[Alicia Friend 01.0] His First His Second Read online

  “Wow,” he said.

  “What?”

  “He is making this too easy.”

  “He used it recently?”

  Cleaver had to get himself one of these. “This morning. A Priceway supermarket. Bridlington.”

  “Our boy’s gone to the beach for the day.”

  “Lots of historical transactions. Looks like he lives there. Yep, there’s his registered address. Must work. He spends a lot, pays it off in full each month.” Cleaver pressed “print” then “OK”, realised he’d set it as landscape as one hundred and thirty-two pages spat out of the printer. “Oops.”

  He and Ball exchanged naughty-boy looks, knowing the bean-counters running the police would collapse, foaming at the mouth if they saw this. Cleaver accessed the details of that Priceway branch, and printed them too. He also pulled up Prakash’s most regular transactions, the petrol station, a pizza shop.

  Ball unlocked his phone. “Wonder if DS Friend is back on the air yet.”

  “Bridlington,” Alicia said, hanging up her phone. “Ball and Cleaver are contacting the Humber-guys and they’re on their way to an address.”

  “We going?” Murphy said.

  “And don’t worry about speed limits. I’ll let Barry know we’re on our way.”

  “Barry?”

  “Ex-boyfriend. He moved to the east coast when we split up. Now he’s with Humberside, which covers Brid.”

  “Another ex-boyfriend? First the guy at Interpol, now Humberside? Know anyone in MI5, MI6, the SAS?”

  “I once dated someone I thought might be MI5. Does that count?”

  “You break Barry’s heart then?”

  “I always do.”

  Murphy turned at a roundabout and aimed at the A58. “Don’t want to talk about it?”

  “I loved him. He loved me. But he got all serious. It would never have worked.”

  “Oh, you’re one of them.”

  “One of what?”

  “Just out for a good time. Should’ve known.”

  “No, I mean he got serious-serious. Boring-serious. I’m happy to make a commitment, Uncle Donald, but too many guys associate ‘commitment’ with ‘serious’. They get confused. I’d have married Barry the next day if he’d asked me at the right time.”

  “He asked you to marry him?”

  “On the day I planned on ending it with him, yeah.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I ended it with him.”

  “Cold-hearted cow,” Murphy said with an unfamiliar smile. “He’ll be pleased to see you?”

  “Doubt I will see him. He’s ARV. But it’s polite to say I’m in town.” She got his answering machine, left a quick message and hung up, hoping he’d chilled out a bit since they last met. “So what do you think about our splendid classless society?”

  Murphy negotiated his way onto the dual carriageway that would shoot them all the way to the east coast, careful on the next roundabout.

  “Classless?” he said. “You want to know my theory on class?”

  Alicia got the impression he was winding himself up, like a toy. She could not resist an insight into this nice but grumpy man’s psyche.

  “Leave nothing out,” she said.

  “Okay, but don’t forget, you asked for the full version.”

  “The suspense is killing me.”

  They passed an abandoned double-decker bus on the left, converted into a café. Murphy glanced at it, but started his story.

  “The way I see it, around twenty percent of us are working class, proper jobs, you know, plumbers, bus drivers, that sort. People who keep the place going.”

  Alicia nodded.

  “Then there’s around sixty percent, what I’d call the middle class. Not the cheese and wine party snobs, but they’re included. It goes from the office bods through to chairmen of companies, politicians, chefs, coppers. Normal folk, up to the verging-on rich. No better or worse than the working class, just a different mind-set.”

  Murphy slowed behind a mini, one of the old ones, spotted a gap in the oncoming traffic, and sped around it to a clear road.

  “Then there’s the ten percent like Henry back there. Do nothing, but think they’re entitled to wealth and status. Look down on us like we exist to pay them tax so we can breathe the same air.”

  Alicia made a show of counting on her fingers. “That’s ninety percent. Where’s the other ten?”

  They passed a sign for Scarborough, forty-eight miles. Around sixty to Brid.

