Death in a Far Country (17 page)

But her own empty flat seemed less than enticing, and in the end she left her car in the car park and walked across the town centre, dodging the homeward bound shopping traffic, and strode up the stone steps to the imposing entrance of the Clarendon hotel, where she knew she could find an armchair in a quiet corner of the bar and sink into anonymous comfort with a vodka and tonic.

The Clarendon had been a favourite haunt of her father’s, a place where Bradfield’s surviving businessmen conferred, successors of the textile millionaires who had built solid monuments to themselves like the Exchange, the Italianate town hall and the town’s major hotels, which still stood, although their mills and warehouses had fallen silent long ago. The place was still opulent and when she walked in there was a handful of prosperous looking men in suits at the bar taking their Scotch prior to the long drive home to the more salubrious dormitory towns in the Yorkshire Dales. One or two looked at her curiously as she sought out a seat and nodded to the waiter. This was still not a place where a woman on her own was a common sight once afternoon tea had ceased to be served in the lounge to elderly ladies in hats.

Service was quick, and she took a sip of her drink, leant back in her seat and closed her eyes for a second, trying to blot out the day completely. She felt sick at the thought that Thackeray might be trying to do the same with a bottle of Scotch. But she was not left in peace for long. She had only half finished her vodka and tonic when she was aware of a heavyweight figure making its way across the thick carpet towards her.

‘Laura? Laura Ackroyd?’ said the man she quickly recognised as her father’s acquaintance Les Hardcastle. ‘I thought it was
you, Laura, and lovelier than ever.’ Hardcastle dropped into the chair on the other side of the table and beamed at her, a florid man in his late fifties with silvery hair and calculating eyes. ‘Have you spoken to your dad recently? I was only talking to him the other day, as it happens. We still keep in touch now and again, me and Jack. Sold me his shares in the end, you know.’

‘I heard you’d had some dealings over Bradfield United,’ Laura said, trying to summon some interest in the obsessions of the football fanatics. ‘Are you going down to London for the Chelsea match?’

‘Oh aye, I’ll be at Stamford Bridge,’ Hardcastle said, his eyes ablaze. ‘It’ll be good to take a close look at a club that’s found an investor like they’ve got, the Russian fellow, you know? I’m trying to get someone like that on board at United. We’d be up in the Premiership in no time with that sort of investment in some decent players.’

‘Is that what you’re aiming at?’ Laura said, trying not to look too sceptical as she recalled Jenna Heywood’s conviction that Les would sell the club down the river for a suitable financial return. Les tapped the side of his nose and tried to look mysterious, although to Laura it merely made him seem shifty.

‘It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility,’ he said. ‘There’s feelers out of a very encouraging sort. Can’t say any more, especially as you’re with the
Gazette
, my dear. But it’ll all come out in the fullness of time. You’ll see.’

‘Well, make sure our sports editor’s the first to hear of it, won’t you?’ Laura said. ‘He’s very keen to discover which way the club is going. I interviewed Jenna Heywood last week. Does she play any part in your plans?’ Laura knew
the answer to that question and she was not surprised when Hardcastle scowled.

‘She’s got no idea about football, that young woman,’ Hardcastle said, with real venom in his voice, making Laura suddenly feel cold. ‘Just as soon as the investor I’ve got in mind is fully on board, she’ll be out on her ear, I make no secret of that. She won’t be able to turn the deal down, believe me, even though my man won’t want to keep her on as chairman. You wouldn’t catch this lad leaving a woman in charge.’

‘Any particular reason for that, Les?’ Laura asked sweetly. ‘Smaller brain, perhaps, or the lack of a willy?’

Les flushed, and leant across the table towards her angrily.

‘There’s no need for that,’ he hissed. ‘But it’d not be something a Muslim would do, is it?’

‘A Muslim millionaire then, is it?’ Laura asked.

‘I’ll say no more,’ Hardcastle said, hauling himself back to his feet. ‘Give my regards to your parents when you speak to them.’ And with that he headed back to the bar where he was soon absorbed by a group of middle-aged men in suits who glanced in Laura’s direction in response to something Hardcastle said, and then turned in on themselves again with knowing smiles. Irritated, Laura drained her glass and left the bar, which suddenly felt inhospitable, without a backward glance. On the steps of the hotel she paused for a moment and pulled out her mobile.

