Random Acts of Unkindness (30 page)

I peer at the picture, looking hard, and I can make out the outline of someone in the reflected light, the shape of a body I gave birth to, that I am so familiar with. The way he stands, slightly to one side, a piece of hair that tufts out in every photograph he has ever had taken. It’s so obviously Aiden.

There’s some text underneath the photograph. It says ‘I Win.’ And he’s right, he does win. I sob at this now, because it’s true. In between all the chaos and death, all the mothers who have lost sons, all the frightened little boys who have been murdered, through all Bessy’s suffering, Sal’s right, he does win.

He’s taken my son away from me. Aiden’s not dead. No. He’s gone with his father, probably to a new life, without me. He was alive all this time, God only knows where, him and Sal planning this whole thing.

Sal and I were drifting apart, and Sal needed information. A way to get close to me. A way to get close to ops, to find out what was going on. It crosses my mind that he might have kept Aiden prisoner, but this falls away quickly when I look at the photograph.

They were standing in Manchester Airport, for God’s sake. He’s smiling, and Aiden’s taking a photo. Sal. The man I lived with for all those years, is standing in Manchester Airport, smiling, just after murdering three policewomen. He knew about Connelly and what was going on at the Gables. Why else would he run now? The man I had lived with. Slept with.

I feel the vomit rising and rush out of the flat. I can’t risk being sick in here, having my DNA all over the place. So I shut the door, wipe it and replace the key. Then I rush down the stairs and vomit in a litter bin around the side.

In ten more minutes I’m back at my house and calling Mike. It’s engaged twice, then it rings.

‘Jan. Thank God. We thought something had happened to you. Are you OK?’

I feel a lump in my throat and tear run down my cheeks as I look at Sheila, blue around the mouth now.

‘No. No. Get round here quick. I’ve been trying to call for over an hour.’

‘Yeah. All the lines have been busy. What is it? Where are you?’

I look around. I’m at home. Except it isn’t home anymore. And it never will be again. Not without Aiden.

‘My house. Get here quick, Mike. Something terrible’s happened. Bring backup. And some ambulances.’

Mike’s silent for a while.

‘Is it Aiden?’

‘No. It’s the policewomen who’ve been here. They’ve been . . .’

‘On my way. I’ll get everyone who isn’t up at the Gables up there. We’ll be there in a minute.’

The line goes dead and I find myself walking upstairs and going into Aiden’s bedroom. None of this seems real, and I check my phone again, just to make sure I’m not mistaken. I’m not. The picture is still the same.

I look out of the window and over Northlands. In the distance I can see that the nearest main telegraph wires have been cut. The black dots that punctuated the sky were gone now, probably bits of tat lying in the street, all their meaning diffused as soon as they hit the ground.

The messages are gone, and nowhere to hang any more black flags. Further up, I see a plane jetting through the midday sky. It could be any flight, but it could be the one carrying Sal and Aiden to who knows where. I can’t believe it. And that’s why I’m here.

When it first dawned on me that Aiden had disappeared, had gone missing, and everyone suggested that he might have ‘gone off’ to ‘be with his friends,’ I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t. And part of the reason for this is that he hadn’t taken anything.

Of course, the obvious items he would have taken were his bank card, passport, any kind of ID. But it wasn’t even this that convinced me. I knew that if Aiden had planned to leave there was one thing that he would never leave behind.

He was a small child when Ruby came to stay. She was a Jack Russell, with a lively personality to match. She was adorable. When we bought Ruby and brought her home. She had a double link chain around her neck that hung like a necklace, weighed down by a tiny piece of jet that Sal had found on the beach at Whitby and made into a pendant. Ruby was Aiden’s best friend from the age of four until he was eleven.

When she passed away he didn’t speak for a week, then after returned to normal. Until one day, two years later, when I was cleaning his room. I opened his drawer and came across Ruby’s collar and the pendant, hidden away in one of my jewellery boxes. I hadn’t noticed Aiden standing behind me.

‘Put it down.’

His face had been approaching evil, the same look as Sal had when he was angry and ready to flip.

‘Aiden, don’t speak to me like that. And who said you could have this box? It’s mine.’

His face relaxed.

