Sinema: The Northumberland Massacre (12 page)

The SOCO, a hearty woman with a bright red nose, explained to Mitchell and Wright that both the recent rainy weather and the elapse of time stood against them. Various forms of local wildlife had also passed through the area which would make it even more difficult for the dogs. She had, however, managed to collect a number of samples which would be sent off to the lab for analysis and added that the scene, if preserved, could benefit from a more thorough investigation by a full team.

Mitchell, on her advice, argued with Command to pull in additional forensic resources, but his request was denied. Lack of evidence and restricted resources were sited for something that could ultimately amount to a runaway. The samples, in fact, turned out to be rat faeces, a fox hair and a woollen clothing fibre that was too degraded to be linked to the Mandy Foster case.

The sun was setting once more as the volunteers trudged, weary and dejected back to their homes. A second day of searching had again proved fruitless.

Whitman, too, plodded back with the rest, his
The Sweeney
t-shirt, with SHUT IT emblazoned across the stern faces of John Thaw and Dennis Waterman, drenched in sweat. His jeans had several muddy marks up the legs and on the knees where he had stumbled more than once.

John Bryce walked alongside him, his broad shoulders rounded and hunched over, his face a mask of gloom. Janet Herring walked just ahead of them in tight shorts that clung to the toned contours of her rounded bum. Her tall, wiry husband, the good doctor Larry, walked with her, occasionally offering a comforting smile to her. He had a fleece tied around his jogging bottoms and his damp short-sleeved polo shirt revealed strong, outdoorsman arms.

He knew without looking that the strutting cock, Steve Belmont, was a few steps behind him. He had caught Janet glancing back towards him several times. Surely poor Larry must have some idea?

So what the hell did Janet see in Steve? Larry was certainly not the old, drippy geek that he had imagined him to be – he had an open, intelligent face and appeared fit, confident, and certainly had the good job to go with it. All in all, Larry seemed to have the right packaging to catch the right shopper, so why was his customer buying her meat from a new butcher?

And what about Steve? Whitman glanced back towards the tanned menace. Everyone else around him was dishevelled and grimy. He, on the other hand, was, in a word, pristine. Blue shorts over muscular legs, fitted (completely unblemished) white t-shirt, gold cross around his neck,
Police
sunglasses,
Fred Perry
tennis shoes.

Their eyes met and Steve exposed his pearly whites in an unconvincing grin. As he turned away, his eyes met the blue eye-shadowed blinkers of Tess Runckle, dressed in a gold two-piece track suit. She was staring – no, glaring at him. There was an accusation in her eyes that was unequivocal.

She had Moe, the maybe not so gay hairdresser, on her arm, patting her hand in a comforting fashion. Whether it was for her benefit or for his, he couldn’t tell, but there was definitely a lover’s touch in the way they moved together so closely. Perhaps only a fraction closer than friends, but Whitman noticed it.

All in all, it looked like a fucking freak show parade. He smiled at that, but the glare from Tess Runckle lingered on his mind.

Bryce stopped at the Bell Lane junction and arched his aching back. “You take it easy, mate. Probably see you in the Miller’s tomorrow.”

Whitman nodded, but his downcast eyes and his set jaw caused Bryce to pause before heading off. “You okay, Han?”

Whitman looked up to him, concern marking his tired features. “I’m getting some funny looks from people. I think people are thinking …” His voice trailed off, his point made.

Bryce laid a big hand on his shoulder. “Let us guess? That curtain twitcher, Tess, for one, eh?” Whitman nodded, dejected. “You divvent want to let the likes of her get to you, man. It’s just ’cause you’re the new guy, that’s all.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t change the fact that people are going to start thinking that I’m some kind of freak or something.” Whitman chose his words carefully, but the more he spoke about it, the more he genuinely felt a twinge of sadness that people would actually be thinking ill of him. He was still the nice, polite guy he always had been.