‘Tony?’ she said when her call was answered by voicemail. ‘I’ve just had a chat with Les Hardcastle and his plans for the club. From what he says, you should be looking for a Muslim millionaire with an interest in football – or maybe just in football grounds. According to Les, he’s going to get Bradfield
United into the Premiership and give Chelsea’s Russian a run for his money. Don’t say I never do anything for you. If you want any more, give me a call.’

She rang off with a wry smile and pulled her scarf up tighter round her chin. It was a bitterly cold evening and she wondered where Elena and her friend were hiding. She hoped they were somewhere warm. For a second she gazed at her mobile before speed dialling another number, but again all she got was the impersonal tones of voicemail.

‘Michael, it’s me,’ she said. ‘Can we talk?’ But as she flicked the phone off she felt the dread she had tried to banish in the bar return with full force. He won’t call, she thought. This time, he really won’t call.

Sergeant Kevin Mower had to admit that Stephen Stone had spared no expense on the décor at his new club, The Manhattan, a glossy art deco extravaganza in chrome and shiny red and black lacquer and leather. And it was already busy at nine-thirty on a Friday evening with a bustle of men in the ubiquitous smart casual dress of the affluent young. Wives and girlfriends were less in evidence, Mower thought as he sipped his extortionately priced cocktail, but there was a cluster of scantily dressed young women at the bar who seemed very ready to have drinks bought for them, and a couple of floor to ceiling poles that promised more exotic entertainment to come.

Mower leant back in his black leather and chrome chair and surveyed the scene benignly. If only more assignments were like this, he thought. He had planned to bring a colleague with him but the trawl of all the clubs in Bradfield that evening had soaked up officers and in the end most had been sent out alone. But he was not alone for long, as he had guessed he would not be. One of the girls at the bar, a willowy blonde in a slinky satin dress that revealed much more than it concealed, made her way over to his table with a bright smile.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘My name’s Melanie. Would you like some company?’

‘Sure,’ Mower said. ‘It’s the first time I’ve been here. Some mates are coming in later but for the minute I’m all alone. Can I get you a drink?’

‘Do you like champagne? Champagne’s my favourite,’ Melanie said eagerly, but Mower glanced at his own garishly coloured drink and shook his head.

‘Start with a cocktail, why don’t you?’ he said, knowing that his expenses would not cover a bottle of bubbly at the sort of prices The Manhattan was likely to charge. ‘This is nice.’ He held his glass up enticingly. Melanie pouted slightly but nodded when the waiter came over to their table.

‘One of those,’ she said, pointing at the drink which Mower was sipping as slowly as he dared. Mower leant back again, admiring Melanie’s undoubted charms but knowing that there was no way she had been smuggled into Bradfield from anywhere further east than Cleckheaton.

‘You work here then, do you?’ he asked, with what he hoped was an expectant leer.

‘I’m a hostess,’ Melanie said. ‘Here to help you enjoy yourself.’

‘Oh, you could do that all right,’ Mower said, giving the girl’s silky leg a stroke under the table.

‘Well, we’ll have to see about that, won’t we, cheeky boy,’ Melanie said. ‘But I’m not allowed to get into any naughtiness on the premises, am I? They’re very, very strict about that.’ She nodded towards the disco at the far end of the room where a black-clad DJ had clamped headphones to his ears and was messing about with his decks.

‘There’s dancing later,’ she said. Her drink arrived and she took a sip from a glass where the contents looked suspiciously paler than Mower’s own. Her cocktail, he guessed, was probably little more than coloured water.

‘Do you live local?’ Melanie asked. ‘Have you got your own place?’

Mower nodded.

‘And you?’ he asked.

‘Only shared,’ she said gloomily. ‘It’s not the same as having your own place, is it? What do you do then? Good job, is it? Must be if you can afford to come here.’

‘Not bad,’ Mower said cheerfully, realising that this was a girl totally out of her depth in what purported to be Bradfield’s most sophisticated night-spot. She had the looks and the style but by no stretch of the imagination had she the sophistication or the wit. And whatever else she was, she was not an obvious tart. Her eyes were too bright and genuinely interested in him for that.

‘How long has this place been open, then?’ he asked. ‘Have you been here since the start?’

Melanie giggled.

‘It opened about two months ago, I think. But this is my first week, would you believe.’ Oh yes, Mower thought, I’d believe that. Just his luck to get landed with a complete novice.

‘So it’s a good job then, is it, being a hostess? Good pay and all that?’

‘Oh, not bad,’ Melanie said. ‘But then, they say there’s tips?’

‘For extra services?’

The girl glanced away, looking embarrassed.

