The Disciple

elbow and looked around. The man had gone. Jason stood, grimacing at the squelch of excrement and urine in his trousers, and turned to waddle home, eyes lowered to the ground in misery.

Chapter Two

Hudson rolled his greasy fish-and-chip paper into a tight ball and threw it at the bin next to their bench. It fell short and a couple of seagulls standing guard on the seawall railing glided down to investigate. Hudson stood to pick up the offending litter then jammed it into the bin — to loud dismay from the gulls — and sat back down, squinting into the pale sun. He pulled out his cigarettes and threw one in his mouth. After taking a man-sized pull he exhaled into a Styrofoam cup, taking a large gulp of coffee before returning it to the bench.

Laura Grant had long since finished her tortilla wrap and now had her pen poised over a notebook, listing the tasks that Hudson deemed fit for the two DCs, Rimmer and Crouch, assigned to help them with the legwork, now that Tony Harvey-Ellis’s death was being treated as murder.

‘Anything else, guv?’

‘I guess we pay a call to Hall Gordon PR. Find out if Harvey-Ellis had any enemies they’d know about. Put that at the top of our list.’

Grant raised her eyebrows and fixed him with her cool blue eyes.

‘You honestly think it’s possible?’ asked Hudson. ‘The daughter?’

‘Stepdaughter,’ said Grant. ‘Harvey-Ellis wasn’t her real dad.’ ‘But he was married to her real mum.’

‘Remember what she said when we first broke the news, guv. Someone we loved. It jarred at the time.’

‘She fits the description, I suppose. Right age, right hair,’ conceded Hudson.

‘And Tony and Amy had only been married four years.’

‘Is that significant?’

‘Well, let’s assume Tony and Amy knew each other for at least a year before they married. That means Terri’s known him for about five years. Terri is seventeen now which makes her around twelve when Tony and Amy first meet, thirteen when they get hitched.’

‘So?’

‘You’ve got two grown-up kids, guv. What were the most difficult years? Early teens, right?’

‘By a country mile.’

‘Right. Terri’s a seventeen-year-old girl who’s known her stepfather — the man who replaced her real father — since she was a teenager, before even. Now I don’t know how many people you know with stepmums and dads…’

‘Not many. Different generation. We had to grin and bear it.’

‘Well, I know three. Two of them hated their stepparent with a vengeance. I mean, hated. Enough to wish they would just die for breaking up the cosy family unit.’

‘And the third?’

‘They had an affair,’ said Grant. Hudson pulled a face. ‘There are no half measures with this sort of thing, guv.’

‘It’s a bit of a reach, Laura. But it’s easy enough to check all the same. Crouchy’s on the car park cameras to see if it was the girlfriend who dumped Tony’s luggage. So get Rimmer to sniff out a picture of Terri for that lowlife Sowerby to take a peek at, see if she’s “the usual”. Better yet, have him get a picture of her from school.’ Hudson smiled. ‘She might be wearing the same school uniform he saw her in.’

‘Will do.’

‘If this pans out and the girl has been having it off with her stepfather, it opens up all sorts of avenues. With Harvey-Ellis porking his wife and daughter,’ he said, with a glance at Grant to see if she was offended, ‘it brings the mother into the equation.’

‘Hell hath no fury,’ nodded Grant, ignoring her colleague’s choice of language. She knew from experience that he enjoyed proving female coppers were oversensitive. She thought for a moment. ‘Or maybe the mother knows and doesn’t mind.’

‘How could the mother not mind?’ said Hudson.

‘Maybe she knows but she doesn’t know. Knowing tears her life apart. She loses husband and daughter. But if she blinds herself, she’s a happily married mother — if that makes sense.’

‘Female logic?’ Now it was Grant’s turn to pull a face and Hudson, with a guilty laugh, held up his hand. ‘Okay, I know what you mean. She blocks it out.’ He squirrelled a glance at her. ‘Thank God you’re not one of those lesbian ballbreakers they’ve got up in the smoke, Laura.’

‘How do you know I’m not?’

Hudson laughed. ‘Because you’re a top girl, Laura. A top girl.’ Grant raised a cautionary eyebrow, but couldn’t resist a smile and Hudson laughed. ‘Roll on next year, when I can collect my pension and piss off to Jurassic Park with all the other dinosaurs, eh?’

‘Amen to that, guv.’

Jason Wallis lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling only the dry distortion of old tear tracks on his cheeks. He’d woken up a couple of hours previously but hadn’t moved at all.

The house was quiet now. His aunt was in bed resting before her next shift and baby Bianca had finally fallen asleep after her lunch of chips and beans. Thankfully his aunt hadn’t returned until half an hour after Jason had waddled home, soiled and scarred by his ordeal. He’d had time to bung his fouled clothing into the washer and set it going before showering and retreating to his room in shame and terror, once more pulling the chest of drawers across his door for safety. He’d collapsed into bed and lost consciousness almost at once — to call it sleep would have implied rest — and had woken with a start some time later, a film of sweat covering every millimetre of his skin. He’d sobbed quietly for the rest of the afternoon before finally succumbing to something approaching sleep.

When he woke again, he was surprised to discover waking didn’t involve panting and clutching at his throat. He merely opened his eyes gently and looked towards the window. The sun was beginning to set and Jason’s tight belly had begun to growl. Footsteps approached his door, followed by a soft knocking.

‘Jason?’ his aunt asked. ‘You in there?’ She knocked again. Still no answer from Jason who continued to lay mute, eyes burning into the ceiling. Finally his aunt tried the door but the chest of drawers prevented entry. ‘What are you doing, Jason? You better not be taking drugs, you little shit!’ She rattled the door but couldn’t shift the chest. ‘Let me in.’

Jason sat up. Necessity required a response. ‘I’m not. Don’t worry, Auntie. I’m all right.’

‘You sure you’re not doing drugs?’

‘You’re doing my head in. I’m okay, I tell you. What is it?’

His aunt hesitated, then, no doubt mindful of the time, said, ‘I’m off to work. There’s a chicken pie in the microwave for you and I’ve put your washing on the radiators.’

‘Cheers.’

‘If Bianca wakes up, let her watch cartoons. But make sure you put her to bed before seven. Got that?’ No reply. ‘Got that?’ she repeated.

‘I’ve got it,’ Jason replied, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.

‘You sure you’re all right, Jason?’

‘Oh my days, I’m all right.’ Jason’s aunt’s grunted and her footsteps receded along the landing. A moment later the stairs began to complain under the assault from her hefty frame. The front door slammed, her car coughed into life and Jason heaved a sigh of relief. He closed his eyes and a tear squeezed onto his cheek.

‘I’m all right,’ he muttered. ‘I’m all right.’

Hudson prepared a sly cigarette as Grant fired up the computer. Although she disapproved of him flouting the smoking ban so brazenly, she was disinclined to make an issue out of it.