Fiona Read online

  “Call at 6:03 am, Sunday, Novem…”

  “Ok, I get it…” Garstone recited along with the drawn-out date…hang on, did she just say “6.03 AM?

  He turned on the TV and sure enough, ‘Rise-and-Shine Sunday's headlines were starting. He’d been asleep for five-and-a-half hours, sulking over his seemingly fruitless future in the police.

  Sensing the stinging cold of last night’s supper all over his face, he shuffled across to the mirror. He was confronted by a monster in a mask of Ragu and carrot shreds, which he studied long enough to miss the message that played. He pressed the ‘1’ again and got Leyton on the line.

  “Rise and shine, sailor. Conference called at D-floor today. 8am prompt. Have already let Leroy know as well. Laters. Byee!”

  “Some Sunday,” He shut the phone off. “Still, if I want to see this shittin’ promotion through…”

  He put the kettle on and plodded into the bathroom. As he came back out to prepare for breakfast, he spotted the blue sheet still on the table. Had he been dreaming any of it at all?

  Garstone found the office empty, when he got there at nearly ten to eight. He hoped to catch a chat and confer over preliminary topics with his two closest workmates, before proceeding into the conference. There was scarcely a soul around though - even no fresh coffee cups on the desks, and all pcs or laptops seemed switched to standby or off.

  “Ey up, you finally bothered getting out of bed then?” Armitage stuck his head in.

  “I wasn’t supposed to have, only some wonderful woman woke me up at six this morning.”

  “Go easy son, you’re the one who said we’d a busy day ahead.”

  “That was before SHE decided otherwise and sent me home to recover for a day… then all of a sudden changed her mind, again.”

  “The Leyton giveth, the Leyton taketh. I thought tha’d have got used to that.”

  “I know, I know,” Garstone had his reasons to agree. “I’ll tell you later.”

  He saw a trio of detectives from C-department trailing through the door. As Armitage’s old friend D.C. Clitheroe held the door, they followed through.

  As expected, Greg and Leroy were the last two officers into the conference room. The massive middle-floor room held 200, seated like soldiers. There were so many he wondered if he recognised from anywhere, even Yorkshire.

  As a suspicious crescendo of Scottish accents started to play up along the rear, another thing struck Garstone. Not just this entourage of outside forces, seemingly gathered behind nor even Armitage’s sickly oyster-blue suit. On turning round himself, he saw Sergeant Barnes serving up cups of water from the dispenser. PCs Thompson, Hall, Stannings and all the uniformed regulars sat down in front of them.

  No Leyton.

  “Were the hell’s she gone now?”

  “Don’t look like she’ll be showing,” Armitage said as Barnes sat himself comfortably next to the board, the spot usually taken up by Leyton herself.

  “Detective Constables Garstone and Armitage, are you ready for us to begin?” asked another officer sitting on the end, as Barnes called for quiet.

  “Aye sir.” Garstone took up one of two spaces left at the front.

  Feeling his felt-like seat sink beneath him, he wondered if the room had been furnished to expect royalty. The carpet felt bristly even beneath his shoes, stinking of Axminster freshness.

  Sparing another second to allow Armitage comfort, Barnes stood to his feet.

  “Before we start, I regret to notify that Acting Detective Superintendent Leyton has been unable to attend due to a domestic issue. We shall of course pass the minutes of this discussion on to her.”

  Garstone couldn't help detect a distortion of the truth in her excuse, although he hadn't time for sharing it with Armitage here. Barnes was introducing the tall officer sitting alongside.

  “Detective Chief Inspector Argyll Abdullah, Strathclyde Police.” Barnes presented his guest by name and sat back down.

  “Good morning, Midelson Road CID.” DCI Abdullah smiled only briefly. He stood, as if watching for reaction then continued in his soft Scottish drawl. “It looks though, as if someone in Scotland may not be enjoying too many of those at this moment. Two months ago, this young woman fled custody in Glasgow…”

  He let the projector zoom its image onto the screen.

