Marked Men Page 2

  ‘Twelve cans of Dark Fruits cider. He’s doing them at four cans for five quid.’ Two notes were held out. A tenner and a fiver. A sign on the door said to take off crash helmets before coming in. Another said it was an offence to buy alcohol for minors. Yeah, he thought. It’s also an offence to ignore your probation appointments, to leave the address you’d been registered at and to piss off to another city to kill some cunts from way back when.

  The shelves were laden with drink offers. He scooted straight past the cans and made his way to the counter to study the bottles of spirits behind it. The shopkeeper watched in silence. Cossack vodka came in at fourteen ninety-nine for a full one litre bottle. Job done.

  The two lads sprang to their feet as he came out the shop. Their eyes were on the carrier bag in his hand. No way there were twelve cans in that. As he walked past them, he flicked the penny in their direction. It landed on a paving slab and rolled down the gap.

  ‘Where’s the …?’

  He slowed his step when he heard the scrape of shoes behind him. Probably the taller one.

  ‘No way, man. We gave you fifteen notes. You can’t—’

  ‘Can’t what?’ He stopped walking, but didn’t look back. ‘Can’t what?’

  ‘Come on, Matt. Leave it. The guy’s a total loner. Basket case.’

  Loner, he thought. Fair point. He waited, still facing away from them. Matt should listen to his friend. Matt should really listen to his friend. Another second passed then he heard a resigned puff of air followed by, ‘Spazzy-eared prick.’

  He whirled round. ‘What was that? What did you fucking say about my ears?’

  The boys started backing swiftly away.

  ‘Nothing,’ the taller one said.

  He thought of getting hold of the scrawny-necked twat and putting him in hospital. If the police weren’t looking for him, he would have.

  In his little room, he twisted the cap off and glugged straight from the neck. The liquid scraped down his throat, hit his gut and, a few heartbeats later, rammed his brain into the top of his skull. He gulped again then sat.

  The photo album was the only item on the table. He didn’t own a lot more. The first pages were full of clippings from newspapers almost twenty years old. Yellowed articles about their seven-man crime spree. Smashed phone boxes, ducks kicked to death, stuff robbed from garden sheds. Then the odd house burglary. A paving slab through Mr Cooper’s shop window. Good haul from that.

  He turned the pages, stared down at the few photographs he’d managed to keep hold of. They’d stolen the Polaroid camera from some old bloke’s house. They were all there, hanging by their arms from a football goal crossbar. Then three of them straddling it, skinny legs hanging down either side. Another shot: him, Dave, Phil and Kevin. Carl in a shopping trolley, Anthony Brown pushing it. Both their mouths dark caves of laughter. Him, Nick and Anthony, lips bristling with cigarettes they’d shoplifted. Lee tipping the same trolley into the canal near Ancoats. He couldn’t help feeling a twinge of fondness. Good times had.

  He turned the page again and looked at more recent newspaper cuttings. An advert for Parker’s Cars: MOTs, tyres and exhausts. A report about Abbey Hey’s under-10s football team, South Manchester champions. A photo of a van: Crazy Diamond Window Cleaning Service, landline and mobile numbers. A flyer for the Outdoor Centre at Debdale Park.

  Aside from Anthony Brown, it had been so easy to find them. Work places, home addresses, what they did in their spare time. That first day back, he’d even dropped a little matchstick gallows onto the few coins in Lee Goodwin’s Styrofoam cup. The guy had been utterly wasted, slumped by the cashpoint on Portland Street. Didn’t even notice.

  They all thought their lives had moved on. That the past had been put well behind them. He drank from the bottle again. The years had crept by and they’d all forgotten about Jordan, that dumb new kid they’d fitted up for murder.

  TWO

  Two days later

  Detective Constable Sean Blake regarded the slate-grey silt welding his feet in place. It smelled like it looked: cloying, dank, musty.

  The sheer sides of the drained lock made an oblong of the morning’s grey sky. It was like peering up from the bottom of a grave. Droplets of water pattered all about, the echo making their impact sound more substantial than they really were. Like the beginnings of a deluge about to burst through the closed gates at his back.

  Beside him, the man in waders and a fluorescent jacket spoke up. ‘Things people chuck in. Shocking.’

