Fragile Cord (26 page)

‘From the angle that the knife
entered the body, I can also advise that the attacker was shorter
than his victim. Given that the victim was five foot nine, I hope
this helps narrow down your suspects.’

Turnbull whooped and punched
the air before flashing Coupland a grin. ‘The Sportsman serves food
prepared on the premises, Sarge, and Jimmy Brooks and Charlie
Horrocks are a pair of short arsed little fuckers.’

Coupland nodded, his eye’s
twinkling at the prospect of nailing Wilson’s killers. ‘About
bloody time.’

He’d been about to follow
Turnbull when Benson signalled that he wanted a word. He assumed it
wasn’t about Wilson – technically it was Turnbull’s case and he
wouldn’t thank Benson for going over his head. ‘Can it wait?’ he
still had to brief DCI Curtis on his suspicions about Tracy
Kavanagh and there was no way he was missing bringing Brooks and
Horrocks in – every job had its perk and he’d especially relish
this one.

‘Give us five,’ he called
reluctantly to Turnbull, who was already on his radio requesting
back up to meet them at the wine bar where Wilson’s wife had had
her bag stolen.

Coupland walked the short
distance along the corridor towards the pathologist’s office,
waited for him to emerge from the lift’s double doors.

‘I was going to call you.’
Benson said briskly as he led the way to his large book-lined
sanctuary behind a glass-panelled door. Inside the immaculate room
there was a wide metal desk on top of which sat two wire trays
containing several files. A laptop sat between them dejectedly, its
power cable unplugged at the wall.

‘I keep forgetting to re-charge
the bloody battery.’ Benson explained ruefully, and Coupland
wondered if these lapses in memory had any bearing on why he
preferred working on the dead.

‘After a while it seemed like
too much trouble to start up the stupid thing.’ Benson confessed.
‘So it’s lucky for you I still make notes by hand otherwise you’d
be waiting forever for me to power this damn thing up.’

He regarded the computer as
though it was some alien object that had landed on his desk.
‘Management dictated it would improve efficiency,’ He muttered
scornfully, ‘if we typed up our own sodding records. You can see
where it’ll end: clerical staff being laid off in a cost cutting
exercise, then in a year’s time the NHS’ll recruit hundreds more
consultants to free up the time the current consultants spend doing
bloody admin.’

He looked over at Coupland,
‘Sorry,’ he said sheepishly, ‘rant over.’

Coupland
thought of the refurbished canteen at the station, manned by fully
trained catering staff, only for the accountants to advise that
there wasn’t enough money in the budget for the kitchen to prepare
fresh meals. It was no surprising the surly assistants thought
themselves overqualified to spend most of their time defrosting and
reheating trays of ready-made meals - specially prepared trays of
food that had been made
off
the premises. All in the name of
progress.

‘You wanted a word?’ he prompted
Benson.

‘Yes, sorry.’ Benson was a
couple of years younger than Coupland, dark-skinned, with a swathe
of unruly black hair and dark eyes. Would look more at home on an
archaeological dig, Coupland mused, then reminded himself pathology
was just another form of excavation – into the recesses of the
human body. He watched Benson methodically work his way through the
pile of files on the left and right of his desk, frowning.

‘Ah,’ he said
moments later, ‘here it is.’ He waved the manila file in his hand,
and Coupland could see – written in thick black marker pen – the
name
Kavanagh, K.

Benson motioned for Coupland to
take a seat on one of two plastic chairs on the other side of his
desk, before taking a seat in his own comfortable leather chair. He
opened the manila file.

‘As you know Kevin, most people
can be classified by their blood type.’ He paused, waited for
Coupland to nod before continuing.

‘While there are extremely rare
or exotic blood types, most of us can be classified in to the A,B,O
or AB blood types.’ A pause for Coupland to nod again.

‘The fact that AB type exists
at all told early investigators that every individual actually
carries two alleles, or traits that determine blood type. – one
inherited from each parent. You with me so far?’

Coupland wondered how many
times he’d have to nod. He’d tell him when he needed a diagram.
‘Further studies proved that if each parent contributed an O
allele, the child would be type O, but if one parent contributed an
A and the other an O, then the O dominated.’

Coupland’s nod was slower this
time, but he was still with him.

