sweating brickwork, felt her fingers slither on the greasy surface.

When she was firmly pinned, her attacker shifted his grip. The possibility she was most afraid of was a knife. A miasma of beer fumes filled her nose, and his breath pressed hot on the back of her neck. The feel of his body pushed up against hers and the smell of his sweat-soaked hands brought back all the remembered terrors.

‘Now panic drove her. She took a deep breath through her nose before folding suddenly forward at the waist, kicking backwards into his groin with her heel and driving her elbow hard into his solar plexus. He grunted in pain, and his grip loosened. She spun round, using a full rising block to break his grip completely.

She found herself facing Darren Barnes again. Diane drew her ASP, and opened it with a flick of the wrist.

‘Do you know who I am now?’

‘You’re the copper.’

‘Who was the third person that night?’

‘You know who it was, though. Right?’

‘No.’

‘You’re a cop. The cops know.’

‘Tell me anyway.’

He gasped, struggling to get his breath as he stared at her, sweat running down his face. He was far too unfit for this. He relied too much on the presence of his friends to protect him.

‘Well, I couldn’t give a shit,’ he said. ‘It was the lawyer guy-’

‘William Leeson?’

‘Yeah, yeah, him. Leeson. We had a meeting set up with him, at the pub.’

‘In the Connemara.’

‘Right. He was working on something big for us. He was our guy, you know.’

‘That’s what you think.’

He shook his head, as if she was talking a different language that he didn’t even want to understand.

‘When we came out of the pub he was right behind us. The guy was hammered. He’d been on the lash with his partner.’

‘Doyle.’

‘Whatever. Then he came to us for his Charlie. He’s a complete coke head, you know?’

‘No, I didn’t know that. So he was with you when you came out?’

‘Like I said, he was right behind us. That guy was completely off his tits. He was pissing himself laughing.’

‘Laughing?’

‘Oh, yeah. I reckon some of the boys were playing it up, just for him.’

Diane recalled figures back in the darkness, watching, laughing. The reek of booze and violence. But there was no memory of Leeson.

‘It was weird, you know?’ said Barnes. ‘It was like, if he hadn’t been there, it might not have happened.’

‘Oh, so it wasn’t your fault? You didn’t know what you were doing?’

‘All I’m saying is, you ought to go after him. Otherwise, a bloke like that will never get what’s coming to him.’

Angie called to her, and Diane turned. While her attention was distracted, Barnes made a grab for her. That was a mistake. She took hold of his arm, straightened it out, and whipped him off his feet so he sprawled across the parapet of the bridge.

‘Keep struggling,’ she said. ‘It would give me quite a lot of pleasure to break your arm. I’ll make you beg in front of your mates. I’ll let them see you crawl to a woman.’

‘Fuck you.’

Then she let him go. She heard a crunch, the crash of a body falling through the broken fence, and a loud splash as something hit the water. The River Rea had swept up more of the city’s debris.

Her sister stood a few yards away, watching her. When Diane saw the expression on her face, she dropped her ASP in the dirt in despair.

‘Angie,’ she said, ‘I can’t do this any more.’