They were at a children’s recreation ground, set amid drab playing fields lined with houses. The climbing frames, swings, seesaw and roundabout were surrounded by patrol cars and uniformed officers and fluttering police tape.
Gene flashed his ID and swept through, leading his team through the crush of plod. They were confronted with a ghastly sight. Under the iron rungs of the climbing frame sat a flyblown red mulch that had once been a human being. A skull grinned out from beneath the mangled remains of its face.
‘Sweet Jesus …’ muttered Ray, sticking a fresh stick of gum into his mouth and lighting up a Silk Cut.
Chris turned away, his face green.
‘What’s the betting that dollop of puddin’ is retired Detective Sergeant Ken Darby?’ Gene growled to Sam. ‘Third ex-copper on the list, third ex-copper to die.’
Sam edged closer to the corpse, fanning away the cloud of bluebottles buzzing about it. Gingerly, he reached into its jacket pocket, and pulled out the bloodied remains of a driving license. Despite the blood, the name on the license was still legible.
‘It’s Darby,’ said Sam.
‘We got a full-blown cop killer on our hands,’ muttered Ray. ‘And seeing what he does to the bodies, looks like he’s one of them fruitcake mass murderers.’
‘Serial killer,’ Sam corrected him.
‘Like whatsisface from that film,’ Chris piped up. He belched dryly, struggling to keep his breakfast down, and said, ‘Mary Hopkins in Psycho.’
‘It ain’t Mary Hopkins, it’s thingy Bates you’re thinking of, with the wig in the shower,’ said Ray. ‘Point is, whoever’s chopping up these ex-coppers has got to be a stark staring skull-job. I mean – look at that!’
Ray, Gene and Sam (but not Chris) all stared at the grisly remains.
Gould’s strong, Sam thought. The pit of his stomach felt cold and clenched. He’s very strong. Too strong for McClintock, maybe – and too strong for me?
Gene said thoughtfully: ‘Our killer slices hell out of the bodies, cuts their faces off, like he don’t want ’em recognised – but leaves them with ID just sitting there in their pockets.' And then, after a pensive pause, he added, ‘Tyler – a word.’
He led Sam away from the thronging coppers. They tramped together across the churned-up football pitch, feeling the mud squelch beneath their boots, until they reached a long run of wooden fences that screened off a row of back gardens from the playing fields. The fences were plastered with posters and flyers, mostly torn and graffiti’d, that formed a chaotic, colourful collage against which Gene now stood. He looked Sam over with narrow, thoughtful eyes, and said, ‘Three dead coppers in a row. Three dead coppers on my patch. This is getting really bad, Sam.’
‘It’s bad, Guv.’
Gene pursed his lips pensively, then said, ‘What do you know?’
‘Guv?’
‘You. And your bird. You found more in them files than you’re letting on.’
Sam sighed, said: ‘God, Gene, everything’s so complicated.’
‘So you keep telling me.’
‘I … I don’t know how to explain things, or even make sense of them myself.’
‘Tyler, do me a favour. I need help here. See who’s just turned up.’
Gene indicated with a curt gesture of his head. Sam looked, and saw a dishevelled figure in a raincoat trying to talk his way past the police cordon to get a look at the bodies.
‘It’s that drunk reporter, Guv,’ said Sam. ‘What was his name again …? Sargood.’
‘Aye, Saucy Jack Sargood. On the sniff again,’ said Gene, his attention fixed not on the crime reporter from the Evening Gazette but on Sam. The intensity of his gaze was oppressive. ‘Things are stacking up, Tyler, and not in a good way. Sargood’ll be sticking the knife in my back like he’s been doing for years, but this time he’s got a good chance of hitting an artery, you hear what I’m saying?’
Dead coppers. A killer on the loose the police can’t find. A retired DCI lying dead in a churchyard with a police bullet in him, put there by DI Tyler himself. And the whole stinking, vile scandal of PC Tony Cartwright’s death just waiting to burst out of the police files and be splattered across the front pages of the papers.
Gene was right. Heads would roll – starting with his own.
‘Now I want you to listen to me, Sam,’ Gene said in a low voice. ‘I don’t care how difficult you find it to explain to me what you know … I want you to help me. Because I know you can help me.’
Gene looked desperate, even vulnerable. His job, his precious job of DCI, which defined him and was everything in the world to him, was hanging by a thread. The press could crucify him in the days and weeks to come. They would bombard him with negative publicity, hold him up for ridicule, parade him as the captain of a rotten, corrupt ship, until at last somebody higher up would make the decision that it was time that Manchester CID rid itself of that turbulent DCI.
But what could Sam say to him? Should he pull out the fob watch from his pocket and try and explain what it was and where it had come from? Impossible. Could he describe what he had seen in the churchyard, lying frozen at the bottom of an open grave? Madness. What could he say? What could he do? Sam was as lost and floundering as the guv himself.
‘I’m going to level with you about something,’ Sam said quietly. ‘I’ve … received information. A tip off. House Master McClintock from Friar’s Brook borstal, remember him?’
‘The slimy jock from the kiddies’ clink? Course I do!’
‘He’s involved in this.’
‘How?’
‘It’s … complicated.’
‘I thought it might be. Have we got grounds to nick him for something? Please say yes.’
‘He’s dead, Guv. Like Darby over there, like Walsh. Gould killed him.’
Gene frowned. ‘None of this is helping me.’
‘I was in contact with McClintock. I can’t go into the details …’
‘Too complicated?’
