Sorrow Bound (19 page)

Pharaoh is sucking her teeth, unsure whether to accept the apology or beat the man to death for telling her to be quiet. She nods.

‘We’d best get some air, eh?’

The four of them walk back into the light, the heat feeling like a physical barrier as they emerge from the cool of the reception area. As one, they stare up at the grey clouds. They are shifting. Rolling. Taking shape. Taking on the hue of rotten fruit and crackling with barely contained energy.

‘Going to be one hell of a bloody storm,’ says the younger security guard, breathlessly. ‘Will give us an easier life though, eh?’

‘You get much hassle, do you?’ asks McAvoy, showing his own warrant card and finding that nobody cares.

The older man blows out demonstratively. ‘Ramblers are no bother. There’s a public right of way past the church, even though it’s all bloody nettles and thistles and cow shit, so you wouldn’t head up there for a picnic. It’s the house itself that brings the nutters out. You know how it is. They read on the Internet about this abandoned asylum and get all these images in their mind. We’ve had loads of photographers trying to get in. Lick of paint and it could still be a mansion. You should have seen it back in the day. We just chase them away.’

McAvoy considers. ‘You’re on site all the time, then?’

The older man shakes his head. ‘Head office is York but we have regional offices here and there. Two-man teams look after a few different properties. Me and the lad are based in Driffield. Got a call on the radio about a couple of intruders. We weren’t far off so shot on over.’

Pharaoh and McAvoy exchange a look, picturing Gary Reeves.
Little git
.

Something occurs to McAvoy. ‘You saw this place in its glory days, then?’

The older man nods. ‘We’ve had the contract to look after it for years. Tower has been in business for decades. You’ve probably heard of us. We try and help the police where we can –’

‘Did you work here fourteen years ago?’ McAvoy breaks in.

‘Boy was at school,’ says the older security guard. ‘I was still working the oil rigs.’

McAvoy gives up. He is about to thank them for their time when the older man speaks again.

‘I live just up the road though, mate. Hutton Cranswick. If you’re talking about the fire, I know a bit.’

McAvoy scratches his face. Controls his breathing. Stares at the grey sky and the bare brick, the barbed wire and the lime trees.

‘Fire?’

‘Yeah, not a big one. Just the old groundsman’s cottage. The doctors had access to it, you see, for when they stayed over. Not much of a place to live, in the grounds of a nuthouse, but the shrink who had it seemed happy enough. Was a shame what happened.’

McAvoy coughs, knowing that when he speaks next, he is at risk of sounding feeble.

‘A shame?’

The older man nods. ‘One of the nutters went nuts, mate. Held one of the doctors and his family at knifepoint. The owners called security instead of the police, but by the time our lads got here it was all over. Horrible for the family, though. I got all the gossip from one of the old boys in the village. Was a bit of a balls-up all round, apparently …’

‘The doctor had family with him?’

More nodding. ‘I can’t remember much more than that. Was amazing they kept it out of the papers, really. That was the beginning of the end, I think. Old owners put it up for sale not long after. Took years before this Swedish lot showed an interest.’

Pharaoh nudges McAvoy. Indicates he should shut up. ‘How did it end?’ she asks. ‘The hostage situation?’

‘Don’t really know,’ says the older man. ‘Nobody really wanted to go into it. Was all very embarrassing. Mental units are supposed to have strict security measures, you see. Tower were the outside contractors. The owners’ own psychiatric nurses would have been the ones in the firing line if it had got out. I’m just surprised it’s taken you so long. Bit late now, though, I reckon. Shrink’s long gone. I reckon the locals will like the place more as an old people’s home, don’t you think?’

McAvoy closes his eyes. ‘The incident,’ he says, softly. ‘The night it happened. Could you tell us everything? We’re investigating a murder. Two.’

The older man whistles. ‘More than my job’s worth, mate.’ He looks at the younger man, then the two detectives. Gives a naughty smile. ‘But it’s lunchtime in a couple of hours. We drink in The Wellington in Driffield. Mine’s a pint.’

Pharaoh smiles, and McAvoy breathes out. He watches the other two walk away. Stands here, on the steps to the manor house, his back to the forbidding structure where Sebastien Hoyer-Wood was a patient because his university friends convinced a judge he was crazy.