  Garstone nearly swallowed his water down the wrong side as he saw the face in front.

  Exactly the same one as on that scrapyard paper, albeit in colour.

  The staring blonde face had seen some additional enhancement on this magnified shot, including absence of that offending thumbprint.

  “25-year-old Elaine Ruth Craig.” Abdullah proceeded to pile on the details. “Absconded from her home in Scotland; at the time she was being questioned in connection with the murder of her nanny. 51-year-old June Marianne Gullins went missing from her employer’s tenement home in Cowcaddens, central Glasgow on August the 27th. Miss Gullins, who is originally from South Yorkshire herself, was reported to have had rows with Miss Craig on several occasions, up to the date of her disappearance.”

  I might as well throw that paper away now, wondered Garstone. He sat up as Abdullah smiled in his direction.

  “Due to the help of our friends here in Sheffield, we have an unexpected lead.”

  Showing Barnes back to the front, Abdullah sat down again.

  “Thanking DCI Abdullah,” Barnes broke to clear his throat. “It is also due to the work of our own team so far that we have been able to obtain this footage at such short notice.

  They were shown a close-up of a car’s front windscreen, in what was supposed to be colour. A zoom-back revealed the car to be remarkably like a white Vauxhall Corsa.

  As Garstone recognised where it was taken, Barnes asked for the picture to be brightened.

  “This is camera footage, obtained from the crossroads of Fife Street and Wincobank Road, Sheffield, last Thursday at 11.48 am. Two seconds later, the vehicle you see here - a white Vauxhall Corsa - was involved in a serious hit-and-run incident, just out of shot.”

  “We’ve already corroborated this evidence, sir.” Garstone realised they were using Thompson’s copy here.

  “Not enough, DC Garstone,” Barnes signalled him to sit down again. “We acknowledge that your team succeeded in identifying a suspect, connected to the theft of used registration plates. Somehow, though, I think we class the vehicle passenger identified in this picture as more relevant.”

  Barnes zoomed the picture close again to the right half of the car. A faint dome of dirty blonde hair could be seen in the darkness of the windscreen. As the face was sized up to the adjacent photo fit of Miss Craig , the eyebrows stood out straight away.

  “All that time. How the hell could I have missed it?”

  Garstone gasped, destroyed by his own lapse of observation.

  Barnes went on, obviously ignoring him.

  “The description matches that of a young woman who we believe physically assaulted Acting Detective Superintendent Leyton at the nearby shopping centre, earlier that day. An unrelated murder in the area that evening does not involve either party at this stage, due to flawed circumstantial evidence.”

  “Sodding fantastic.” Garstone snarled, seeing it all come apart in Barnes’s claws. “Don’t bother that there’s been a brutal murder in Sheffield - someone’s just been bumped off in Bonnie-fucking-Scotland. Way-hey, why don't we all go up there and see to them... Miss Radcombe's family won't mind too much now, eh?”

  “Returning to the driver, unless DC Garstone wishes to save us the spit… 26 year old Thomas John Payden - officially residing at his parents’ home in Chapeltown, yet according to his younger brother Gary, who also has a police history, he seems to have been in exile recently. Now Mr Payden has previous form himself although due to a recognised reform in character, during his recent spell inside, he may be prepared to cooperate. It's just a case of finally pinning him down.”

  “Is it possible you can make the co
lour up a bit?” Abdullah suddenly asked “Try a tad more saturation.”

  Thompson sighed and obliged. The woman’s hair in the Fife St picture turned itself from white to bombshell blonde.

  A red elbow on the left however disturbed Garstone from his seat.

  Asking Barnes to scroll left, he looked at what he could see of the driver; the little that the top of the Toyota in front had failed to obscure.

  He recognised that black/red jacket anywhere - along with a dark cap also covering half of the face.

  “Gary - you lying little b...”

  He grabbed his jacket and galloped for the door, also summoning Armitage to follow.

  “Greg, the meeting isn’t over yet.” Barnes shouted after him.

  The DCs shut the door behind them, pretending not to listen.