‘Way too complicated, Guv. But the short version of the story was that we were working together to get Gould. But Gould got him first. I think, before he died, he got a message to Annie, told her to go somewhere – God knows where – and that’s why she’s vanished.’
‘This is complicated,’ Gene mused, narrowing his eyes. He fished out a fresh cigarette, sparked it up, drew on it deeply and let the smoke drift from his nostrils.
‘Annie,’ he said at last. ‘She’s in trouble, right?’
‘Yes, Guv. Big trouble.’
‘But the bastard what did this –’ – he indicated the remains of Pat Walsh behind them – ‘– did for McClintock the same way, and now wants to do the same to her?’
‘That’s about the long and the short of it, Guv.’
‘Then help me. Help her. Tell me something. Give me something we can go on. You do know more than you’re letting on, Sam, and I don’t how complicated it is, just tell me. Tell me, Tyler!’
‘Earles …’ Sam said, looking past Gene’s shoulder.
‘Earles?’
‘Duke of Earles.’
Gene’s eyes lit up: ‘Duke of Earles! Duke of bloody Earles! That was it! I KNEW I flamin’ knew it!’
He span round, following Sam’s gaze. And there it was, emblazoned across a torn poster advertising the nearby stock car races, a poster they had seen dotted all over the city for the last few days – the 'big-name' racers were Dougie Silverfoot, Tarmac Terry, and three-time medal winner Duke of Earles.
Gene suddenly loomed over Sam, intense and focused, and growled, ‘What’s the betting on this one?’
‘It’s got to be worth a punt,’ said Sam.
‘You reckon?’
‘What else have we go to go on?’
‘Chuff all, that’s what.’
‘Then let’s go speak to him. We know he’s in town, we know where he is. Let’s do it.’
‘Aye,’ said Gene, his eyes narrowing, the fire burning anew in his blood. ‘Aye, let’s do it.’
Without another word, Gene turned and strode manfully back towards the scrum of police. Sam followed him, his mind full of thoughts of Annie, his heart aching with concern for her, but his intellect telling him to keep it together, not to let his feelings cloud his judgment, keep in on the trail of Gould and nail that bastard one way or another.
Gene rounded up Chris and Ray.
‘Listen up,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a brainwave. Earles. And Duke. The names in them diaries that Tyler reckoned weren’t worth squat. I reckon they refer to the same bloke – and that bloke’s Duke of Earles, the stock-car driver.’
‘Of course!’ Chris cried loudly, and when everybody shh’d him he dropped his voice and whispered, ‘Of course. Duke of Earles. Brilliant. Oh, Guv, you’re a genius.’
‘It don’t offend me to be reminded,’ growled Gene, shamelessly. Sam decided to let him have his moment, however undeserved. ‘Me and Tyler are going to go straight over and have words with this fella. If he’s connected to Carroll and Gould and all that mucky shite from the sixties then, rest assured ladies, we will coax the whole story out of him. Oh yes indeedy. And while we’re doing that, I want you two to get out there and track down our ex-colleague WPC Pancakes. Find out where she’s toddled off to.’
Ray’s face went hard. He stopped chewing. He did not look happy.
‘Shouldn’t we be dealing with police matters, Guv?’ he grunted.
‘This is a police matter,’ Gene growled back at him. ‘Tyler has reason to think she’s in line for the same treatment as Walsh and them others. I have no intention of letting that happen. So stick your personal grudges in your pocket, Carling. Stick ’em along with the unwashed hanky and the packet of johnnies you’ll never get the chance to use. Whether Bristols is on the team or not don’t mean squat. There’s a killer out there, a right nasty one, and if Tyler’s right then he’s got it into his loopy-loo brain to get Cartwright. Copper or civvy, she’s still a citizen of this city, and we have a duty of care to her, even if she is a hormonal, flat-bubbied shrew with a voice like a Clanger on helium.’
Ray started up: ‘Guv, I’m just saying my time’s better spent –’
‘I don’t want no more deaths!’ Gene roared at him. ‘And I don’t want no more back chat! We find Cartwright, we find our killer, you see how it works?’
Sam had an image of Annie alone and terrified somewhere, waiting in fear for the dark shadow of Clive Gould to come sweeping towards her. But if she wasn’t alone – if there was back up; if there was manpower – then surely that would count for something?
‘And see what you can find out about House Master McClintock,’ put in Sam. ‘You both remember him. He’s connected to this. And … I should perhaps have mentioned this to you before but he’s dead too.’
‘McClintock?’ frowned Ray.
‘Murdered,’ said Sam.
‘Murdered?’ gasped Chris.
‘Yes. McClintock. Murdered.’ Sam spelled it out for them.
‘It’s complicated,’ said Gene. He exchanged a glance with Sam. ‘Don’t think about it too much, your noggins’ll pop. Now stop gawping, get out there, and find ex-WPC Jugs – pronto!’
Sulkily, Ray said, ‘yes, Guv,’ and together with Chris, headed off.
Gene strode straight for the Cortina.
‘Trot along, Tyler, time is of the proverbial,’ he called over his shoulder.
Jack Sargood swayed towards them, notebook in hand, a bottle of very cheap Scotch poking out of his filthy coat pocket.
‘Ah, DCI Hunt!’ he said. ‘More dead folks turning up? Not a very good show, is it. Not losing control of the city, are you? Chief Constable might have a few things to say, mmm, don’t you think so, mmm?’
Gene caught him full in the face with a haymaker. The hat flew from his head as Sargood crashed down into the mud.
‘And you can quote me on that,’ Gene barked, flinging open the door to the Cortina.