‘I told you. There’s nothing like that. If that’s what you and your mates are expecting you’re going to be disappointed.’ Mower looked across at the gaggle of girls by the bar, who were beginning to disperse amongst the tables, picking out men on their own, like him, or small groups without women, and gave Melanie a sceptical glance.

‘I bet there’s private rooms upstairs somewhere,’ he said. ‘Or round the back.’

Melanie suddenly looked annoyed and drained her drink with a flourish of her long blonde hair.

‘There’s nothing upstairs,’ she said, her voice suddenly shrill. ‘We’re underneath a whole lot of offices, if you must know. And nothing anywhere else either. Aren’t you listening? If you want that sort of girl you need to go down Aysgarth Lane and you won’t have any problem.’

Mower was suddenly conscious of a looming presence behind him and he turned to see one of the club bouncers, eighteen stone of solid muscle compressed into a dark suit several sizes too small for him and an unfriendly look in his piggy eyes. The eyes of clubbers at other tables had also swivelled in his direction and he realised he had pushed his luck too far.

‘You got trouble here, Mel?’ the doorman asked. Melanie shrugged and got to her feet, then flounced back to the bar without a backward glance.

‘Don’t annoy the girls, if you know what’s good for you, mate,’ the bouncer said.

‘No offence meant,’ Mower muttered. ‘I’m waiting for some friends.’

‘Well, I’m watching you, mate. All right?’ The man turned
away but Mower was suddenly aware of someone else he did not particularly want to talk to making his way towards him through the increasingly crowded tables.

‘Sergeant Mower,’ Stephen Stone said, with a smile that reminded Mower of a lazily cruising shark. He sat down in the chair Melanie had vacated and glanced at Mower’s glass. ‘Another drink? On the house?’

‘No thanks,’ Mower said. Stone glanced around the room proprietorially as the DJ’s speakers crashed into life and conversation became difficult for a moment until the music faded again as quickly as it had begun.

‘You like it?’ Stone mouthed, through the bass line.

Mower nodded, knowing that he would get no further with his inquiries that night.

‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘Good décor.’

‘Are you meeting someone?’ Stone asked. ‘Please be my guest, if you are. I’ll tell the bar staff to put you on the list.’

‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ Mower said, getting to his feet.

‘You must be looking for someone, then?’ Stone persisted, no smile now. ‘That little slag whose picture’s all over the papers, maybe? I can assure you, you’re wasting your time here. This is a legitimate business, all above board. No tarts are going to get through this door, believe me.’

‘I just came in for a drink,’ Mower said. ‘I’m having a meal somewhere else. I’m off duty, for God’s sake.’

‘Be my guest next time, then,’ Stone said with that glitteringly cold smile. ‘Nice to see you again, Sergeant. And give my regards to Inspector Thackeray, won’t you? I know he’s not much of a clubbing man, but maybe you’ll bring him with you next time. We could find him a bottle of pop, I dare
say.’

Mower gritted his teeth and turned away, making his way through the tables with his hands clenched in his pockets. The final humiliation would be to be thrown out of The Manhattan, he thought, and he would say and do nothing which risked that. But as he pulled on his leather jacket and made his way out into the frosty street he promised himself that he would be back, with a warrant and back-up, if only to take that grin off Stephen Stone’s face.

Back at police HQ, Mower found Thackeray still in his office, the air thick with cigarette smoke, and an expression of desperation in his eyes. Mower closed the door behind him and took a seat uninvited.

‘Are you OK, guv?’ he asked. Thackeray looked at him blankly for a moment and then shrugged but did not answer.

‘How did you get on?’ he asked. So Mower told him about his visit to The Manhattan.

‘It’s not too hard for Stone to work out who we’re looking for,’ he said tentatively when he’d finished. ‘It’s been all over the media. But calling her a slag? Was that just the way he always refers to women, or does he know? And if he knows, how does he know? We’ve never suggested in public that Grace or Elena were on the game. We’re just looking for a friend of the dead girl as far as the Press is concerned. A missing witness. Why a slag?’

‘He knows,’ Thackeray said. ‘He could have found out that Grace was HIV positive through his contacts at the football club, though I wouldn’t have thought anyone is bandying that bit of information around. It’s far too damaging. But it’s just possible he’s found out accidentally. Much more likely is that
he knows because he knows the girls. If it wasn’t for what happened last time I’d have him in so fast his feet wouldn’t touch the ground. But in the circumstances we need more, or his solicitor will be screaming harassment as soon as we’ve got him over the threshold. As it is, Elena’s out there like bait in a trap, which in one way is good for us, but desperately dangerous for her.’