‘Sebastien Hoyer-Wood,’ he shouts, at their backs. ‘You know the name?’

The security guards looks baffled. Shrugs. ‘I’ll check with the lads who worked here.’ He looks at his watch. ‘Pint. The Wellington.’

And they are gone.

McAvoy nods. Tries to walk down the steps to where Pharaoh is waiting, looking at him strangely. Behind her, he sees the dark clouds of the coming storm.

*

Detective Chief Inspector Colin Ray turned fifty last night. He celebrated at home, alone, in his flat in Hull’s Old Town. There were two cards on his mantelpiece, both from mail order companies that valued his custom and wished him a very happy day of celebration. He drank four cans of beer, ate a chicken bhuna, texted a filthy joke to Shaz Archer and then masturbated half-heartedly over a picture in the
Hull Daily Mail
. The lucky recipient of his attentions was a local MP, fronting a campaign for better street lighting, and there had been something about her smile for the camera that had struck him as mucky. Not mucky enough, as it happened. He had gone to sleep half-pissed and frustrated, fingers coated in garlic and grease, cursing the MP, his mobile phone discarded next to him on a yellow-stained pillow. The call he had been hoping for never came.

Here, now, he can still taste the curry on his skin. Can pick out the flavour of spice and cardamom, in among the heavier aromas of nicotine and old booze. He’s chewing on the fat of an index finger, gnawing on it, like a dog with a bone, squinting at a computer screen and breathing noisily through his nose. When he sat down at the desk there were half a dozen other officers in the room. They have gradually drifted away, to speak to witnesses or check in with informants, or go for a walk around the car park. Nobody wants to be near Ray when he’s in this mood. Even Shaz Archer is giving him a wide berth.

He should be pleased, of course. They’ve just charged Adam Downey with conspiracy to supply a large quantity of Class A drugs and the evidence is pretty damning against the pretty boy in cell 4. He’ll be denied bail, come the hearing on Monday morning. He’ll be found guilty, should he have the temerity to deny the charges. Should he plead guilty, he’ll still get hit with a few years in view of his previous offences. Ray has got a scumbag off the streets. He’s put away a villain. He should be drinking the cheap whisky in his desk drawer and slapping backs as people tell him he’s ace.

Instead, Colin Ray looks like he is about to tear his own skin off and start throwing it at people in great wet clumps.

Adam Downey isn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

A few months ago, Ray spoke to one of the senior figures involved in the new drugs outfit. At that time, the group had just taken over all cannabis operations on the east coast, and successfully outmuscled the Vietnamese gangs that had previously been responsible for growing the crop. The new lot had simply moved in, and told the Vietnamese that they now worked for them. Even more remarkably, the Vietnamese bosses had complied. The foot soldiers and farmers who did not like the new arrangement were dealt with swiftly: hands nailgunned to their legs, chests turned to tar with a blowtorch. A few physically imposing enforcers kept an eye on things, and a handful of bright young chancers looked after deliveries and shipments. During his conversation with the voice at the other end of the phone, Ray had realised that the new outfit had plans. They were never going to content themselves looking after a bit of cannabis production. They had moved in without any real resistance, and in Ray’s mind that kind of victory could make an ambitious man
feel invincible. The voice on the phone had warned Ray that it was in nobody’s interests to look into their operations too carefully. He had made it plain that they were well informed, well connected, and had half of the Drugs Squad in their pocket. Ray hadn’t given a damn. He’d ignored their bribes and gentle threats, and given the go-ahead on an operation that led to the unit’s first significant arrest. Now he feels he has made another. It just hasn’t had the domino effect that he’d hoped.

Last night, sitting in his boxer shorts and mismatched socks, he had expected his mobile phone to ring, expected threats or promises from a mysterious voice. But nobody had called. He is not given to self-doubt, but his conviction that Adam Downey is connected to the operation is starting to waver. Ever since the lad was brought in, he has been convinced that Downey is a mid-level operative for the new group. He’s young, bright enough, and has met some proper villains while inside. He’s been dealing in drugs since he was a teen, and the sheer quality and quantity of the cocaine found in his possession suggest to Ray that he is part of something big. But the bastard isn’t giving them anything other than ‘no comment’.