  ‘How often do you drain the water out to do this?’ Detective Sergeant Magda Dragomir asked, hard hat tipped back on her head to release her eyes from its shadow.

  ‘Every year. Otherwise, we run the risk of items lodging in the lock mechanisms. Or damaging the underside of boats passing through. Plus, it’s not good for the environment. Fish and that.’

  ‘Fish?’ Sean asked. He couldn’t imagine anything living in the city centre’s canal system.

  Jutting from the expanse of mud before them was an array of dirt-smeared objects. Half-bricks, upturned chairs, broken umbrellas. Countless bottles, cans and glasses. Further off, a mountain bike minus its front wheel. A woman’s stiletto shoe. Two traffic cones.

  ‘Three hundred grand, that’s the annual clean-up bill for the network. Never found a body before, though.’

  Sean lifted his gaze to the white tent at the far end of the lock. It was at an angle, one corner leg too high. The straps of the waders he’d been handed before climbing down the ladder weighed heavy on his shoulders. Rubber gloves encased his forearms. A fluorescent bib. He adjusted his hard hat, picturing his wavy mass of thick black hair trapped beneath it. When he took the thing off, it would spring out in all directions. Jack-in-a-box style. ‘We’d better take a look.’

  ‘Some of this mud can go up to your thighs,’ the council worker said. ‘Avoid the pools of water and you’ll be all right.’

  Sean glanced at Magda. With her feet sunk from sight, she looked top-heavy. A pin at the end of a bowling lane. Something was causing a look of disgust. He peered down and spotted the plunger of a syringe.

  ‘We’re getting all the treats today,’ she announced grimly.

  ‘Manchester at its finest,’ Sean replied, lifting a foot clear of the mud and releasing a sulphurous smell.

  Behind him, Magda let out a little exclamation.

  He looked over his shoulder to see her arms waving unsteadily at her sides. ‘I stepped on that brick and it moved!’ She placed a gloved hand against the side wall then changed her mind. ‘Futu-i!’

  He masked his smile by rubbing the end of his nose. He had no idea what it meant, but it was great when she swore in Romanian. Checking her expression, he saw she was genuinely freaked out. ‘Stay here, Magda. I’ll go.’

  ‘Really?’ She couldn’t hide her relief. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘We don’t both need to see it, surely?’

  Without waiting for an answer, he set off carefully towards a shallow barge that lay stranded on the canal bed. The council worker had explained this was where all the junk and debris would be thrown. When the water was let back in, the vessel would rise up and be towed away.

  He regarded the blackened slimy brickwork level with his face. I’m five-ten, he thought. About three feet above my head, and the wall’s surface turns light grey. Which means that, when the lock’s full, the depth of water is around nine feet. Deep enough to hide all sorts.

  He placed a hand on the side of the barge, grateful to grip something solid. He knew the metal must have been cold, but the thickness of his gloves made it impossible to tell. The tent was another dozen steps beyond it. He made his way forward, wet mud kissing and sucking at his feet. He spotted what looked like a handbag, its smooth strap wet. Eel-like.

  The tent door had been left unzipped and he paused before lifting it aside. It’s going to be horrible, he told himself. You know that. Just get it done, it’ll be fine.

  The dead man resembled a gian
t caterpillar. No, a grub. Something primeval emerging from the earth. Sean realized that, from the chest down, he was encased in a sleeping-bag. Red, where the material showed through the filth. His hair was heavily matted, straggles of it half obscuring the side of a face that had started to bloat. Which meant he’d gone in a day or two before. Maybe longer.

  Sean rolled the tent door fully back and secured it with the Velcro tabs. That let in enough light to see and allowed the sour smell to dissipate.

  Could the person have accidentally rolled in? A rough sleeper, comatose on alcohol or Spice or some other drug? Weird place to sleep, though. On a tow path, exposed to the weather. He noticed the bottom end of the sleeping bag bulged out.

  Leaning down, he prodded it with a finger. Something hard. The bloke’s meagre possessions? Rammed in there so they couldn’t be stolen in the night? He crouched down and ran a hand over the material. A squarish shape. Another. And another. All about the same size. He closed his fingers round one, testing its weight. Heavy. Like a broken brick. The end of the sleeping bag was stuffed with them. He’d been weighed down. Or had weighed himself down.