  “Car, fast as we can.”

  Garstone urged his friend through the doors

  “Someone owes us a little explanation.”

  (ii)

  Garstone hardly gave a shit which way got him up to No8, Costhorpe Road soonest. Give him Meadowhall: give him Fife Street Crossing: going straight by Chapeltown Park… anything that would help rile himself, ready for dealing with Gary Payden suited him now.

  He hoped he could still exercise some constraint down the line, should Leyton finally bother to communicate.

  Right now that played either way for him. Armitage was sitting in silence for the second trip running. He seemed to have suddenly become scared to speak out unless important.

  “Talk if you want, mate.” Garstone knew none of this was his fault. “Even if it’s slagging off my driving… I could do with some annoying, come to mention it.”

  Garstone was already vexed enough, by what he’d seen in that conference room back there; what he previously hadn’t seen up till a second before then. Barnes’s act of dashing the core element from his hands was set to straddle his promotional prospects by several more years. So granted, this sort of vigilante mission might not impress Garstone’s pen-pushing police brethren unless it brought a red-hot suspect before the court, but he knew he was setting a big ball rolling.

  Costhorpe Road showed up before he had chance to give this thought. He held off on the idea of back-up; parking with his door literally against the gate this time would make Gary’s getaway trickier, especially as he’d also now have Leroy Armitage to avoid. Diving straight up the drive, Garstone was joined by Armitage as he leapfrogged the wall. While his friend tangled briefly with the bushes, Garstone checked the side gate. He left Armitage to guard that route, and tried the door.

  The sound of aggressive feet came from inside, right away. A radio was heard being turned off. The handle dropped and the door was swung open by a stocky, oldish woman in a white t-shirt and jeans. She stubbed out her cigarette on the flower pot before talking.

  “You alright?” she asked in a rough Yorkshire voice.

  “Mrs Payden?” Garstone waived ID.

  “What do you lot want round here?”

  “That’ll be your lovely little lad Gary.”

  “You them two that ran him over, Friday?” She suddenly appeared to recognise them.

  “We’re them two whose car he ran into the back of, without looking, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “Got some flaming cheek coming round here, you have.” She practically spat into Garstone’s face. “Either of you two heard how much pain he’s in? Suppose it’s just all in a day’s work for bastards like you, eh?”

  “He’s gonna be in a little bit more today.”

  “What’s he gone and done now?”

  “There’s a few things, you could call ‘naughty’: injury by reckless driving, obstructing the course of justice, breach of bail...those are the big three so far.”

  “Where’d you get it that our Gaz’s done all them?”

  “Might be a bit of a long story,” he lied “but the evidence we’ve culled, is rather a tight crack to crawl. I’m afraid we’ve got to have him right now, Mrs Payden.”

  “You deaf? I said he ain’t in.”

  “Where can we find him?”

  “I hardly know do I?”

  She was glaring at them gauntly as she packed her cigs away.

  “He does just like his brother - arrives home eleven or so at night, eats, sleeps around, does fuck all, just has breakfast then buggers off out my sight till same time next day.”

  “Including Sundays, I guess?”

  “Don’t even come home overnight at the weekend, him.”

  “That sounds just like the behaviour of someone guilty.”

  “You know something?” she grabbed a basket of laundry .“You two pigs can just piss off out of my garden. Just showing yourselves round here to stir him up, I bet!”

  She hurled the basket after them, then slammed the door.

  As they dived clear of clothing missiles, Armitage tripped on the flower trough then tumbled straight over the wheelie bin.

  Garstone put off pursuing arrest, to help his colleague up.

  “What the bloody ‘ell’s all this?” Armitage was sifting through a load of papers, sheets and documents he’d spilt across the path.

  “Things that are meant to be confidential.” Garstone borrowed the stuff to study. “Not that Payden’s lot can even spell the word, probably.”

