The Baby-Snatcher

Chapter Thirty

It was Friday night. At the club Les had hired a stripper and for once the place was full. There were cars parked all along the jetty. When Emma left the house to fetch a bucket of logs she could hear the music, a thumping insistent bass.

Kim Houghton could hear the music even inside the house. It taunted her. A night at the club wasn’t her idea of a thrilling evening, but it was better than staying in on her own. She’d asked Claire if she’d like to babysit but Claire had refused. Which was pretty snotty of her, considering the fiasco which had happened during the week. Kim had almost said to her, ‘Hey lady, I think you owe me an evening. At the very least. How do you think I felt being dragged out of the club by two police officers? In front of all those people?’

But Kim hadn’t said that. You could never tell how Claire would react and if she’d decided to take offence, Kim could have lost a regular sitter. And a cheap one.

She was tempted to wait until Kirsty was asleep and go out anyway. Kirsty hardly ever woke up once you put her to bed and even if she did she was a sensible kid. She wouldn’t do anything silly or make a fuss. The club was only just down the road, so she could pop back every hour or two to check everything was OK. Once she got there she was bound to meet someone she knew. Some bloke who’d buy her a few drinks for the pleasure of her company.

Then she thought she’d better not risk it in case the cops were still lurking on the Headland.

There wasn’t any police presence on the Headland that night. Ramsay had sent the team home.

‘We could all do with some time away from the case,’ he’d said. ‘Put it in perspective. Come back with some fresh ideas.’

Hunter thought it wasn’t perspective they needed but proof. Evidence. He was quite clear in his own mind that Bernie Howe and Claire Irvine had worked together to kill Kath Howe, had plotted it in advance. He understood Ramsay’s caution. Blow your nose at the wrong time and the CPS would refuse to take a case, but that didn’t mean the pair weren’t guilty.

He left his car at home and walked to his local. His mam was still out with the girls from her work. Fridays they stopped for a pizza and a few glasses of Spanish wine on their way home. She’d be back later to cook his supper.

The lads were in the back bar where they always sat. When he’d joined the police he’d lost most of his mates from school and the regulars at the Hastings Arms were the nearest he had now. They were watching Sky Sport on a giant television – Newcastle United had a vital Cup match on the following day and the talk was all about that. Hunter wasn’t sorry they didn’t ask about the case. There wasn’t much to boast about, after all. There were six of them crowded round a small table and they each bought a round of drinks.

He left the pub well before closing time and walked home, staggering a bit on the step up to the front door. His mother had his meal ready for him and he ate it from a tray in front of the television. There was no pudding, though. He thought she could have run to a pudding, especially as he hadn’t been home for his tea for weeks.

She had taken the tray away and he was lying back in the chair, watching the television through half-closed eyes when his mobile phone rang.

‘Yes?’ Automatically, still looking at the scantily dressed women who hosted the new Channel 4 chat show.

‘It’s Steve. From the Manhattan Skyline.’ He heard music, shouting, laughter and he had to strain to catch the words.

‘Yes?’

‘That man you were after. Paul. He’s in again.’

Before Hunter could answer the phone went dead. He didn’t stop to think. Certainly not that he was probably way over the limit and shouldn’t be driving. He grabbed his jacket and shouted through to his mother in the kitchen, ‘I’m off out, Mam. Work.’

She came into the hall, drying her hands on a tea towel he’d brought her back from Limassol.

‘All right, pet.’

‘I’ll be late back so don’t wait up.’

‘I won’t, then. Mind you take care now.’ But she said it easily. She knew Gordon had always been able to look after himself.

He arrived at Whitley Bay without realizing quite how he’d got there, only knowing from the time on his watch that he’d driven too fast.

The seafront was full of people and noise. A line of teenage girls staggered in a conga across the road in front of his car, cocking their legs like a row of incontinent puppies, moving to some rhythm he couldn’t hear. A plump boy was throwing up in the gutter.

Outside a hotel, which had once been a respectable place for families to stay, a fight was going on. A cheering crowd had gathered, blocking the way of a bouncer who had ripped off his bow tie, wanting some of the action too. People streamed across the road in front of Hunter’s car to get a better view of the fight. He leant on his horn but they took no notice. Eventually he turned the wheel and pulled the car on to the wide pavement of the Promenade, clipping his wing mirror on one of the ornamental wrought-iron lamp-posts.

He pushed his way into the Manhattan Skyline. Customers were waiting four deep at the bar and he almost produced a riot by elbowing through them until he was facing the man in the patterned waistcoat who’d been working the week before.

‘Is he still here, then?’

The man, concentrating on pulling a glass of beer, seemed not to hear. Hunter thumped his fist on the bar.

‘You phoned about the bloke I was looking for. You said he’d come in.’

The barman set the glass down carefully.

‘Aye. He did.’

‘Well, where is he now then?’