  Sean craned his neck towards the doorway and took in a massive breath of untainted air. The top of the sleeping bag was rumpled where it had slipped down. As he searched for the zip, Sean realized the top of the man’s head was severely lacerated. To the extent chunks of hair had been gouged out. More gashes covered the back of his neck. Rank.

  He found the zip pull, but struggled to get hold of it. Bloody stupid great gloves. He didn’t have latex ones on underneath, so he’d have to keep them on. Nightmare. He thought he had about fifteen seconds before he’d need to breathe again. His fingers were like frankfurters, pink and rubbery. Finally, he got hold of the tab between a finger and thumb. The zip made a burring noise as he dragged it down.

  A T-shirt, silt caked in its folds. The collar was torn, flesh of the exposed shoulder slashed deep. I could really do with breathing, he thought, noting the man’s forearms were dotted by prison tattoos. Palms together, as if in prayer. Puffed up fingers. Baby-like creases at the wrists. Not creases: something digging into the skin. Sean was now so desperate to get air, his throat felt like it was pulsating. Fighting the urge, he looked closer. Plastic. A thick ribbon of plastic. A plastic tie!

  He stepped out of the tent and dragged in air like a diver escaping the deep.

  Magda called out, ‘What’s it looking like?’

  Sean curled his fingers then brought the backs of them together so they formed an M.

  Murder.

  THREE

  ‘So go on then,’ Detective Chief Inspector Ransford said, placing the print-outs back on his desk. ‘This all happened after he died?’

  Sean Blake didn’t want to look at the collection of crime scene photos again. The victim’s wounds covered the crown of his head, back of his neck and the top of his right shoulder. Crude slashes, like someone had gone at him with a blunt meat cleaver. ‘Propellers, from canal boats passing by. That’s the pathologist’s theory.’

  Ransford looked doubtful. ‘All confined to just these parts of him?’

  ‘He was upright,’ Magda said. ‘Standing in his sleeping bag. The end of it had been weighed down with rabble.’

  ‘Rubble,’ Sean corrected.

  ‘Yes, rubble. The neck of the bag had been pulled tight around his chest and his arms were inside.’ She let Ransford absorb the information. ‘So, when the body wanted to float – gas build-up – he rose to his feet.’

  Sean couldn’t stop himself from picturing the corpse swaying there like an aquatic zombie, sightless eyes staring into the murk. The top of his head would have been not far below the surface. ‘The pathologist can’t give an accurate time of death. But he thought the body had been in the water for over forty-eight hours.’

  ‘Which would mean sometime on Saturday night, early Sunday morning. Was he dead when he went in?’

  ‘He can’t say for sure. Not yet. But someone had secured his wrists with a plastic tie. Not a nice way to go if he was still alive.’

  Ransford glanced at the images again. ‘How did the ID come about so fast?’

  ‘Pure luck,’ Magda replied. ‘The same group of council workers carry out these operations to clean the locks. When they were doing the stretch of canal that goes through Castlefield, they’d seen him about. Talked to him a bit.’

  ‘Homeless,’ Sean added. ‘Had a place under the railway arches there.’

  ‘Fighting off competition for it from all the other poor bastards, was he?’ Ransford asked without smiling.

  Sean nodded. Despite Manchester’s first ever mayor making homelessness a key part of his recent election campaign, not much seemed to be happening. ‘It is like a refugee camp down there. We found his patch though. One of those pop-up tents. Not a lot inside except food wrappers and empty cans. Torn-up cigarette ends: he obviously scoured the pavements. Anyway, we’ve sealed the area off.’

  Ransford slid a document out from beneath the photographs. Studied it. ‘Given his record, it’ll be one less for uniforms to be dealing with.’

  Sean said nothing. Yes, the bloke was just another city-centre scrote. A nuisance for the public; an inconvenience for the police. But before that, he had a life. A childhood. He wasn’t born a thief. Or a drug addict.

  ‘OK,’ Ransford sighed. ‘He turned up on our patch, so he goes on our board. What’s the situation with the Party in the Park stabbing?’

  Magda lifted a thumb. ‘The CPS emailed earlier. They’re satisfied it’s the same man.’

  ‘So they’re taking it up?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Which means it’s off your desk?’

  ‘It will be, by tomorrow.’

  Ransford showed his palms. ‘When you two first mentioned bringing in that Super What-do-you-call-it?’