‘Is it? Is it yours? Dad says that all this will be mine when you die, so why not cut out the middle man?’ He snatched the box away from me and grabbed the chain and pendant, holding it up in front of me. ‘Have your box. Have it. But don’t ever touch this again. OK?’

The moment broke and I threw down my duster.

‘You cheeky little sod, Aiden. After I die? Is that what you want?’

It was back to Mother and son after a moment when I wasn’t really sure who Aiden was.

‘No. I didn’t say it. It was Dad who said it.’

I nodded.

‘I bet he did. Well, you’ll have to wait a long time because I’m not going anywhere yet.’

He’d laughed and swung the chain around in his hand.

‘But that’s not true is it? You’re going to work. You’re always going to work or coming home. So you’re always going somewhere.’

Although we’d never talked about Sal’s hate of my job in front of Aiden, those words could have been straight out of Sal’s mouth. And wishing me dead. Just the sort of thing he would say. Cut out the middle man. It was the first, but not the last time that I had wondered exactly what he had been filling Aiden’s head with. But we were close, weren’t we? Nothing Sal said could ever come between me and Aiden, could it?

I open the drawer. Of course, it’s gone. The chain and the pendant, along with a small collection of football cards, the ones that were quite valuable. I check the rest of the room and nothing else seems to be missing, except Aiden’s teddy, Jezzer. I go back to the drawer, remembering that Aiden had an old photograph of me and him playing with Ruby in the park, one that he treasures almost as much as the chain.

I feel around the back of the drawer, finding bits and pieces that evoke memories. Finally, my fingers touch the smooth paper and I realize that he hasn’t taken it. But as I pull it out I see that I’m wrong. In fact, he has taken half of it. He’s ripped the photograph right down the middle and left the piece with my laughing face. Without Aiden and Ruby to put me in context, I look crazed. And I was a little crazed. With love. I console myself with the fact that maybe only Sal had been here.

Then it strikes me. Had Aiden been here and seen the carnage? Had he seen death? If he was, he was implicated. I’d never wanted a moment of pain for him and even now, knowing what he had done to me, I still feel faint knowing that he could have been a part of this. No. It would have been Sal. In any case, it’s too late now. I can hear Mike’s car outside and I’m downstairs, frozen to the spot, as he walks in and sees Sheila first.

‘Jan. Jan, are you OK?’

He rushes over and puts his arms around me, looking all the time at the mess and the bodies.

‘I’ve been here ages, Mike, trying to get through. What the hell’s going on?’

‘Fucking Connelly. When he got word that we’d busted the Gables, he made a run for it. Ordered all the CCTV and the phone networks to be disabled as a last hurrah. Bastard.’

I draw away from him.

‘So you haven’t got him? He’s still on the loose?’

Mike shakes his head.

‘Yeah. We’ve had a few sightings at the airport. Put out an All Ports call. Probably gone by now. But he won’t be back.’ He moves into the kitchen and I follow him. The airport. Oh my God. Not with Sal and Aiden. Keep your enemies closer. Mike feels Sharon’s pulse in exactly the same place I did. ‘Poor buggers. They didn’t stand a chance. Whoever did this is an animal.’

The rest of the team arrives and a couple of paramedics check the bodies over. I stay crouched onto the bottom stair, watching as my house is dismantled. There’s a sense of anger, and unspoken air of camaraderie, after all, these girls were coppers, and this is a copper’s house. We’re all in it together. Like Sheila has said, they were like my sisters. Whoever did this is an animal.

Of course, I had the chance to tell Mike who did this when he said it. I could have told him all about Sal and Connelly, but somehow it didn’t seem like the right time. He’s leaning on the back door now, checking his phone. I go over and try to find out what happened last night.

‘So. What went on after I left?’

He nods and smiles.

‘Ah. After you left. Where did you go, by the way? Not here, obviously.’

‘No. I went up to the reservoir. I needed to get my head together.’

He sniggers.

‘Story, more like. Stewart’s looking for you.’

‘Oh yeah. Why?’

He puts the phone away.

‘How did you know? About the Gables. How did you get that information? And don’t give me no shit. How did you find out?’

I think about Bessy. No. That would be a betrayal.

‘I just had a hunch. I was looking at some old cases and I don’t know, I found out John Connelly was a butchers and . . .’