‘So what now? Surveillance?’ Mower asked.

‘Maybe. We’re seeing Minelli again in the morning, before he goes off to London with the team. Let’s see where we are after that, shall we? We can ask him what he’s told his girlfriend Angelica so we know what she might have told Stone himself.’

‘Right, guv,’ Mower said. He glanced at his boss anxiously as he got to his feet but he was met with such an uncompromising stare that he turned away with a slight shrug.

‘Night,’ he said. But back in the CID office he pulled out his mobile and speed dialled Val Ridley’s number. To his surprise, this time it was answered.

‘Kevin?’ the familiar cool voice said. ‘You have to stop this, you know. You’re becoming a nuisance.’

‘Are you coming to Bradfield, Val?’ Mower said quietly. ‘That’s all I want to know.’

‘Probably, on Tuesday,’ Val said.

‘Are you sure you want to do this? Are you still so angry that you want to destroy people over it? The guv’nor looks as though he’s going to crack up any time. That’s not a good outcome.’

There was a long silence at the other end. ‘Leave it, Kevin,’ Val said eventually, and she hung up.

‘Bloody woman,’ Mower said as he pocketed his phone. He ran a hand across his closely cropped hair and sighed. The ignominious end to his evening’s work still rankled. If Thackeray would not authorise surveillance of Stephen Stone, he thought, maybe there was scope for a little freelance work. He would, at the very least, find out where Stone went when he left The Manhattan that night. Somewhere in Bradfield there was a safe house where illicitly trafficked girls were imprisoned and for his money Stone was a prime candidate for gatekeeper to that particular hell. He pulled on his coat again and went out into the icy evening air determined to follow his hunch for as long as it took.

The next morning, with a feeling of liberation, Jenna Heywood filtered onto the M1, put her foot down and the BMW purred effortlessly up to eighty, eighty-five and then ninety in the outside lane. The sense of freedom was not just at getting away from Bradfield for the first time in two months, and from all the stress and unexpected anger that her new role had brought, but also because the twenty mile slog from home to the main motorway south had taken what seemed like for ever. Happy families heading in people carriers to the White Rose shopping centre for an afternoon’s credit card excess, and football fans packed into cars of all shapes and sizes and pushing against time to get to Leeds United’s stadium had clogged the M62 trans-Pennine motorway until Jenna had felt that she would scream in frustration. But to the south, after the M1 junction, the three-lane road seemed thankfully clear and she hoped to be at home in London in a couple of hours.

She switched on the radio and tuned into Five Live to pick
up the afternoon’s football prognostications and excitements, knowing that her own team’s chances of glory would not be headline news this far ahead of the game on Tuesday. She could relax in the luxury of neutrality as the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Premiership contenders were probed by the usual array of inarticulate or incomprehensibly Scottish pundits. She smiled faintly at the tales of management jealousies, thankful that Bradfield United was too obscure for anyone to know or care about the tensions she had left at Beck Lane.

No one would care, except Tony Holloway, she thought, and his far more
simpatico
colleague, Laura Ackroyd. She wondered whether she should have invited Laura to come to the Cup match as her guest, but then dismissed the idea. She liked Laura, but was faintly suspicious of her obviously long-standing relationships with some of the old die-hards at the club. Just how close had Laura’s father been to Les Hardcastle? she wondered, recognising her own resentment at the news that Jack Ackroyd had sold his shares to her rival for control of the club. The latest rumour, that Hardcastle was wooing an unknown millionaire sponsor for the club, had incensed her the previous evening when Holloway had passed the rumour on and asked for her comment. She had been foolish, perhaps, she thought, to slam the phone down on him. She might need Holloway as an ally in the difficult days ahead. But the mistake was made now, and could not be unmade, at least until the Chelsea game was over and the club had returned to their home ground either in triumph, or, more likely, in deep depression to lick their wounds. That was when the gloves would come off, she thought, and the
Gazette
would take sides in the war for the club’s future, and Laura Ackroyd notwithstanding, she thought she knew exactly which way they would jump.

The traffic was thickening again as she approached Sheffield and a second wave of happy shoppers began to clog the inside lanes as they headed for Meadowhall, another temple of consumerism standing four-square on the ruins of
nineteenth-century
industry. She was not an economist but she wondered vaguely how long a country could survive if, as seemed likely, it ceased to produce anything tangible at all. Over the massive viaduct that gave a vast view of the city, the traffic thinned and she accelerated away into the fast lane again.