  ‘Recognizer,’ Sean said.

  ‘Super Recognizer, that’s it. I nearly laughed.’

  ‘Same as everyone else,’ Magda said, swapping a proud grin with Sean.

  ‘I’ve got to say though, what he did … how many faces did he go through again?’ Ransford asked.

  ‘Official ticket sales for the festival were twelve thousand, four hundred and sixty-eight,’ Sean stated. ‘Add in the vendors, security staff, stage crews – all the non-paying public. Plus, the shot which identified him was at an angle. And by then, he’d turned his jacket inside out and found a baseball cap from somewhere.’

  ‘And this Super Recognizer was able to pick him out. Bloody weird skill.’ Ransford gathered the paperwork together and held it out to Sean. ‘Away you go, then.’

  ‘The job’s ours?’ Sean heard the thrill in his voice and almost blushed.

  The DCI floated a weary glance to Magda. ‘Still like an eager puppy, isn’t he?’

  Magda nodded. ‘I’m trying to break him of that.’

  Ransford’s face became more serious. ‘First actions on this, Magda. OK?’

  They emerged from the DCI’s side-office into the main working area. Immediately to their left was the section occupied by Civilian Support. Sergeant Colin Troughton – the office manager – had a workstation positioned between them and the detectives and uniformed officers who made up Greater Manchester Police’s Serious Crime Unit.

  Sean checked the door to their boss’s office had swung closed before murmuring, ‘First actions?’

  Magda replied, without turning her head. ‘We meet the set steps for any murder. But we are not to give ourselves any headaches after that.’

  ‘Really?’ Less than a year into becoming a detective and Sean realized he was still feeling his way. ‘Do murder victims always get ranked like this?’

  Magda gave him a sad look which said yes. ‘Want to do the honours?’

  As she made her way to their pair of desks, Sean approached the white board that dominated the wall at the room’s far end. Black tape marked out a giant grid. All live investigations were listed there: boxes for writing in the Force
Wide Incident Number then the victim’s details.

  Sean placed the print-outs aside then picked up a red marker pen. He wrote, Lee Goodwin, thirty-one, No Fixed Address. After that came the column for the investigating officers. He felt a fizz in his spine as he wrote, DS Magda Dragomir/DC Sean Blake.

  ‘Heard about Paul Morris, have you?’

  He turned to see Dave Fuller. The bullet-headed DS had emerged from his corner desk and was making a show of studying the board. Sean said nothing. It had been a rhetorical question.

  ‘Now working traffic down in Chester. Thanks to you.’

  Sean clicked the cap back on the pen. ‘Wasn’t me who forgot to interview that cab driver.’

  Fuller crossed his arms, spoke from the corner of his mouth. ‘Yeah, but it was you who whispered in Troughton’s ear, wasn’t it?’

  Sean took his time placing the pen back on the little ledge. ‘You know I had no choice, not with how fast things were moving by then.’

  ‘Fink scum.’

  Sean regarded the DS’s thick neck as he stalked off. Paul Morris had been part of the man’s loyal little gang. Sean would never be forgiven, he knew that. Oh well, he thought. Too bad. He lifted the print-outs from the side table and forced himself to look at the uppermost picture. Goodwin stared up, eyes accusing slits in his puffy face. I’ll give it my best shot, Lee, I promise.

  FOUR

  The moment Sean sat down, Magda’s face appeared at the side of her monitor. ‘What did that nemernic want?’

  ‘Nemernic?’

  She curled her forefinger tight and pointed to where the creases of flesh converged. ‘Where the pooh comes out.’

  ‘Arsehole?’ Sean said, smiling.

  She flung an embarrassed glance towards the nearest detectives. ‘Sean!’

  ‘You said it …’

  ‘In a language no one understands!’

  So that makes it all right, he thought, laughing to himself at the strangeness of her ways. After his disastrous start in the Serious Crimes Unit, Magda was the only detective prepared to give him the time of day. The success of their subsequent teamwork soon led to them being formally paired. He knew the rest of the unit thought they made an odd team. They were probably right. Him, the youngster of the unit, boyish face beneath an unruly mop of black hair. Her, crash helmet haircut, muscular build and wooden way of speaking. But they got the work done, even if they approached things slightly differently.