  He said, “That’s what I call the sub-class. Shoplifting, alcoholism, drug addiction. The people who could recover but don’t. Or won’t. And I’m not talking unemployed either—I know plenty who are trying their best to work, take anything they can get. But there are people who don’t even try. Kid trips in the playground, they sue the school. Funds come from policing or hospitals, then they blow it all on booze or drugs.”

  The clues to Murphy’s grumpiness grew clearer to Alicia. “So what do you reckon we should do, oh wise one?”

  He thought about it. “You know, back in the eighties, I used to feel sorry for them. The idea that ‘greed is good’ was all over the place. Rich and poor got further apart and folk like me, we were stuck in the middle. Then in the nineties, the promotion of wealth made it to the mainstream, like it was the new normal. Your Sex and the City, programs like that. Ally Mc-bloody-Beal. Friends.”

  “Wow,” Alicia said, “that’s some dated pop-culture references you have there.”

  “Well, I don’t watch much TV anymore. Point is, they all promote a lifestyle your average person can’t afford, and since all these mingers do is—”

  “Sorry, Donald, ‘mingers’?”

  “The sub-classes.”

  “Oh, we’re back on them. Go on.”

  “These minging people watching telly all day and night, and getting it in their heads they’re entitled to that kind of money.”

  “Like Henry. Ooh, we’ve gone full-circle.”

  “After the millennium, it got worse. I started to get scared.”

  “So Sex and the City and Ally McBeal are responsible for the collapse of British society,” Alicia said. “But what about a solution?”

  “Well, I thought about that. I first came up with it when I got stabbed in the arm with a heroin needle. My house was burgled twice. I got scared. My wife got scared. And because I was so driven to put this scum in prison … Susan left me.”

  Alicia suspected there was more to it than that, but it was a conversation for another time.

  “After Susan went, I stopped being scared. I still put them away. I live down there, I see them all the time, and you know what?”

  “No. What?”

  “I’m not scared of them anymore. I’m just so bloody bored. Bored of those idiots on Jeremy Kyle yelling at each other and screwing and making babies that’ll all end up like themselves or using abortion like normal folk use condoms—”

  “I had an abortion,” Alicia said. She swallowed, unsure why she blurted that out.

  Murphy kept his eyes on the road. “Yeah? How old?”

  “Nineteen. It was the end of my decadent party lifestyle. My mum and dad insisted it would ruin my life, so … poof! Gone.”

  “Nothing ‘poof’ about that, Alicia.” He held the wheel with his right hand, moved his left toward Alicia, but something—maybe the tension in her shoulders—caused him to take it back. “You regret it?”

  “Some days. When I think about how many single mums make a career and a life for themselves. Other days I know I wouldn’t be me without everything that came before. Then I’ll see some twelve-year-old kid and wonder, what if? Schoolyards, missing kids, I start thinking about it. Things like that.”

  Like days out at the seaside, she thought.

  After a long silence, Murphy said, “Those Jeremy Kyle types, they’re breeding faster than you and me, Alicia.”

  Alicia forced a smile, fluttered her eyelids in a “thank you” and said, “Scary s
tuff.”

  He breathed through his nose as the dual carriageway merged into a single-track road, coming up behind a caravan. They slowed from eighty to fifty.

  Murphy said, “We should scoop them all up and give them their own estate on an island out in the North Sea. A weekly drop of special brew, pizza and oven chips should see ’em right. Once a month, some fresh needles and a barrel of smack. Possibly the latest Spice Girls CD they can play as loud as they like.”

  “The Spice Girls split up about a million years ago.”

  “Glad you get my point.” He leaned to the side, trying to see around the caravan.

  “I do get your point,” Alicia said. “People who contribute nothing to society should not be part of that society.”

  Murphy didn’t seem convinced. “It’s not that they add nothing. It’s what they take away. You’ve never had something wrenched out of your life—” He stopped abruptly, like a criminal trapped in a lie.

  “You can tell me if you want.”

  He sighed. “Why do I feel like I’m in a shrink’s office?”

  Alicia smoothed Murphy’s hair back, tidied it up. He frowned but didn’t stop her. She took out a hankie, spat on it, and wiped his cheek.

