‘Wait a minute!’ Taheera calls after them. ‘I thought we might all go for a coffee.’
Emma hesitates.
‘OK, if you’re buying,’ she says.
Chloe thinks she’s shameless, after having moaned so much, but all the same she wouldn’t mind one herself. It’s only her second day on the out and she fancies sitting in a café, sipping a nice coffee. They end up in a little place, not much more than a shop front, with two soft untidy sofas in the window. Chloe would rather sit further back where it’s more private and there are proper chairs and tables, but Emma has steered her towards one of the sofas and sits down heavily.
‘I’m knackered!’ she says. ‘Do they do cake?’
Taheera ignores her and asks Chloe what she’d like first. Then she takes Emma’s order and tells the young guy, whose name turns out to be Mo, that he’ll have to get his own. The budget doesn’t stretch to him. She doesn’t sound mean when she says it, just playful and then Chloe gets it. This trip is meant to be about her. That’s why Taheera has got money to spend. That’s why she didn’t want her and Emma to go off together and why she clucked like a mother hen when Chloe said she wanted to stay outside the Minster. Chloe sits back on the sofa and decides she doesn’t mind being fussed over. She’s sure it won’t last.
Taheera goes up to the counter and Mo leans forward.
‘Do you want to see a magic trick?’ he says.
‘Do you make yourself disappear in a puff of smoke?’ Emma laughs, her scar tugging at her skin. ‘Only joking!’
But Mo looks annoyed. He turns to Chloe.
‘What about you?’
She shrugs.
‘You don’t say much, do you?’
No, she thinks. But that’s probably just as well because if she was a talker she’d be asking questions; what she really wants to know is why he’s on tag, what he’s done and where he’s been. She’s sure he’s been inside, and he must know she and Emma have too. What she really she wants to know is why Taheera has got a criminal for a boyfriend. It’s probably a sackable offence if you work in a bail hostel.
Emma goes off to find the ladies’ toilet as Taheera comes back to the table.
‘It’s a shame you didn’t have your camera up the tower, Mo.’
‘I left it at home. I didn’t think you’d want …’ he doesn’t finish.
Chloe sips the froth on her coffee and pretends he’s not looking at her. She sits back in the depths of the sofa and soon it’s as if they’ve forgotten she’s there.
‘Have you been doing much photography?’
‘Not much time,’ he says. ‘Been helping my cousin in the shop.’
‘How is she?’
‘Ghazala? She’s OK. Yeah, she’s good. She gave me the train fare to get up here. Her little brother Saleem’s being a pain in the arse, though.’
Taheera nods.
‘My brother was here last night,’ she says quietly.
Chloe tries to look interested in the tassels on one of the sofa cushions, spinning the purple and gold threads and watching them unravel. When you don’t say much, people tend to think you don’t hear much either.
‘Kamran?’ Mo says. ‘What was he doing in York?’
‘He’d been to York Races and he wanted to borrow some money to get into a club. He’d been drinking. My parents would go mad if they knew.’
So that was her brother. Chloe’s almost forgotten the scene she witnessed from her window last night, but now it comes back to her.
‘Had he come up here on his own?’ Mo says.
‘Someone was driving his car, a white guy. At least he wasn’t stupid enough to drive himself.’
Mo looks worried.
‘This guy, what did he look like?’
‘I didn’t really see, it was dark. Why? Does it matter?’
‘No, probably not.’
‘Mo?’
‘Nothing. It’s nothing. Look!’ And he touches Taheera’s ear and pulls out a pound coin.
CHAPTER FIVE
Doncaster
The low ceiling of the corridor outside the Divisional Inspector’s office had a fluorescent light which flickered as Sean waited, like a schoolboy outside the headteacher’s office. Maureen had ironed every inch of his uniform. She’d even offered him one of her sleeping pills to make sure he got some rest, but he said no. He needed a clear head. When he got in from his dad’s he went for a run to tire himself out and, by some miracle, fell asleep not long after midnight. He’d had five or six hours, but his right eye was twitching. Or was it the light? He couldn’t tell.
The door opened.
‘Come in PC Denton.’
He phoned Gav as soon as he came out.
‘Well?’
‘It was OK,’ Sean said, still not quite believing it himself. ‘What I said, how I described it, tallied with what you told them and as there were no independent witnesses. Basically, that was it.’
‘Good lad. Right, let’s celebrate!’
‘I’m not sure …’ He was thinking of his dad and the promise he’d made to help clean up the flat.
‘They’ve got a nice guest ale on at the Red Lion,’ Gav said.
‘Sorry, mate, I’ve got stuff on.’
Sean didn’t tell him the other part of what they’d said, Wendy Gore grinning at him through over-done lipstick that had smeared on the lip of her coffee mug, the bit about young eyes seeing things that others might overlook, that his previous work as a PCSO, especially in the investigation of a senior officer, hadn’t gone unnoticed. He had the feeling that they were asking him to spy for them. The only bit that made any sense was the warning to stay away from Saleem Asaf.
‘That shouldn’t be difficult,’ Sean said.
‘Except that he lives at an address on the edge of the Chasebridge estate, Denton, where I believe you have family.’
The Divisional Inspector couldn’t have made it sound worse if he’d actually come out and said ‘a drunk for a father,’ but Sean let it pass.
Sean sat on the side of his bed and unfolded the crumpled page with the estate agents’ logo and the colour photo of the ‘fabulous studio apartment’. He would be back on the night shift tomorrow and by the time he got round to viewing it, it was sure to have been let out. He screwed the details into a ball and threw it in a neat arc, straight into the wastepaper basket by the door.
‘Goal!’
He could hear the television. Maureen must be watching a comedy because the canned laughter came up through the floor at regular intervals. When he went downstairs, one place was laid at the table and a cup of tea was waiting for him.
‘I was at my dad’s yesterday.’ He let it sound casual, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
‘Oh.’ She was at the cooker, stirring a pan of baked beans. She didn’t look at him.
‘He’s packed in drinking.’
‘Why would he bother doing that? It’s like air to him.’
‘Because he had to.’
Maureen tipped baked beans onto two waiting slices of toast and scraped angrily at the saucepan with a wooden spoon.
‘Bloody idiot. He’s ruined everyone else’s life and been killing himself for years, so why give up now?’
‘It’s serious. His liver’s packing up.’
She turned to him for a moment before flipping a piece of bacon out of the frying pan onto the mountain of beans and putting the plate on the table in front of him.
‘I really should eat a proper vegetable once in a while, shouldn’t I?’ Sean said, trying to change the subject.
‘You going to see him again?’ she said.
He didn’t reply.
‘Sean, love, it’s none of my business, and he is your father, but what good’s going to come of it?’
Sean shrugged and poked at the beans with his fork. Maureen went through to the front room and the sound of a game show filled the silence.
When he’d finished eating, Sean found a carrier bag under the sink and helped himself to a bottle of anti-bacterial cleaner and a couple of cloths. This wasn’t going to cut very deep into the built-up grime of Jack Denton’s home, but it was a start. He put his head round the door of the living room to say goodbye to Maureen. She waved her cigarette but kept her eyes fixed on the screen. He could tell she was annoyed, but it wouldn’t last long.