‘I don’t know, do I?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He came in, had just one drink, then he went.’ He was still listening to the customers’ shouted orders and stood, balletically poised, reaching a glass to the optic with one hand, taking the cap off a bottle of cider with the other.

‘For Christ’s sake!’ Hunter thumped the bar again, almost weeping with frustration.

‘What did you expect me to do? I could hardly lock him in the bog, could I? If you wanted me to make a citizen’s arrest you should have said on the phone. I didn’t need to ring you.’

‘Is there somewhere quieter we can talk?’

‘Are you joking? If I stop now I’ll get the sack.’

‘If you don’t stop now I’ll close this place down. Tell that to your boss.’

There was an exchange with a middle-aged man who sat on a stool at the end of the bar. Steve beckoned Hunter to follow him. They walked down a dusty corridor past the toilets and into a bare, windowless room with a formica table, a sink and a couple of kitchen chairs. On the floor there was a pile of women’s magazines - Hello! and Homes and Gardens – a kettle, some grubby mugs and a catering tin of instant coffee.

‘I’ve got five minutes,’ Steve said. ‘And that comes out of my break.’

‘Get that kettle on. You’ve got as long as it takes.’ Hunter sat on one of the chairs and put his elbows on the table. He had a headache. ‘Where did Paul go when he left here?’

‘I’ve not got a clue. I’m not a mind-reader.’

‘Well, tell me exactly what happened.’

The kettle boiled. Steve made the coffee, tipped in damp lumps of powdered milk. He stirred it but there were still dandruff-sized specks of white floating in the greasy liquid. Hunter drank it, not caring.

‘He came in just before I rang you. I didn’t recognize him at first.’

‘When would that be? Three quarters of an hour ago?’

‘Something like that. It wasn’t so busy, anyway. Before the big rush.’

‘Was he on his own?’

‘Aye. But he didn’t want to be. He was looking for Kim Houghton. That’s when I realized it was him. He asked if she’d been in.’

‘Had she?’

‘No. I’ve not seen her for a while now. I told him that.’

‘Why did he come here looking for her?’ Hunter was speaking almost to himself. ‘He knows where she lives. Why didn’t he go to her home? Unless he thought we’d be on the Headland, looking out for him.’

‘You’re the detective. But I don’t think he was capable of what you’d call rational thought.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’d say he’d had a few. Only one pint in here, but if you ask me he’d been drinking before he arrived. He wasn’t roaring drunk. But a bit on the emotional side. It takes some people that way.’

‘Why? What did he say?’

‘“You don’t understand. You don’t know what it feels like to be lonely.”’ Steve put on a fair imitation of a maudlin drunk. ‘Something like that. He got even more sorry for himself when I told him Kim wasn’t about.’

‘But he didn’t tell you where he was going next?’

The barman shook his head. ‘If he’d been an ordinary customer I’d have been glad to get shot of him. I thought he’d start crying in his beer. I can’t stand the ones who turn suicidal.’

‘Nor me.’

They shared a moment’s silence in contemplation of people who wasted the effect of good beer. Steve seemed to have forgotten his boss’s instructions to be back in five minutes. He lifted his empty mug to offer Hunter another coffee but Hunter was overtaken again by a sense of urgency and shook his head.

‘Have you got a description of him?’

‘Nothing different from what I told you last time.’

‘What was he wearing?’

‘Black jeans, white shirt, newish black leather jacket.’

‘Right. I’ll see you, then.’ He fought his way through the crowd and into the street.

He checked Idols, Forty Second Street and The Big Apple. Occasionally he glimpsed a leather-coated back, dark hair. But when he got a closer view the man was too fat or too young. He only accosted one suspect and he turned out to be a Scot with a Glaswegian accent and a wife called Gillian who’d been hiding in the ladies. Then he went outside and looked in the side streets and the car parks for a red Mazda, thinking he must look dead dodgy. If some woodentop saw him he’d be pulled in on suspicion of nicking cars. Eventually he gave up.

It occurred to him that he should get someone round to the Headland in case Paul turned up there looking for Kim, and even that he should go himself to warn her. She might invite him in. In the end he didn’t do anything. He was supposed to be off duty. He was tired and he was, he realized now, still pissed. All he wanted was to get home without bother and go to bed.

When his mam heard his key in the lock she got up to make him cocoa. He took it to bed with him and swore out loud because she’d forgotten to turn on his electric blanket.

Kim Houghton started on the vodka as soon as she’d put Kirsty to bed. It was a present from a security alarm salesman who travelled abroad a lot with his work. She didn’t usually like drinking alone but tonight she was so fed up that she thought she deserved a treat. She wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. The music from the club would keep her awake. And the thought of all those people having a good time.

Kim watched the late film on the television and then went upstairs. She was standing at the window, about to draw the curtains when she saw a car she didn’t recognize parked on the other side of the street, outside Bella Charlton’s house. Bella’s nephew and his family must have come to visit her at last. It annoyed Kim to imagine the old witch still up, having a party, while she was on her way to bed. Alone.