Stone Cold Red Hot

Chapter six

The next morning was glorious. Sky like fresh paint, sun full of warmth. The sort of day for walking up hills, climbing on top of the world and marvelling. I made it to school, Tescos and the Health Food Shop in Withington. And spent most of the rest of it at the office connecting up with people who could tell me more about Jennifer Pickering circa 1976.

I got through to Caroline Cunningham who sounded to be lost in a heavy cold. I explained who I was, how I’d got her number and what I wanted to talk to her about.

“Honestly?” Her voice rose to a squeak.

“Yes, I’m talking to all her old friends and neighbours. Whereabouts are you?”

“Sheffield, are you coming from Manchester?” She began to cough.

I waited for her to stop before I replied and used the time to calculate whether I could make the journey there and back and be certain of being able to pick up Maddie and Tom. It was too tight, I didn’t need to kill myself over a visit to Caroline. “Yes, it would have to be Monday though, if you’d be at home.”

“Yes, there’s no way I’m goid in like this,” she coughed again to prove her point, “the doctor said take a week minimum. Bordig?”

It took me a second to translate. “Morning would be fine. I’ll aim to get to you about eleven.”

“OK.”

The phone was engaged at Frances Delaney’s house. I put a cross on my list, I’d try her again later.

I made a coffee and had it with the vegetable samosas and the tomato that constituted lunch. I washed the grease off my hands upstairs; the Dobsons let me use their bathroom. The shelves bulged with bathstuffs and cosmetics and towels were stuffed onto rails and hooks any old how. Four girls lived here and the array of bottles bore witness. I’d this to look forward to with Maddie – and teenage rebellion. I knew that the Dobsons had an easy time with their eldest – she was eager to travel and had been too busy earning cash for her adventure to be out clubbing it or in slumming around. It was different with their second girl. They were in the throes of teenage hell. The fact that both parents were teachers and had masses of experience working with youngsters hadn’t seemed to help at all.

Jennifer had been a typical teenager, eager to become independent, desperate to leave home. Her parents had disliked her clothes and the lifestyle she enjoyed but didn’t that just come with the territory? I was becoming more convinced that I would have to speak to Mrs Pickering eventually. If anyone could tell me the essential facts it had to be her: exactly when Jennifer had left her course at Keele, whether she’d given any indication whatsoever of where she was going, whether she talked about having a baby. After all at that point Mrs Pickering had deemed her daughter a disgrace. Hardly a term for someone who’d dropped out of an English degree. If I didn’t get any joy from Keele I would have to persuade Roger to let me approach his mother.

The neighbours who had lived on the other side of the Pickerings had moved to Bradford. I dialled their number. “Hello?”

“Is that Mrs Shuttle?”

“Yes.”

“You used to live in Heaton Mersey?”

“Yes.”

“My name’s Sal Kilkenny,” I began, “I’m trying to trace a missing person, Jennifer Pickering, I know you and your husband lived next door to the Pickerings while Jennifer was still at home.”

“I don’t know anything about all that,” her voice was glacial, “I can’t help you.” She hung up on me.

I sat there for a moment stunned by her abrupt dismissal. I toyed with the notion of ringing her back to press the issue but I realised it would be a futile thing to do. The woman obviously didn’t want to have anything to do with me. Why? It happens that people shut the door in my face. It happens quite a lot actually, especially when I’m serving injunctions. But in other cases there’s generally a little more interaction before people choose not to get involved, not to answer questions, not to waste their time. The speed of her decision and the frostiness of her response got me thinking that there must be some history there, some reason for Mrs Shuttle to turn arctic at the mention of the Pickerings. It was the only untoward reaction I’d had and it intrigued me, made me want to start burrowing away to find out what lay behind it. Oh, it was probably something innocent like the two families had fallen out over a border dispute or the Shuttles’ cat had persisted in fouling the Pickerings’ garden, maybe Jennifer had been a bit lippy to the neighbours. Whatever it was I didn’t know whether it would bring me any closer to finding Jennifer and I wasn’t sure that I should pursue it. I thought it was probably a red herring albeit an interesting one. I know better, now.

I finally got through to Frances Delaney and explained why I was calling.

“Can it wait till after the weekend?” she asked. “It’s just that I’ve had one of them off with chicken pox and my husband’s parents are visiting, arriving tomorrow. I’ve not even done the shopping…”

“That’s fine,” I interrupted. I didn’t need any more persuasion. “I’ve already got things booked for Monday, some time on Tuesday perhaps?”

“Erm…About ten thirty? The baby usually has a nap then and Gemma will be at playgroup. How long will it take?”

“An hour at the most, probably less.”

“OK. I’ll give you the address.”

I wrote it down and said goodbye. So I couldn’t see either of Jennifer’s remaining friends until the following week. I’d still a couple of hours until school finished and that evening I began my surveillance for the Ibrahims. I could usefully prepare for that.

Coming back from school we looked for conkers. There are two huge horse chestnut trees on the way. Tom charged around lamming bits of stick enthusiastically into the trees while Maddie systematically combed the area looking for conkers on the ground.

