The bright morning sunshine did little to improve the appearance of Pete Garfield’s house. The peeling paintwork and filthy windows were even more apparent than before, and the scene had been further enhanced by an overflowing wheelie bin by the front door.
At first, there was no response to the doorbell. Annie glanced at Zoe and pressed again, holding the bell down longer this time. She could hear its insistent ringing from somewhere inside the house.
Finally, the door opened and an unshaven face peered out at them. ‘Christ, Cagney and Lacey again. Thought you’d done with me.’
‘Good morning, Mr Garfield. I’m afraid we have some bad news.’
The door opened fully to reveal all of Pete Garfield. He was dressed in a worn dressing gown that was barely long enough to protect his modesty. It was past 10:30 a.m., but Annie guessed they’d dragged him out of bed. ‘What bad news? This about Darren Parkin again?’
‘May we come inside?’
‘Yeah. If you’re sure you want to.’
The room looked and smelled much the same as on their previous visit. Garfield again swept the sofa clear of debris and pushed open the windows to dilute the fetid atmosphere. Annie lowered herself cautiously onto the sofa, Zoe taking a seat beside her.
‘What’s this about?’
‘It’s about your son, Mr Garfield. And I’m afraid it’s bad news.’
‘Jonny? What’s the little bastard—?’ He stopped. ‘What’s happened to him?’
‘He’s dead, Mr Garfield. I’m very sorry.’
‘Dead?’ Garfield spoke the word as if the concept was new to him.
‘We believe unlawfully killed,’ Annie went on. ‘In a very similar manner to Darren Parkin.’
‘Shit!’ Garfield slammed his fist hard into the side of the armchair. ‘I told them—’
‘You told them what, Mr Garfield?’
Garfield looked up as if he’d almost forgotten the two officers were there. ‘I— It doesn’t matter. I told them to be careful.’
‘Mr Garfield,’ Annie said slowly. ‘I’ve every sympathy for your loss, and this isn’t the moment for me to pressurise you. But if you know anything that might help us find the killer of your son and of Darren Parkin, I implore you to tell us. I can’t go into the details at this point, but we have good reason to believe your son may not be the last victim.’
When Garfield finally looked up at them, Annie was surprised to see there were tears in his eyes. She’d envisaged him as the kind of would-be hard man who’d resist crying in front of a woman, even at a moment like this. He was silent for a long moment. ‘I don’t know much. All I know is that Jonny and Darren were mixed up with some pretty nasty people. They’d been tangled up in that sort of stuff for a long time. Since they were at school.’
‘What sort of stuff?’
‘You name it. Mainly drugs when they were at school. I know how they were enticed into that. But it wasn’t just soft stuff. They were dealing the hard stuff. Even to schoolmates.’
‘They never got caught?’
‘Not for that. They had a few scrapes with the law, but only for trivial stuff. No one ever laid a finger on them for the serious business.’
‘You knew about this?’ Annie tried hard to keep any note of accusation out of her tone. She wanted Garfield to keep talking.
‘Some of it. I suspected more.’ He shrugged. ‘What can I say? I was a single father. But that’s not an excuse. I was also a crap one. It was easier to turn a blind eye.’
‘And it wasn’t just drugs?’
‘One thing leads to another, doesn’t it? It was the people they were mixing with. I don’t know the details and I don’t want to. But they’d do anything that would earn them a few quid.’
‘Your son didn’t have a regular job?’ Annie said.
‘Not that I’m aware of. We weren’t in regular contact. Or much contact at all. We never exactly had a falling-out, but I wanted to steer well clear of whatever he was involved in.’
Annie decided to try another tack. ‘Your son was identified at a far-right political protest a few days ago. Were you aware that he was involved in that kind of politics?’
‘That the one where the MP was shot?’ Garfield didn’t wait for a response to his question. ‘No, I didn’t know about that. But it fits. Something where he can be the big I-am while being told what to do.’
‘You don’t share those politics?’
‘Me? Christ, no. I’m not that much of a moron. I suppose I’m still Labour if anything. I don’t think any of that lot have much interest in the likes of me. Certainly not the tinpot little fascists. But Jonny would have gone for that stuff.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Acting tough surrounded by his mates. That’s why he got caught up in all this crap. It wasn’t the money, though he developed a taste for that. He just wanted to be part of the gang, even if they were just using him.’
Annie frowned. ‘So who was using him?’
‘Early days, it was older kids at school. They were the ones who first got him and Darren caught up in bad stuff. But there were people running them, too. There are always plenty of people out there only too keen to exploit kids like Jonny and Darren.’
There was something about the way Garfield talked about the two young men that had been bothering Annie, though she hadn’t been able to pin down what it was. ‘Can I ask you about Darren’s mother?’
Garfield looked up, clearly startled by the unexpected question. ‘Darren’s mother?’
‘Did you know her?’
‘I— A little.’
‘The identity of Darren’s father seems to be a mystery. Is that right?’
There was a long silence before Garfield said, ‘I suppose so.’