Ray pushes back his greasy hair and scratches at the psoriasis on the back of his neck, sending flakes of dead skin into the air. He sniffs and swallows the phlegm that appears in his mouth. He’s fighting his instincts. Fighting the urge to go down to the cells and beat some answers out of Downey with his own shoes.

He is so wrapped up in his thoughts that it takes him a moment to register the vibration coming from his shirt pocket. At his age and with his diet, any trembling by his heart should be a cause for concern, but Ray is smiling as he pats at his chest, and removes the old-fashioned mobile. Number withheld.

‘Colin Ray.’

There is silence at the other end of the phone, and then a familiar voice: accentless and perfectly enunciated.

‘Mr Ray. A pleasure to speak to you again. Allow me to apologise for the unforgivable delay between our last conversation and this one. We have been extraordinarily busy and there has been no opportunity for indulgences.’

Ray sits back in his chair, a broad smile on his face. He’s remembering their last chat, sitting in the front of an umarked car down Division Road, rain beating on the roof and steam rising from his clothes, Detective Superintendent Adrian Russell shitting himself in the driver’s seat as Ray took the phone from his hands and put the call from his colleague’s paymaster on loudspeaker.

‘Now then, lad,’ says Ray, warmly. ‘You’re right. It’s been a while. And yeah, you’ve been busy. Onwards and upwards, I see.’

‘A business has to expand or it stagnates, Mr Ray. Running water is so much fresher and more vibrant than a static pool, would you not agree?’

Ray sticks a finger in his ear and inspects what he finds, rubbing it on his suit trousers. ‘Never thought about it, son. My mind’s a bit busy right now. Just charged a young lad with conspiracy to supply. Seriously good quality, the stuff he had on him. Must be worth a fortune.’

There is a silence at the other end of the line. Then the slightest suggestion that the caller is taking a discreet sip of liquid. In the background, the softest of sounds – china on china, cup on saucer; the extinguishing of a cigarette into a clean ashtray.

‘You have probably never seen the like, Mr Ray. Even during your time working in the Met. Even when you lived in that flat
in Maida Vale with the Polish lady whom your senior officers did not know about and whom you met during a six-year undercover operation that ended in disaster. Not even when they moved you up to Newcastle to keep you out of the way and you beat a suspect half to death in the custody suite. Even then, you will not have seen a product like the one that was spilled all over the floor of the premises on Southcoates Lane.’

Ray shrugs, though nobody can see. ‘My CV has its ups and downs. Like your lad. Downey.’

‘Yes, indeed. My associates are of course aware of the young man to whom you are referring …’

‘Whom?’ says Ray, mockingly. ‘Public schoolboy, you, I reckon. Definitely got breeding. That narrows it down a bit …’

‘Mr Downey,’ continues the voice, as though there has been no interruption, ‘is a young man for whom we had some hope of future advancement. This week’s development was most unfortunate.’

‘Yeah, that’s the word. Unfortunate. If I’d lost one of my main guys and a packet of pure coke, I’d call it a bit more than that, my lad.’

There is more silence. Ray wonders if this will be it. Whether there will be more. He suddenly feels empty at the thought of the call being terminated. He wants to talk. Wants to tell this supercilious bastard with his perfect vowels that he’s worked it out.

‘Shall I tell you something?’ he asks, suddenly sitting forward in his chair. ‘I’ve been thinking about you lot. Thinking about you a lot. Where you came from. What you do. I’ve been thinking about the way you marched in and turned every Vietnamese cannabis factory into your own personal operation. The way
you kept the workforce. I’ve been thinking about what you did to those poor bastards who said they were going to talk. And I reckon I know how it works. It’s a hostile takeover, isn’t it? And you can carry those out with only a few guys. I reckon you look at which organisations are profitable, and instead of setting up a rival business, you just take over the one that works. You scare the shit out of the top dogs, and tell them they can carry on and pay you a handsome cut, or you can put them in the ground. It’s a beautiful system, matey. I reckon with the right information and a few good lads you could have half the established gangs in Britain paying you protection money. How am I doing?’

There is a lengthy pause before the man speaks again. When he does, there is a note of humour to his voice. ‘That sounds like a great deal of conjecture and guesswork, Mr Ray. But I admire the scale of your imagination. I’m sure my associates will too. However, if that is indeed the case and they are only a few individuals with vision and guile, why would they show any interest in the young man in your cells?’