After ten minutes we had a reasonable haul and at home we set about conducting an experiment. Two conkers each went into vinegar to soak, two each in the oven to bake. We would see which turned out toughest. Meanwhile I took a handful down to the cellar where Ray has his woodwork shop and drilled holes in them. We threaded them on bits of string and bootlaces. Tom and I played the first game. Taking turns to bash each other’s conker with our own. After half a dozen strikes my conker split in half much to Tom’s delight. Seeing this Maddie decided she wanted to keep hers to look at ‘not ruin them like that’ and she took them up to her room to a place of safety. After one more match which Tom also won, he went to watch telly and I started making tea. While I peeled vegetables and boiled rice, my mind turned to work and I wondered what awaited me later that day. My stomach fluttered with anticipation-and not the pleasant sort.

The area of St Georges where the Ibrahims lived had all the depressing features of urban poverty. Just one of the row of shops I passed remained open though only the illuminated sign gave the game away as the windows were covered with steel shutters and the roof edged with vicious looking razor wire. The surrounding shops were boarded up, and covered in graffiti. Litter pooled around the pavements and broken glass glimmered in among the weeds.

Several of the houses also had broken or boarded up windows and one was blackened by fire. A little further along a car had met the same fate, its charred shell yet to be removed by the authorities.

I turned into Canterbury Close and drove along looking for Mr Poole’s. There were semi-detached, redbrick houses either side and a turning circle at the dead end. The road curved so it wasn’t possible to see the junction once I reached his house which was about half way down on the right hand side. Most of the houses looked in need of repairs and a fresh coat of paint. The council had been selling off stock but this wasn’t the sort of area where tenants would exercise their right to buy even if they had the means. All the houses had gardens and, here and there, I could see the proof of someone putting in time and attention: trees in autumn finery and winter pansies in a hanging basket. For others the garden was left untended, left for the children to run wild in or used to dump rubbish.

I parked outside Mr Poole’s and looked across at the Ibrahim’s. There were two rough rectangles of black paint daubed on the brickwork beneath the lounge window and on the door – presumably to cover up graffiti left by their tormentors.

I picked up the sports bag which held the camcorder, my mobile phone and my handbag, got out of the car and locked it. There was a group of youths at the bottom of the close, clustered round a motorbike. They cast glances my way, one of them made a comment and there was a shout of laughter from the others and a medley of obscenities. I wondered whether my disguise was inciting any more interest than I would have done without it. I’d limited it to a few basic features – glasses with bright red frames, red lipstick, a lightweight grey wig and a stone-coloured mac. The glasses and wig came courtesy of my friend Diane who has a thing about trying out a new look every week or two and who lets me use her cast-offs when she goes off them. I can’t often use her clothes – Diane is a very big woman, she’s several sizes larger than me and makes most of her own stuff as the shops don’t cater to her size or her wacky tastes. The glasses were clear lenses (I ask you) so at least I could see through them without endangering anybody, the wig (grey? what possessed her to buy grey?) was light enough to bear wearing for a few hours without getting a headache though it did make me itch round the hairline and the coat was a bargain buy that I’ve never worn. I kept trying it on but it just wasn’t me.

With this costume my hope was that anyone who met me would only remember an older woman with red specs.

Mr Poole was a large, well-built man with a mane of silver-grey hair, jowelly cheeks, a bulbous nose. Behind tortoiseshell glasses I could see small brown eyes, above them eyebrows run wild. He wore dark trousers and shirt and an old-fashioned cable knit cardigan, the sort with leather buttons.

“Come in, come in,” he stood aside and waved me through. Once he’d shut the door he took a moment to look at me, made no comment on what he found then announced, “I’ll show you round, there’s three windows look across the street. This one,” he took me into the front room, “and two upstairs.”

“It’s very good of you to let me use the place.”

“Well, someone’s got to do something. It gets my goat, it really does, the way they behave. Barbaric. I’d say they was like animals but that would be an insult to the animals. Now, you can see through here.”

We moved into the bay window. I could see through the nets into the house opposite and it was a reasonable view but I was aware that this was Mr Poole’s living room and I would be shooting in the dark to avoid discovery. I thought I’d be better upstairs, a better chance to scan the street with less disruption for him.

We looked upstairs. “I don’t use either of these,” he said, “I sleep at the back, it’s quieter. This is the bigger one,” he switched on the light and a jumble of cardboard boxes and furniture appeared. “I use it for storage,” he said, “mind you, I’ve no use for half this lot, keep meaning to have a clear out, get the Sally Army round to take it away but I never find the time.”

The smaller room had more of the same but the view was slightly obscured by a telegraph pole so I settled on the larger one.

“I’ll close the curtains,” I said, “while I get sorted out. Can I use one of these chairs? Thanks. And when I film I’ll part the curtains but I’ll have the lights off so I can’t be seen.”

