On their patch three women were officially missing; Helen Harrison would make it four. ht. A healthy stalk, tall or short, fat or thin, was essential to the hearty bush. Abduction was way down, the least likely scenario. . As though reading Sam Butler's mind Inspector Jack Wooderson said, “Is there any crime you might read into this?”
“Apart from Imelda Cooke, no Guv.”
“I've looked at it; we've spent a lot of man-hours, more than the books can afford.”
“She had kids.”
Wooderson nodded thoughtfully. It was not a good sign when women went missing without taking their children. But it did happen. And just lately it was happening more and more. Responsibility was something of the past.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Then put it to bed. We've exhausted every line on this and there’s nothing else to do. Unless you can come up with something new then let's not waste any more time.”
It grieved Butler to know that his inspector was absolutely right. And yet he had a feeling about this one – the sixth sense that was the mark of a good kozzer.
An experienced copper's intuition was often more important than the evidence, or lack of it. Here, there was nothing concrete, not even a crime, yet Butler's gut tightened. It was the feeling you had the morning after the night before that you couldn't remember. A sickening feeling, just before you slept again, that somehow you'd messed up. Here, save for Helen Harrison, and who could blame her for leaving Ticker, the other women didn't fit the pattern to take a walk. And yet, at the back of his mind, was the knowledge of how little he'd known about his own wife when she'd had her affair. It had gone on for months. Things had drifted, become commonplace, and it wasn't until the final few weeks that he suspected there was something wrong. He was a copper, damn it, and even he hadn't realized what was going on under his own roof, in his own bed. It had just been a gut feeling that had led him home. Intuition. The copper's best friend. And there they were, the after-blast of coition burning their faces. Until they saw him. Then the glow faded quickly. But had he not found them then he was certain that one day he would have gone home to an empty house. Just like Ticker Harrison. Just like Rick Cole.
As far as Helen Harrison was concerned Butler guessed that she was seeing another man. Putting distance between herself and her husband was all that she could do. There could never be an amicable arrangement with a man like Ticker, and for his wife, unto death would be exactly that.
DC Anian Stanford turned on the light and the flickering strip made him blink, made him realize how much time had been lost while the early afternoon gloom had closed in. He acknowledged her with a quick smile then tuned into the report again, hoping to find that illusive connection, wondering whether he should break the unwritten rule. Taking a chance wasn't like him at all. Reluctantly, he lifted the telephone and after a few moments said, “Guv, it's Sam.”
“How did you get on with Ticker?”
Butler double-checked that Wooderson's door was closed then in a lowered voice said, “Listen, can we meet up tonight? Better still, come to dinner.”
“This isn't like you, Sam. You seem worried?”
That was a joke although Butler didn't get it. The DS wasn't happy unless he had something to worry about.
“I saw Ticker, filed the report.”
“Good.”
“Come to dinner. Janet would love to see you again.”
“Does she know I'm coming?” A long silence answered the question. Eventually Cole asked, “What time?”
“Make it eight.”
Butler sat with the phone tapping against his chin before he nodded purposefully and said to Anian, “You're coming to dinner tonight, eight o'clock. It's business.”
“Overtime, Sarge?”
“Don't take the piss, Anian, there's a good girl.”
Chapter 7
Rick Cole showered and changed and downed a large Teacher's before driving out towards the Butler's place. To get there he had to drive across town.
Cole knew the city. A lifetime ago he had plodded there, to begin with under the guidance of a parent constable. Now they were called street duty PCs. A dozen years later he was wearing plain clothes at the Yard but those days were so distant that he sometimes wondered if they’d really happened. For one reason or another everything had come unstuck and he had ended up at Sheerham. It could have been worse. He was acting up and had an office to himself and that in itself was a luxury for a DI. It wouldn’t last indefinitely and the grapevine buzzed with rumours of a fresh-faced DCI coming over from the Yard. Driving through town most people would use the main road that passed through the south on its way to the city, and they'd find it one of those places that didn't register. Perhaps unconsciously, they'd closed their eyes. The south was where most of the blacks lived and was congested,, noisy, filled with litter. It was a place to leave behind.
The MP was black, Gilly Brown, and his heart was still in the West Indies. He controlled the council, or at least his siblings who made up the majority, and on his behalf they spent more council tax on coffee mornings than libraries, more on banning the black from blackhead than bus passes for the elderly. But he was laughing at the system. His pockets were comfortably lined. Gilly Brown was living proof that enough split votes would let in the wackos. He'd swear allegiance to the Queen and country, Princess Anne too. He'd swear to anything that moved so long as it added to his bank balance.
Tower blocks littered the skyline, council estates were run down. Finer roads ran through the north of the town where properties had their own drives and bordered a well-maintained parkland. Most of the Jews – outside of Hampstead Garden and Golders Green – lived there along with the Maltese gangsters and Gilly Brown. And Ticker Harrison.
The Sheerham High Road ran through the centre of town. It was the main shopping precinct which was dominated by the Carrington Theatre, a huge red-brick building that once, long ago, attracted the stars. Narrow side-streets criss-crossed the High Road but the shops on these petered out quickly to the odd Asian grocery that sold everything day and night and Christmas Day. Then it was row upon row of terraced housing. The front gardens were about a yard wide and out back was enough room to keep the lawnmower. Most of these buildings were in poor shape, windows were cracked or boarded and doors were blistered. It was a place covered in graffiti and litter. It was the place that produced most of the criminals and the highest unemployment figures.
As the night fell and the neon took over, the pensioners barricaded themselves indoors and the youngsters came out to play. It happened in every town and city across the country yet here it was concentrated, the overspill from the city, and the energy was frightening. The bars and clubs were packed with young drinkers slamming down their highpowered bottles.
This was Sheerham.
Cole's patch.
While he waited at the crossroads before the Carrington Theatre he noticed that something from the past was stirring. Lottery money and local taxes had revamped the Class A building and given it an exotic quality. The red brick glowed like a furnace and threw out a ray of comfort over the Romanian beggars as they pushed their smack-faced kids at the box-office queue. There was a woman on the billboard, eight-feet high, in skimpy black underwear and high heels.
Rick Cole took a second glance at the cardboard blonde, Anthea Palmer, ex-weather girl, and while traffic lights held him back he decided that the smile on her face was as false as the promise of the theatre’s new dawn.
Janet Butler was forty and a rinsed blonde. She might have walked in from the sixties. She had settled
