Debbie and Chris Chinley both came to the door. Debbie seemed tinier than ever, made frail by grief, like a damaged bird. Chris looked remote, his eyes never really focusing on the here and now.
Their living room was adorned with photos of Ann Marie. Their only child.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Janine said. You could never say it enough. Not for something like this. Butchers nodded his own condolences.
‘Thanks for your flowers,’ Debbie said, her voice light, brittle. ‘Everybody’s been brilliant – really. And school…’ she struggled.
There was an awkward pause.
‘You got the car?’ Chris Chinley asked.
‘Yes,’ Janine replied, ‘it’s with forensics now. We’re talking to people who saw the vehicle and I think we’re making progress.’
‘Meaning?’ he asked bitterly.
‘Chris, don’t,’ Debbie said.
‘We have some very promising leads,’ Janine tried to reassure him.
‘You know who it was?’ he demanded. His broad, swarthy face darkening, his short, dark lashes flickering rapidly over his eyes.
Janine held up her hands, shaking her head. ‘I can’t talk to you about that,’ she said gently.
‘It doesn’t change anything,’ Debbie said simply. ‘If you convict them – she’s still…’ She took a deep breath. ‘I want something good to come from this…’
Chris sprang to his feet, headed out of the room. Janine signalled for Butchers to follow. ‘I keep forgetting,’ Debbie said. ‘How daft is that? I keep thinking where’s Ann-Marie, is she in her room, or I’d better get her dance kit ready and then I remember. Over and over.’
Janine nodded. All she could do was listen, sit there and listen and thank God that she wasn’t Debbie Chinley.
Chris Chinley paced the kitchen looking out of place. Too raw for the neat white and jade units, the grey marble worktop and the fridge with its assortment of magnets.
‘Something good,’ he mimicked, ‘what possible good… that bastard is out there… drawing breath.’ He paused rubbing his large hands over his face, over the stubble and the shadows that made his eyes appear sunken.
The dog under the table raised its head and gave a whine. Chinley ignored it.
He spoke again. ‘You lot talk about promising leads and making progress.’
‘It’s not just talk,’ Butchers insisted.
‘You’ve got him?’ Butchers saw the hope flare in Chinley’s eyes. ‘Where is he? At the station?’
If only! Butchers looked away, his jaw clenched, betraying his own frustration. Stone should have been locked up tight and waiting for due process to kick in. There were times when he loathed the constraints of the job, the way the scallies played the system and won. Times when he felt screwed by the rules and regulations and the cowardice of the great British public who banged on endlessly about crime but ran a mile if they were asked to help do anything about it.
Chinley rounded on him, appalled. ‘Still out there?’ Almost a whisper, his arm pointing, his face vivid with disbelief. ‘Still out there?’ he repeated.
Butchers swallowed, felt a wave of shame. This man deserved better.
‘Who is he?’ Chinley moved closer to Butchers. ‘Who is it? Who killed my Ann-Marie?’
Butchers shook his head; he felt the sweat break out on his upper body, his heartbeat sprint.
‘Please?’ Chinley whispered, his eyes locked onto Butchers’, eyes spiked with pain.
Janine wriggled out of her coat in the hall. Eleanor appeared from the front room.
‘How was school?’ Janine asked as they went along the hallway.
‘’Kay. I got an A in geography.’
‘Well done, Ellie.’
‘And Naomi’s having a sleepover – can I go?’
‘Yes, ‘course you can.’
‘Cool.’ Eleanor produced her mobile phone and turned, heading upstairs accompanied by bleats and beeps as she called her friend.
In the kitchen-cum-living room, Pete was flying Charlotte around like a plane; she was shrieking with glee. ‘Approaching runway two. Clear for landing Charlie Lima.’
‘Don’t you get enough of that at work?’ Janine said.
‘Give me a go,’ Tom yelled. ‘It’s my turn.’
Janine held out her hands and took the baby, settled her on one hip. ‘Have you been flying? Clever girl.’
Pete bent to lift Tom. And raised him up.
Michael came in with a pile of dirty pots which he began to put in the dishwasher. Another year and a half and Michael would be off to university, leaving home maybe. Though more of them seemed to stay put than they had in Janine’s time; chose courses close to the family nest. Money perhaps. She and Pete should be able to help him out with fees and the like so if he wanted to go further afield then the opportunity would be there.
‘Parents’ evening.’ Michael took a bite of an apple and handed Janine a letter from his sixth form college. ‘Next week.’
‘Going all right?’ Sometimes she felt she barely saw him these days. Probably healthy, growing up, gaining his independence.
‘Yes, good.’
‘Great. Don’t know whether it’ll be me or your Dad but one of us will be there.’
Charlotte began to grizzle. ‘You hungry?’ Janine took a bottle from the fridge and put it in the warmer. Charlotte screeched.
‘Did you get them Mum?’ Tom held his arms out rigid as Pete placed him back on the floor. ‘Did you put them in jail?’
‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘Doing my best, though.’
The streets were slick with rain, reflecting light from the lamp-posts and car headlights. Chris’s chest felt tight, hard. As though he had swallowed cement and it had gradually set, swelling and stiffening. His heart was a boulder, lodged like a weight in the centre of him.
He imagined the bastards’ faces, the surprise when they clocked who he was. His grief releasing him to do whatever he chose. A rock smashing into them, crushing the fingers that had steered the wheel, the feet that had gunned the accelerator, blowing them away… He braked sharply. No point being caught for speeding before he’d had his chance.
Chris had never been much of a fighter. At school, his big build and his easygoing nature had spared him the attention of the hard cases. The one time he had got mixed up in a playground brawl, he’d decked one of the ringleaders and received a broken nose for his pains.
Later, as a man, the only fights he’d known were times he’d intervened in drunken mêlées. One time, three lads were kicking seven shades of shit out of another man. Chris had pulled them off, yelling that the police were coming. He got a shove or two and a load of abuse but the trio legged it. The broken nose helped. Made Chris look like a boxer. Another time, he’d got mixed up in a lovers’ fight. The man had been slapping the woman about the head, hard enough to break her jaw. ‘Leave her be,’ Chris had told him, one hand raised in warning. ‘That’s way out of order.’
The man had turned to Chris and let go of the girl. Released, she flew at Chris. ‘Get off him,’ she shrieked, oblivious to the fact that Chris hadn’t laid a finger on the guy, ‘yer wanker, eff off.’ And she had clouted Chris with her handbag then kicked out at him with one vicious looking stiletto which raked a neat quarter-inch furrow down his shin.
Now he wasn’t frightened or agitated because it was like he was on automatic. He imagined that soldiers maybe felt like that before battle or someone jumping out of a plane.
He knew the way. He’d done a few jobs on one of the estates on the fringe of Wythenshawe. Sort of places people bought because it was near the airport and the motorways. They wouldn’t be there more than a few years and they could buy it newly built and sell it for a neat profit and it even came painted, carpeted and fully fitted. Move in a couch and a bed and you were in business.