Mr Poole watched while I moved some of the stuff around until I could place the chair a couple of feet away from the window. I set up the tripod and fixed the camera on. I’d no need to hand hold it while I was filming from the one position. If I did need to move the camera there was a quick release button securing it to the tripod. I turned off the light then opened the curtains a few inches either side until I could pan right across from left to right without filming curtain. I could zoom in on the Ibrahims’ house and pull back to incorporate houses on either side and much of the nearby street. I couldn’t see the main road from here but the bottom end of the Close was visible and I could film there if I swung the camera right at an angle. I shot a few seconds than played it back in the camera to check everything was working alright.

“Probably be a couple of hours before anything gets going,” he said, “Mr Brennan likes to get a few jars down him before he starts picking a fight.”

“Does he live on the Close?”

“At the end, him and Whittaker, they’ve the houses either side of the alley at the bottom. It’s been hell up here these last couple of years.”

“They told me there’ve been a lot of complaints.”

“That’s right. Even though most people are afraid to say anything – scared that there’ll be comeback if they do. You can’t blame them, especially the young ones with kiddies. Leastways I’ve only myself to worry about. Come on down I’ll make you a cuppa tea.”

He pointed out the toilet and bathroom on the way downstairs, “Help yourself, whenever you need.”

His kitchen had never been modernised and some of the items, like the fifties dresser with its sliding frosted glass doors, were collectors items now for those into retro and kitsch. He made the tea slowly, methodically and we took the drinks into the lounge.

“So how did you come to be doing this?” he asked. “Private investigator.”

“Enterprise Allowance Scheme.”

He guffawed. “I heard of people setting up painting and decorating that way and catering but they let you do that?”

“Oh, there were all sorts,” I said, “a juggler and an interior designer. I think the strangest of my lot was a snake breeder.” I thought back to the training sessions; lectures on self-employment, VAT and tax. A motley group of us, out of work but full of schemes and dreams.

“You got money on top of your benefit?”

“Yeah. Forty quid a week for a year, then sink or swim. They reckoned two-thirds of us would sink.”

“You didn’t.”

“Near thing sometimes though.”

“They don’t have that now,” he said.

The steam from the tea misted my glasses, something I wasn’t used to. I pulled back and they cleared. “I can’t keep track,” I said.

“Seems to be going the American way; welfare to work, cutting people’s money if they won’t take a job. I can’t see as how it’s going to make anything better, not round here. Folks aren’t going to be any better off, doing a dead-end job for the same money as the dole, that’s not going to change people’s futures, is it?”

I shrugged, probably not. And there but for the grace of god…

“And what about these single parents?” He persisted. “Some lasses round here have two and three kiddies, they’re looking after them best as they can, and it’s hard for some of them, I can tell you. And now the government wants them to go out to work and pay someone else to mind their children. They might want to mind them themselves. Ought to pay them to do it. That’s what my wife used to say – raising a family is work and it ought to be accounted for.”

But meanwhile? I thought. I drank my tea. “Some of them might want the chance to work,” I said.

“All power to them,” he said. “But if we go down the road of pushing people into jobs they don’t want; that or starve. That’s not what we set up the Welfare State for,” his voice shook and got louder, “we wanted to protect the most vulnerable – for the good of us all. Create a strong society. Give people the basics, decent housing, decent food, healthcare when they need it, everyone paying in, everyone benefits. Common interest, if we lose sight of that…” He broke off, rubbed his face with his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said, “on my soap-box, hard habit to break.”

Shouting from outside startled both of us. I went and pulled aside the curtain. A crowd of youths were on the pavement, five of them. Two were leaning against my car. They were laughing and joking. Mr Poole joined me, he took off his glasses and screwed up his eyes.

“The two with ginger hair, on the car,” he said, “they’re Brennan’s twins, can’t tell ‘em apart. I don’t know the two in the middle and the lanky one on the right is Micky Whittaker.”

He had a shaved head and a pattern marked on his scalp. “What’s that on his head?”

“A tattoo, bulldog.”

“His father is mixed up with some neo Nazi group.”

“Yes and his father gave his life fighting the fascists. Died in Malaya, and now sonny boy’s running round celebrating Hitler’s birthday.” Contempt riddled his voice.

“I’d better get them off the car,” I said. “I pulled my coat back on and Mr Poole followed me to the door. I opened it and called out. “Can you get off the car, please.”

Jeers and catcalls. One of the twins mimicked me, “Can you get off the car, please,” and the other echoed him.

“Needs scrapping,” Micky Whittaker kicked a tyre with his boot. “We can do it for yer, you’ll get the insurance.”

I resisted joining in the banter and repeated my request.

“We’re not hurting it,” said one of the twins “are we?” he turned to the others.

“No,” they chorused.

“Get off the car.”

“Alright, alright,” said the other twin.

“She’s shitting herself,” one of them sniggered.

My cheeks burned but I tried not to react.

“Come on, lads,” Mr Poole’s voice was hard but not threatening.

“Alright, grandad, who’s yer visitor?”

He took a step down and went to the gate. “She’s my niece, up from London and her auntie is poorly in the hospital so I’d appreciate a bit of peace and quiet while she’s staying here, OK?”

There were shuffles and sniggers and a soft “‘kin‘ell” from one of them as they shambled off down the road.