“You are a freak, mate,” Bryce said then laughed as heartily as his tired body could muster. His tone sincere once more, he added, “Look, divvent worry – you know that you had nothing to do with any of this and so will most of the
normal
people round here.”

Whitman said a washed-out farewell to John Bryce and then crossed over Main Street to the pub. As he entered, he noticed the two plain clothed officers standing by the open door of the incident unit. Wright was smoking and Mitchell was sipping a hot drink out of a Styrofoam cup. Both were watching him.

As he slowly closed the door behind him, he noticed Tess and her camp-as-an-Abba-tribute-night beau make a beeline for the two detectives. For the first time since his arrival in Haydon, Whitman felt a very real knot of fear twist his stomach.

The smoking gorilla and his bum chum were already a little suspicious, but throw paranoid Bet into the mixing pot and they may start delving under the surface of his flimsy fake identity. What if he had to abort everything? All his planning and preparation would be for nothing. But then, that would be the least of his worries.

His heart was racing as he rushed upstairs to his room.

“Officer Mitchell, dear,” Tess called to the two detectives as she approached, hoisting her breasts up with one arm as a gesture of determination.

Moe squeezed her arm hard and said, with marked consternation, “I really don’t think this is a good idea, Tessie.”

Tess shook his arm off. “Don’t you ‘Tessie’ me, Moe Baxter. That Whitman lad is shifty and I know it.” She made one last adjustment to her plentiful breasts – squeezed to bursting point into the zipped up tracksuit top – and crossed the final few feet to the waiting officers.

“What can I do for you, Ms Runckle?” Mitchell asked in a strained-polite tone as he tossed his empty coffee cup into a nearby bin. Glancing at Wright, he saw his colleague briefly roll his eyes as he stubbed out his cigarette.

“It’s that Mister Whitman – there’s something definitely fishy about him,” Tess told him sternly. She jabbed an accusing finger towards the Miller’s and added, “I see him sniffing around town all day,
snooping
on folks. I even caught him going into the ladies at the Duck a while back, the pervert.”

Mitchell listened with forced interest, nodding in the right places, as she talked about Haydon’s stranger for several minutes, without seemingly needing to take a breath. Moe would occasionally try to inject a comment, but was always silenced by a harsh ‘Shush, dear’.

He exchanged a look with Wright, who was pretending to write notes, before saying, with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, “Ms Runckle, we really appreciate this information. We are already looking into Mister Whitman’s background, as we are a number of other individuals, in the course of our enquiries, and will certainly take this new evidence on board in our continued investigation.” He felt as if the words rolled out like he was reading from a cue card and lacked any real sentiment, but it seemed to be exactly what the landlady wanted to hear.

Tess’s face beamed with pride and she instantly pulled Mitchell to her breasts and gave him a vigorous hug. Before he could object, she then turned to Wright and embraced him too.

“Thank you, dears,” she said with enormous relief and then marched off with Moe scurrying along after her. “See! I told you so!” she could be heard saying to Moe as they disappeared from earshot.

Mitchell stared after her, mouth agape.

“Bunch of fruitloops, every man jack of ’em,” Wright muttered, lighting up another cigarette.

After several more days of investigation and searches, with Whitman helping where appropriate, but keeping a low profile for the most part, the search was finally called off. The incident unit was packed up and carted off with the last of the officers. Only posters remained in the shops and pubs, appealing for information. Similar posters had been put up all over the area as far as Morpeth and Hexham and appeals had been broadcast on local radio and television channels.

Mitchell and Wright were the last to leave. They strolled unhurriedly along Main Street back to their parked unmarked Skoda Octavia, both deep in thought. Wright smoking, Mitchell chewing on a pencil.

Mitchell unlocked the car as they approached, shoving the mauled pencil back into his jacket. Opening the door, he paused to look at his partner. “I know his story checked out and he’s Mister Nobody, but there’s still something about him.”