‘So it was Mr Connelly in the butchers with a knife. Fuck off, Jan. You’ve been a wild card lately. Everything around you turns to shit, doesn’t it? There’s something more. Something I can’t put my finger on.’

The threads, Mike, draw the threads together. Do me a favour and realise it was Sal. But he doesn’t.

‘Yeah, well, I’ve had a lot on my mind. You know, Mike, most of it fitted together. You know, about Aiden and the other missing kids. I don’t know, maybe it was the extra motivation. Do you know I’ve spent every waking hour since Aiden went missing, wondering if some criminal has got hold of him? You’ve got a son. How would you feel if you had no fucking idea where he was. Eh? Now ask me again what more there is. He’s my son, Aiden, and those boys are all sons. That’s the something more.’

He’s gone very pale now and he backs away from me.

‘But they don’t happen that often, these kind of cases, do they? Life’s just not that dangerous you know. For kids, like.’

‘Isn’t it? Few and far between? Eh, Mike? It’s more dangerous than we think, because it’s unthinkable. That’s what someone said to me many years ago, and I believed them. But if I had my time again, I’d never let Aiden out of my sight.’

I think about Ted and his wise words. Mike shakes his head.

‘Yeah, the unthinkable, carried out by crazies. Psychopaths. Only you’re right, there seems to be a lot more of it these days. A lot more.’

A paramedic comes in to examine Sharon’s body and we move over to the window. I can feel the tears welling up as I realise the women who only this morning called me sister were prepared for the mortuary.

‘Is there? Is there really a lot more, or do we just hear about it more. John Connelly has been prolific in this area from around 1960, and his son after him. Selling young boys and girls to clients visiting the Gables, then, when they’re finished with, killing them and disposing of their bodies, one way or another. Yes, I’ve said it. That’s what he was doing, using those kids to placate the criminal acts of those prepared to pay large sums for it. Looking back in the files, back to the sixties, it was suggested then that he was involved in the disappearances, around the times of the Moors Murders. But he used that as a cover for his own criminal activity, portraying himself as an upright member of the community. When all the time he was doing this. Not that we’ve got any solid proof.’ No. Only Bessy’s notebooks, which I can’t submit as evidence as then they’ll know I took them.

Mike sighs.

‘But what more could we have done? It’s like, no body, no murder. What more could we have done?’

I stare through the window as Sharon’s body is covered, ready for a body bag.

‘We could have listened. To people like me. To mothers and fathers. To good coppers with a hunch.’

He nods.

‘Yeah. You’re right. But where do you draw the line? If we do that, we’ll be taking statements off psychics next.’

Psychics. As if on cue, Jim Stewart appears at the door and I remember that I have no idea if Bessy has told anyone about the money. But he bypasses me completely and looks around the room.

‘Bloody hell. Who’d do this?’

Mike and I look at each other. He beats me to it.

‘Some kind of psychopath. Some kind of twisted fucking psychopath.’

Jim shakes his head. He looks very tired and drawn. I can’t tell him about Sal. I can’t. Because then I might be telling him about Aiden. Jim continues.

‘Psychopath season round here at the moment. What with all that business up the road.’ He turns to me. ‘Unorthodox methods, but well done for calling it. You shouldn’t have gone in there on your own, though.’

I look at the bloodstained tiles.

‘Am I suspended, then?’

He laughs and it somehow sounds inappropriately loudly.

‘No. No. Not for now. But take a couple of days off, just to settle yourself down. You’ve been through a lot. I had a word with your husband the other day . . .’

‘Ex-husband. Ex. Husband. Sir. Please. Ex.’

‘Ex-husband. He was saying that you are a bit, well, how can I put this, more highly strung than usual.’

I snort.

‘How the fuck would he know? With respect.’

‘Well, he does spend a lot of time with you, and he’s been supporting you through your problems with your son. Who, I’m pleased to say, doesn’t appear to have been involved in the terrible business at the Gables.‘

It’s difficult, but I control my temper. Watch what I say. It’s not the time.

‘As far as you know. Who’s to say they haven’t got rid of him, like some of the others?’

Jim nods.

‘Well, he wasn’t in any of the records. I personally supervised a search of those records for him as we were afraid that . . .’