  “Hey!” He pulled away, steadied the car.

  “You had ketchup on your cheek from that sandwich.”

  “Oh.”

  The engine rumbled in the silence, the outside noises now distinct.

  Alicia patted Murphy’s thigh and said, “Now. Tell me all about your mother.”

  Murphy cracked a smile. Yep, another one. The noise of the engine faded to the background again. The first sign for Bridlington crawled past: fifty-three miles. Murphy pressed the button for the siren and the light flashed on the dashboard. The caravan slowed and pulled as far over as possible.

  “The housing estate,” Alicia said. “We could call it ‘Mingland’.”

  Murphy nodded agreement, dropped to third and accelerated past the caravan, up to seventy before skipping fourth and settling into fifth. They’d be in Brid before lunchtime.

  Richard sat on a bench with Charlene, watching old people in thick pullovers roll balls around a green.

  Crown green bowling. Is that an Olympic sport yet?

  He’d given Charlene his spare coat from the boot and she sat like a good little girl, watching the game like father and daughter.

  Richard wondered if he could be a father again, if it was worth it when people could snatch your children so easily from you. It didn’t surprise him how simple it was for a strong man to take a woman like Katie, like the others. All he needed to entice Charlene was the lie that he was a new teacher, the promise her mother had bought her a mobile phone, and the notion that she had to sign some paperwork in the car. She was only six, bless her.

  Donna showed at the opposite end of the green. Charlene leaned forward, but Richard placed a fatherly hand on her and said, “Remember what we discussed.”

  She sat back, watching her mummy approach.

  Donna scurried, her feet close together. Richard stood between her and Charlene and adopted the cold stare he reserved for people whom he was about to fire or those pleading for their lives. She ignored the look, knelt straight down beside Charlene, hands trembling, kissing, kissing her daughter.

  “Okay, that’s enough.” In the hand not holding Charlene, Richard flashed a compact blade. It was a throwing knife, an implement that required a skill he spent many years trying to master, but had never successfully used it against another human—not lethal enough, not guaranteed. “You have something for me?”

  Donna fumbled in her handbag, a brown envelope rustling out. Richard opened it with the tip of the knife, blew to widen the hole, and fished out the papers. Screen prints of Paavan Prakash’s card history. Plus his stated address.

  Bridlington.

  Just over an hour’s drive. No probs.

  “Good.” He let go of Charlene’s arm. “I need my coat back.”

  Donna stripped her girl of the coat and threw it at Richard. She backed quickly away, fear now replaced with disgust. She was still looking around, into bushes, back at Richard, as if expecting an ambush.

  “I won’t bother you again,” Richard called after her. “I promise.”

  Holding Charlene’s hand, Donna all but dragged the girl away, hurting her more than Richard had done in tying her up for the photo.

  Richard’s stomach squirmed.

  Odd. He didn’t know what it was.

  Watching this woman walk away with her daughter, a daughter recently abducted by what she probably thought of as a madman (how wrong could she be!), yet knowing she would never feel truly safe again. He didn’t like the word “jealousy”, but that’s how he felt.

  He was jealous.

  Donna had her girl back, alive and well. While Richard was one step closer.

  He hadn’t been to Brid in a while. Better pack some sandwiches. And a flask of tea. Or maybe he’d have fish ‘n’ chips. Yes, he thought. Nothing quite like fish ‘n’ chips beside the seaside.

  Chapter Eighteen

  At eleven a.m., Alfie Rhee was listening to Celine Dion. Again. Outside Red McCall’s van, the city of Leeds zoomed by, the tiny buildings grotty and short. Even the Christmas lights seemed like they couldn’t be bothered, despite it being daytime and all they had to do was hang around. Occasionally, though, a shining tower of apartments or a brand new office block reared out of the ground, but that was all that indicated proof of what he read; he understood Leeds to be a big city. He asked McCall how come people think this is “big.”

  “It’s got a big heart,” McCall said.

  “Seriously.”