Wright leaned against the passenger door and took his half-smoked cigarette out of his mouth. While examining it, he said, “He’s shifty, I grant you.” Flicking the smoking butt into the gutter, he turned his attention to Mitchell. “But we got nothing on him whatsoever.”

In the absence of the pencil, Mitchell chewed on his bottom lip. “Yeah, that is rather irritating.”

Wright pulled open his door and, before sliding in, said, “Make you a deal; if the boyfriend turns out to be a dead end, I think we should continue sniffing round our squeaky friend here.”

Mitchell recognised the conviction in his friend’s eyes. He had seen it several times before on some of their tougher cases. “Deal,” he replied.

CHAPTER 5

Joe versus the Argies.

The Miller’s lounge was empty, apart from Whitman who sat at a corner table, finishing off a portion of pork chops, chips and peas. The room felt uncomfortably stuffy after a particularly hot day, aided by some sort of baking frenzy that Martha had been possessed with. He was deep in thought and glad to be on his own. Apart from his time spent in his room, it was difficult to be completely alone around Haydon. He felt eyes on him all of the time. Some of it was undoubtedly paranoia, but some was justified.

Of late, his mood swung from elated, when with Lisa or when cultivating his blooming friendship with John Bryce, to melancholy when he would catch the eyes of Tess or one of her cronies glaring at him with open suspicion. And, occasionally, Mandy would speak to him at night, in his dreams. Although sometimes he wasn’t sure whether he was asleep or awake.

Big Joe trudged through from the bar with an empty glass in his hand and a tartan tea towel tucked into his belt. He was red-faced, with sweat standing out on his brow. He sounded a little wheezy when he said, “Slow the night, laddie. Grub do yae?”

After swallowing the last couple of chips, Whitman patted his stomach theatrically and said, “Damn fine, sah. As usual.”

“Glad tae hear it. Hope yae saved room fae a wee slice of Martha’s apple crumble; she’s made enough tae feed the Otterburn ranges! And a whole lot better than the slop we used tae get in the service.”

“Always room for apple crumble!” Whitman said with a smile. Sitting back, he took a sip of
JD
and
Coke
then said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you; I was old enough to be glued to the news when the Falkland’s was happening, and I’ve seen dramas about it, plus that film with Bob Peck, An Ungentlemanly Act. What was it
really
like, to be there I mean?”

Big Joe’s wide face broadened further still with the smile that crept across it. The chair opposite Whitman’s groaned in protest with the landlord’s bulk as he plonked himself into it, saying, “A lot of the young'uns hadnae seen nae real action; just the usual policing tours in Northern Ireland, so they were all full of spunk and bullshit; how they were gunna kill every Argie there. But us older blokes had a damn good idea what we were getting intae.” His gaze was drawn to a black and white framed picture on the wall above Whitman’s head.

Whitman twisted around to look at it. It was a grainy scene depicting a group of young soldiers, squatting on a windswept hillside. They were muddy and cold, but grinning for the camera, around a portable stove with a battered kettle atop.

Nodding to the picture, Big Joe said, “That wae taken just before the assault on Mount Tumbledown. We lost nine men in that mud’n’blood battle, including young Gilly, second from the left there.”

Whitman stared at the young lad, a spotty, scrawny kid, barely out of his teens.

“Took a seven point six-two round in the guts – died writhing around in the blood and dirt screamin’ fae his ma. June twelfth, nineteen eighty-two.”

The unemotional statement sent a chill through Whitman.

“Still,” Big Joe said, heaving his overweight body to his feet, “we got aboot forty o’them, so that’s a nae bad ratio. Gilly and eight others fae forty of them, yae think, laddie?”

Whitman sensed that the retired soldier believed the statement, but there was a bitter undertone. Scrutinising the old photograph further, Whitman said, “I don’t see you in the picture.”

“I took it. I needed tae, ’cause I knew not all of ’em would make it.” Without another word, Big Joe turned away and walked towards the bar.