‘We’ve already got Darren’s DNA on the system. Jonny seems to have escaped our attentions in the past, but I imagine if we were to check his sample against Darren’s it would give us an indication of whether they were related.’
‘I don’t understand—’
She was aware she was perhaps pushing this too far and too hard given the circumstances. ‘When we were last here, Mr Garfield, we had the sense there were things you weren’t telling us. I was just wondering whether one of those things might have been that you were Darren’s father?’
Garfield looked bewildered and initially she thought he was going to deny it. Finally he said, ‘I don’t know. It’s possible. I – had an affair with Cathy.’ He laughed. ‘Though “affair” is probably a rather grand term for it. And I wasn’t the only one. When she found out she was pregnant, let’s just say I was one of several candidates.’
‘She didn’t try to make you take responsibility for the child?’ Zoe asked.
‘She didn’t seem interested in anything from me. I was still married at the time, though it wasn’t the first time I’d played away.’ He gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Or the last. Which is why I’m no longer married. But, no, Cathy never spoke to me about it.’
‘Darren seems to have been brought up mainly by her parents,’ Zoe said.
‘Pretty much. Cathy was always a handful. Did things her own way. Didn’t take responsibility for much. A born troublemaker.’
‘Then she vanished?’
‘Got bored here, I’m guessing. She liked to stir things up and, well, you’ve met her parents. She was already up to her ears in trouble.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘Drugs again, mainly. But she mixed with the wrong types. My guess is she was on the game at that point. That was how she paid for the drugs. I don’t know when that would have started, but it might have been another reason why she didn’t know who Darren’s father was. She took a hell of a lot of risks.’ He shook his head. ‘Christ, it’s all such a mess, isn’t it?’
It wasn’t clear to Annie whether he was talking specifically about Cathy Parkin or life in general. Pete Garfield was a long way from the cocksure man they’d met the previous day. ‘I’m sorry. I appreciate this is a difficult time for you. We’re just trying to put together as many pieces of the jigsaw as we can. Some of them may be relevant, some won’t be. But we need all the facts we can get.’
‘Yeah, of course. I wasn’t hiding anything from you. I genuinely don’t know if I was Darren’s father, and it didn’t seem relevant when I spoke to you before.’
‘We need all the leads we can get, however tenuous. You don’t know anything about where Cathy Parkin went after she left here?’
‘She’s still around,’ Garfield said. ‘Or at least she was until fairly recently. Not here, obviously, but I’ve clocked her a couple of times in Derby. Just on the street.’
‘Did you speak to her?’
‘No. What would I say? Both times I just saw her across the street. You don’t miss her easily. She still looks pretty amazing. Same bright-red hair. Like I say, you notice her.’
‘You don’t know if she was still in contact with Darren?’
There was another slight hesitation before Garfield responded. Another question that had caught him by surprise, Annie thought. ‘I think she might have been. I don’t know. Just some remark of Jonny’s once that gave me the impression they’d both spoken to her.’ He paused, rubbing his temples as if trying to force his brain into action. ‘I’m trying to remember what he said. It was something about a potentially good deal that Darren’s mum had put in their direction. Something that might change things for them. To be honest, I didn’t take a lot of notice. Jonny was always talking bullshit about some great deal he had in the offing.’
‘When was this?’
‘Not long ago. Couple of months, maybe. It was really only the reference to Cathy that caught my attention. To be honest, if Cathy had involved them in something, my guess is it would have been bad news.’
‘You think it’s possible it could be linked to what’s happened to them?’
Garfield stared at her, red-eyed, as if until that moment he’d forgotten about his son’s death. ‘She was bad news. She was always bad news. But I can’t believe she’d have deliberately involved them in anything – well, anything harmful. Not her own son. Not even Cathy.’ He sounded as if even he scarcely believed what he was saying.
Annie nodded. ‘Thank you for your honesty. It gives us another line to pursue. And you’ve no idea where we might find Cathy Parkin?’
‘I’m sorry. I’ve no idea at all. I’m sure her parents wouldn’t have a clue, and I wouldn’t know where else to begin.’
‘That’s a job for us. We’ve already pressed you too hard on all this. I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr Garfield. Sincerely.’
‘It’s a shock. We weren’t close but, well, a son’s a son, isn’t he?’
‘Of course. You’re sure you’ll be okay?’
‘I’ll be fine. As fine as I ever am, anyway.’ He looked around, as if seeing the room for the first time. ‘I’m a fucking mess, aren’t I? Got nothing, going nowhere. I’ve screwed up my life from start to finish.’ He gave a faint smile. ‘But I’m still here, I suppose. That’s all I’ve got going for me. Maybe this’ll give me a kick up the backside. Or maybe not.’
‘We won’t take up any more of your time,’ Annie said. ‘If anything else occurs to you, however minor it might seem, please give us a call. I don’t know if we’ll need to talk to you again.’
‘Talk to me as much as you need,’ Garfield said. ‘It’s not like I’m busy. If I can do anything to put the bastard who did this behind bars, I’m only too happy to help.’