‘A and B do not dominate each
other though, so if one parent contributes an A and the other a B,
the child displays both traits and is AB. Obviously having no A or
B factors, two O parents can only have O children. Two AB parents
can never have an O child, as neither of them has an O allele to
pass along. Two parents of types AO and BO could combine their O’s
to produce an O child, their A and B to produce an AB child, their
A and O to produce an AO child, which we call A, or their B and O
to produce a BO child, which we call B.’

Letters of the alphabet swam
across Coupland’s line of vision. His patience, which had been
wearing thin, finally snapped:

‘Christ, man, what the hell are
you trying to tell me?’

The pathologist smiled smugly.
‘Angus Kavanagh’s blood group is O, and Tracey’s is A. This means
that Kyle’s blood group should be O. Only it isn’t. His blood group
is AB. Assuming he got the A from his mother……’

‘Yes?’

‘Then Angus couldn’t be his
father.’

What was it about the little
man syndrome, Coupland thought as he and Turnbull returned to the
pedestrianized square that was the scene of Ricky Wilson’s murder.
It seemed to him that what vertically-challenged crooks lacked in
height they made up for in cruelty, and Brookes and Horrocks were
no exception. Their criminal records were littered with violent
assaults – gang fights with crowbars and broken paving stones, car
doors rammed against victim’s skulls. They’d been rumoured to be
involved in an attack on a city centre chip shop – pushing the
owner’s hand into the deep fat fryer – but no charges had ever been
brought, their victim insisting he’d been clumsy, such was the fear
of getting on the wrong side of the evil pair. Once, Brooks drilled
a hole through a rival’s hand for a bet.

They were the
failures of rehabilitation; the detention centres they went to
weren’t the sort of places to make them think about what they’d
done, just provided them with a new stomping ground, a new set of
dodgy contacts. Now they’d found work as doormen they were being
paid to torment punters legitimately –
the
management has the right to refuse admittance
– they must have thought they’d died and entered bullyboy
heaven.

‘Nice to see
they’re performing a useful function in society.’ Coupland growled
as he and Turnbull walked through the entrance to the wine bar. It
was lunch-time and already half full. A group of bank clerks
giggled in the corner as they handed a pimply youth in a polyester
suit a parcel and a greeting card with
Happy Birthday
emblazoned across the
top. Behind Turnbull several over-made up girls from the local
beauty college entered the bar; matching white tunics and off-white
trousers strained to reveal ill-fitting bras and dimpled buttocks.
It was hard not to notice their ankles were an alarming shade of
orange. Feet encased in white wooden clogs clip-clopped as they
passed a group of track-suited youths swigging greedily from
bottles of imported beer, nudging and jostling each other now that
totty had arrived.

‘Ignorant bastards,’ Coupland
muttered to Turnbull. Wilson wasn’t even cold yet the staff and
regulars carried on as though a stabbing outside their premises was
no big deal.

Brooks and Horrocks were
standing at the far end of the bar. Their shift wasn’t due to start
for another twenty minutes, the wine bar manager had informed
Turnbull when he’d telephoned ahead. The pair were dressed in
civvies but looked just as menacing; the place reeked of
market-bought aftershave and attitude. They stood with two
carbon-copy mates Turnbull recognised as witnesses who when
questioned earlier had confirmed both bouncers hadn’t left the
doorway when the attack took place, providing them with an alibi.
They all wore the identikit uniform of shaven head and pierced or
razored eyebrows. They were dressed in cropped sleeved t-shirts
that emphasized thick-set muscular frames, but it was a superficial
bulk, one that would turn to flab before any of them hit thirty.
Coupland should know.

Occasionally the job could be a
pain in the arse but he never stopped getting pleasure seeing
toe-rags’ smiles slip whenever he got too close for comfort and
today was no exception. As he locked eyes with the younger of the
two suspects he saw a moment of panic flit across Horrocks’s dumpy
face before bravado set in.

‘Shouldn’t you be out catchin’
bad guys?’ Horrocks called out mockingly before looking to his
mates for approval. Several pairs of eyes bore into the two
policemen. Coupland could tell what they were thinking:

Wankers.

‘You’ve already taken our
statements, this wouldn’t be harassment would it?’ Horrocks
challenged, and Coupland didn’t need to guess which of the old
biddies he’d questioned the other day had pushed this gob-shite
into the world.