  He tried several of the various coloured sheets. They were slightly crumpled and computer-typed, but all carried Gary Payden’s name and details. Each one was a receipt for either a car-related product or repair. He went through several, wondering how a seventeen-year-old could afford all these things. The second-to-last one he looked at was a flaky, computer-printed sheet; a bottom half had obviously been torn off .

  ‘4 x Hub Caps (S/Hand)

  VEHICLE - Corsa, Vauxhall’

  Garstone smelt a hunch hovering close, even if he could do with finding the details on the other piece.

  Spotting the garage door slightly ajar, he called Armitage to help lift it. His cohort was clearly paranoid that the occupant would hear, even though the garage was a separate outbuilding. As they opened it fully back, they clenched.

  No Corsa inside - in fact even a scooter would have struggled for space.

  Saw benches and scattered weightlifting equipment had taken over the floor. Water could be made out dripping from a tap somewhere at the back.

  Garstone felt his shoe rustle against something plastic in front.

  Directly below his legs, there sat a single black sack. He picked it up carefully and untied the top. Propping it between his legs, he pulled out a pile of grey hubcaps.

  Certainly not new ones, either.

  They were all scratched and sellotaped together as if awaiting discard, though at least these ones appeared distinctively intact.

  Intending to verify, he cut the tape and separated them, then tried to look without using the garage light.

  A clear Vauxhall crest showed on each, but as he counted them, it was less about the detail; more the number of hubcaps in the pile.

  Three!

  Where might their fourth battered, quadruplet be, he wondered... if neither in the rubble of Blackburn Road’s wasteland, nor in several smithereens on a Midelson HQ evidence shelf.

  He now had Gary Payden pinned to rights in more ways than he could possibly bargain for.

  Leaving Armitage alone to assemble the findings, he tried Leyton again but to no avail; only PC Raymond was around to talk to.

  “They’re still in the meeting, duck, as far as I know.” Raymond’s response wasn’t all that handy. “You know, the one you two walked out on?”

  “You get Will and Chris out of there, and up to Costhorpe Road, A.S.A-effing-P.” Garstone demanded. He watched Armitage trying to wrestle something from deep inside the bin.

  “If our Acting Super-Insanely also finally shows her arse, send her along too.”

  “Leyton says she’ll be out all morning.”

  Garstone puckered up to swear, just as he saw Armitage comi
ng across. His fellow DC was waving a smallish corrugated box he’d obviously just dislodged.

  “Hey up, check this ‘un out.” Armitage offered the object forward.

  “A Sat Nav.” Garstone read the front end, underwhelmed by his find. “I’ve heard of these before, you know mate.”

  “Been testing addresses out before he bought it, even, it looks.”

  Seeing he was pointing, Garstone turned the ‘DriveOnLine’ delivery package round, and read. He almost dropped it.

  ‘THOMAS J. PAYDEN, 25 Skelton Rd, Stairfoot, Barnsley.’

  He and Armitage exchanged glances.

  “At least we know how he sniffed out that scrapyard.”

  (iii)

  While Garstone and Armitage were left holding the baby, Leyton was again handling a babysitter. Recalling the parking spaces on Primula Drive were pretty meagre, she opted for the bus again today. Becky was waiting for her and ambushed her as always, the second she got off. They strode eagerly round the corner, into a street that seemed ultimately more daunting on foot. Frost had set in overnight and wearing her women’s leather boots soon proved a mistake.

  “I keep forgetting how far along Fiona’s is.” Leyton said, looking out for No.28.

  “Don’t lie.” Becky said, laughing. “You’ve only been here once.”

  Leyton hadn’t time to take the argument all the way. Reaching the right steps already, she showed Becky in front.

  “It’ be best if you knocked.” she advised her friend.

  “Not till I’ve seen you up these steps.”

  Becky was sounding a right old bossy-boots today, although she probably meant it affectionately.

  “Heya, guys, come in.” came that hospitable Celtic voice she remembered.

  Fiona made both women jump as she welcomed them, possibly saving it most for Leyton.

  “Oh sorry.” Leyton found it funny, seeing that she’d managed to clear those steps, stumble-free.