  “Seriously? Oh. It’s big financially. More millionaires per square mile than London. Businesses move here all the time. Loads of ’em. KPMG, HSBC, that sort of thing. It’s a good night out an’ all.”

  Through sheer volume of use, Alfie already deduced the phrase Red used—“an’ all”—was a contraction of “and all”, which was in turn a northern England term which meant “in addition to the thing just mentioned”. So Leeds, as well as being a sizable financial centre, was also an excellent place to get drunk. Good to know.

  A small park rolled by on the left, then they stopped at a busy intersection, signs to places like Scot Hall and Chapeltown, Harrogate and Harehills. The English had weird names for places. Alfie let McCall get on with the driving, didn’t ask questions, just held onto the envelope full of English money. Four grand.

  It had better be worth it.

  They passed under a green overhead sign indicating they were on their way to Meanwood.

  Sounds great, Alfie thought.

  “So what’s Alfie short for?” McCall asked.

  “Nothing. It’s my name.”

  “No, come on. Alfred, Alfonse, what?”

  “It says Alfie on my birth certificate.”

  “Like the Michael Caine film?”

  “I don’t know. Never asked. It’s my name. That’s all.”

  McCall wound down the window and spat out of it. “I know, get this. What’s E.T. short for?”

  “What?”

  “E.T. In the film. What’s E.T. short for?”

  “Extra Terrestrial.”

  “Nah. It’s cos he’s got little legs.” McCall cracked up laughing, slapping his thigh to boot.

  Celine Dion was singing something Alfie hadn’t heard before. “You got anything else we can listen to?”

  Red shook his head. “Not really. She relaxes me. Last night was okay. There was no traffic. But I need to relax. My doctor says I should take more baths.” He slammed on the brakes, leaned out the window and yelled some British insult—tosser or something—and pulled back inside. “Anyway, ordinarily, I’d’ve been out the door, chasing that prick up the road. Celine keeps me, I dunno, centred.”

  “Praise God for Celine,” Alfie said.

  “My sentiments exactly.”

  They turned left at some lights, now firmly in s
uburbia. Hundreds of young people wandered the many shops and cafes either side of the road, their fashion sense ranging from the bizarre to the ridiculous to the downright mundane.

  “This is your Mean Wood?” Alfie said.

  “Nah, we passed through Meanwood a way back. This is Headingly. Student central.”

  Traffic crawled. Celine sang. McCall gripped the wheel. Each time the car in front moved even six inches, he’d accelerate into the tiny gap. Eventually, he manoeuvred into a parking space near a quaint war monument opposite a bar called The Sky Rack and a charity shop for animals. They hit the street where students hurried up and down, Alfie getting pissed at dodging weirdoes and grannies on the narrow sidewalk.

  “In the summer, this place is chock-full of totty,” McCall said. “Sometimes I think I can do without my Viagra.”

  Alfie raised an eyebrow. You can part with too much information sometimes. Besides, McCall wasn’t that old.

  “Yeah, yeah, most guys’re ashamed of it,” McCall went on. “But I don’t care. It’s a stress thing.”

  “Hence Ms. Dion.”

  “Exactly. When I’m with a lady, I still worry about stuff, you know? I stick Celine on the stereo, pop a little blue pill, and it’s how’s yer father time.”

  Alfie was either still jetlagged or McCall was speaking something that only sounded like English. He understood less than half of that. “What if the lady don’t like Celine Dion?”

  “She soon perks up when she sees what ‘Little’ Red can do. Bam!” He thrust his hips forwards, scattering three girls of about eighteen into the road. “Viagra. Best invention since Velcro. What you think I need my commission for? It ain’t buying flowers, mate. It ain’t flowers.”

  They crossed the road and proceeded into Starbucks. McCall bought the drinks while Alfie went ahead to secure seats upstairs. He found two sofas, both facing a low table with dirty cups and plates, so he sat facing the door. All the less-comfy chairs were taken, text books open, students scribbling while nursing a coffee and a hangover. A boy and girl, maybe sixteen, maybe nineteen, ate each other’s faces on another couch, mouths wide, tongues thrashing like eels.