‘I need you to clear something
up for me,’ Coupland replied as patiently as he was able.

‘Not tellin’
you ought without a lawyer.’ Horrocks spat back to group-wide
approval. Coupland felt himself rising to the bait. He wasn’t
surprised the runt was getting under his skin, all he knew was that
he wanted him to shut the fuck up and preferably
soon,
before he started
his shift with his knob for a necktie.

‘Ignore ‘im officer.’ Brooks
replied as easy as anything, ‘Always happy to help the police with
their enquiries.’

Brooks shot
Horrocks a sly grin, the gesture indicating that he was taking the
piss, showing himself for the moron he was. That he didn’t give a
shit about the investigation, about the fact a man’s life had been
wiped out because of something he and his pathetic mates
had done. Coupland was tempted then, sorely
tempted to lash out quickly, break the smug fucker’s nose. He
glared angrily at Turnbull, narrowing his eyes. He’d sailed close
enough to the wind on a couple of occasions over the years;
couldn’t afford to give Complaints any more ammunition. One thing
was certain: he couldn’t afford to screw up now Lynn was ill.
Turnbull’s demeanour diffused him, his docile features telling him
he was counting down the days to his thirty years, his eyes
signalling he should get a grip. Coupland nodded, willing his anger
to drain away.

Let the prick think he’d got
the better of him.

‘I want you to remind me, again’
he asked, ‘What did you do when Ricky Wilson’s son ran into the bar
shouting that his dad had been stabbed?’

‘How could we do anything?’ the
young gob-shite asked. ‘By the time we heard about it the ambulance
had already been called.’

‘Funny that,’ Coupland replied
as innocently as he could, ‘a slip of a lad running past you on the
door.’

He turned to Turnbull, ‘Imagine
finding yourself in Wilson Jnr’s predicament and you need help
urgently. You are right outside the friendly local wine bar, with
two strapping bouncers in the doorway….what would you do?’

‘I’d call
for
them
to get
help.’ Obliged Turnbull, ‘No point trying to barge past them if it
meant I could stay with me old man.’

Coupland had a glint in his eye
as he listened, a look that told them they’d tripped up and he’d
heard it and his face creased into the smuggest smile he could
muster.

He couldn’t resist smirking at
the look that passed between the group – not just Horrocks and
Brooks but rentacrowd too, for the youths standing with them had
supported their claim that they they’d not moved from the bar’s
entrance, the mouthy little gob-shite had just made them all out to
be liars.

‘Well, gentlemen,’ Coupland
informed them, enjoying the moment, ‘I’m loving your company so
much I’m going to bring you back to the station so I can sit on
your faces a while longer.’

He turned to Turnbull.
‘Transport on its way?’

Turnbull nodded. ‘Aye. The full
shebang.’

While the waiting police vans
took the youths over to the station at Salford, Turnbull stayed
with Coupland while the DS instructed uniformed back up to conduct
a further search of the premises – including the neighbouring
retail outlets and banks. Back at the station’s control room DS
Robinson would coordinate the search of Brooks and Horrocks’ homes
– once a warrant had been secured.

On the way back to Coupland’s
car Turnbull paused on the pavement, shook his head as though he’d
heard something unbelievable. His face looked pained, as though
he’d sucked on a lemon or was trying not to pass wind. He eyed each
passer-by with suspicion.

‘I know I should be past
disappointment by now,’ he said aloud to Coupland as though
practicing a speech.

‘But it riles me when I see how
communities have changed. People don’t seem to give a shit
anymore.’

What he
said was true, Coupland conceded. There may well
be a great deal of prosperity in Salford – you only had to look at
the development along the quays to see that – but there was no
longer the same sense of
We’re all in it
together,
there’d been when he was a lad.
It used to be that living in a neighbourhood gave you an identity,
a sense of who you were and where you belonged. Even the DCI,
Coupland conceded, with his fancy education and university degree
was a Salford boy through to the core – why else would he have
stayed when brighter lights beckoned? Now, following the
dismantling of the shipyard and the subsequent redevelopment of the
quayside into waterfront apartments, a new breed of wealthy
incomers had been attracted to the city who had no understanding of
– or gave a shit about – the local population. Over time this had
fostered a resentment amongst those left behind – both financially
and socially - that bred an
every man for
himself
style culture.