‘Mm. OK then,’ he mumbled through the cigarette in his mouth. ‘But don’t go expecting a cup of tea. I’ve no milk.’
Eagle Mount One was in desperate need of a Mrs Armley. The inside of the lift stank. The two men watched as the doors closed and two halves of a swastika came together in front of them. On the right-hand door someone had written ‘EDL’ and on the left, ‘NO SURENDER’.
‘Is that how you spell surrender?’ Sean wondered out loud. Khan said nothing.
Sean rattled the letterbox on the front door. He ran two fingers under his collar in an attempt to loosen it. A trickle of sweat was running into the armpits of his shirt.
‘Maybe you should wait on the stairs, sir. Do the scream as soon as I get inside, then we can go.’
‘You don’t want me to meet your father?’ The challenge in Khan’s voice was undisguised. His eyes were fixed on a sticker on the door, all that was left of a St. George’s cross, peeling around the edges.
Sean looked at his feet. Regulation kit, steel toecaps hidden under the black leather. He’d come a long way from the little boy whose mother was dead and whose telly was broken because his dad had kicked it in.
‘No. It’s fine.’
Although it wasn’t fine. It wasn’t fine at all. If this was a bright idea to impress DCI Khan, it was one he wished he hadn’t had.
At that moment the door opened.
‘Now then, lad. Look at yer! Trussed up like a wanker. I thought you’d packed it in.’
‘Hi Dad.’
‘Who’s this? Your business partner? Fancy suit, that. What’s he up to? Loan sharking? You’ve come to the right place. I’m flat broke.’ His laugh broke into a fit of coughing. ‘Eh, that’d be right, a loan shark hiring a bent copper for a bit of muscle.’
‘I’ll go to the staircase. Count to twenty?’ Khan sounded embarrassed.
Sean followed Jack into the narrow hallway and closed the door, trapping them together in a flat full of stale air and bad memories. The sympathy he’d started to feel for his dad was evaporating fast. He put his hand in his inside pocket for his wallet.
‘How much d’you need?’
Jack licked his lips with sticky spittle. Sean stared at a pile of dirty clothes lying on the floor.
‘What happened to Eileen?’
‘We’ve split up. Artistic differences!’
Jack laughed, hacking his way through a chest full of phlegm. Then Sean heard it: the high-pitched scream of a man in pain.
‘Did you hear that?’
‘If you say so.’
‘But did you?’
‘Hear what?’
‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter.’ He pressed a twenty-pound note into his father’s hand. ‘Buy some food with that. You look like you need it.’
‘As if you bloody care. I can hardly manage the walk to the shop, you said—’
But Sean had opened the door.
‘See you, Dad.’
He shut the door as Khan came through from the stairwell.
‘Well?’ Khan said.
‘I heard you. He didn’t.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Sean jabbed his finger at the lift button. He couldn’t wait to be out of there.
‘People hear what they want to.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
York
The early morning music show is playing a song her mum used to like. Chloe leans out of bed and turns it off. That DJ is way too chirpy anyway. She sits up and swings her legs over the side of the bed, rubbing the grit of sleep out of her eyes. There’s a couple of slices of bread in a plastic bag by her bed. It’s all she’s got left until the first payment for her apprenticeship comes through. The mealtimes in the hostel are too late for her early morning starts and too early in the evening. It’s all cleared up by the time she gets back. She owes money for her hostel charge, but now she’s getting nothing for it. She’ll take the bread with her and eat it on her journey.
The whole building is quiet. She tiptoes downstairs, her work boots in her hand. Bill had them waiting for her yesterday. There was a sale on at the garden centre, he said, and they happened to have her size. She’ll pay him back when she can. The office door is ajar, but she doesn’t want to see Taheera. They didn’t speak again last night after the accusation over the mobile phone. Chloe thinks there should have been an apology; you can’t speak to people like that and decide it doesn’t matter. It does matter. With any luck, Taheera will still be asleep in the little staff bedroom, beyond the office.
As Chloe reaches the bottom of the stairs, the office phone starts to ring. The light is switched on. She heads for the front door and hears Taheera answer.
‘Hello? Yes. Ghazala? What’s wrong?’
Chloe has her hand on the exit switch to unlock the door.
‘I can’t hear you properly. What are you saying?’ Taheera says. ‘Which tower? He’s what?’
The catch clicks and Chloe opens the door to the street.
‘Dead? Mo’s dead? What d’you mean?’
Chloe hesitates.
‘No! Oh, God, no! No!’
Something crashes to the floor in the office. Another door opens and a sleepy voice from upstairs asks if everything is all right. Chloe slips out into the cool morning air and walks quickly to the bus stop.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Doncaster
The words on the menu in Val’s Café danced in front of Sean’s eyes and he didn’t have the energy to work it all out. He pretended to be too tired to choose and let Gav order.
‘Uncle Gavin knows best, sunshine, and you need to eat. You’ve had a shock and your blood sugar will be on the floor.’
In minutes a full English breakfast was put in front of Sean. He stuck his fork into his fried egg and watched the yolk pour out and merge with the juice from the baked beans. He shuddered, trying to blank out an unbidden image of blood pooled on concrete, and shoved a forkful of food into his mouth.
‘Back in the day, we’d have been in the pub by now,’ Gav was saying, pouring sugar into his tea. ‘A couple of double whiskies to get over ourselves. Now they offer you counselling.’
‘Food,’ Sean said through his mouthful, ‘is just as good. You were right.’
They ate in silence until they were mopping up the last juices from their plates with slabs of Val’s white sliced bread. She replaced their mugs of tea without asking. Sean wasn’t even sure if she was actually called Val, or whether she was a successor to the original owner, but she’d been running the café round the corner from the police station for years.
‘He’s taken a shine to you, that DCI Khan,’ Gav said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
Sean shrugged. ‘Useful that I know the territory, nothing more than that.’ In the pocket of his trousers, the corner of Khan’s business card pressed almost imperceptibly against his thigh.
‘He’s a tricky bugger,’ Gav said, ‘so watch yourself.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Bit of a reputation for running to the bosses at the first sniff of things not going his way. Plays the race card if anyone crosses him, so I’ve heard.’
Sean shrugged. He hadn’t had much time to form an impression, but he thought the detective was all right. Serious, but all right.
‘He’s not got a lot of friends in the Sheffield force. That’s probably why he’s been sent over here,’ Gav said.
‘I thought it was the cuts. We can’t even get a Major Incident Team together on our own.’
Sean drained his tea. He was so full of food he thought he might fall asleep, face down in his empty plate, but he still had to pick up his moped and get back to his nan’s.
By 10 a.m. he was riding along Winston Grove, the curved crescent that ran along the lower end of the Chasebridge estate. The community centre masked his view of the base of the towers, but he could see the first floor windows and above. He wondered how good Mrs Armley’s eyesight was and what she could see from her window.