middle of the road! You’re lucky I didn’t kill you!’
DC Clarke pushed aside a Tupperware of cottage cheese and picked up a pen. She was following up on the case of the missing boy. Sixteen-year-old Tom Hardy, a conscientious boy just starting his O level exams, had vanished into thin air, which according to his mother was not like him at all.
‘So, Mrs Hardy,’ Clarke said, mustering her patience. ‘Let me get this straight. You and your husband went away for the weekend, leaving Tom on his own—’
‘No, he wasn’t on his own – his sister Emily was at home.’
Clarke took down the particulars. The similarities with the Ellis case were not lost on her. It seemed that as kids reached a certain age the parents wilfully abdicated their responsibilities, and their offspring were taking advantage of the situation and exercising their new-found freedoms, sometimes with dire consequences.
‘OK, Mrs Hardy, we’ll be over. Is your daughter at home?’ She thought that the girl in all likelihood would be the last to have seen her brother.
‘She’s at school sitting exams. I don’t want her getting distressed over this.’
Desk Sergeant Bill Wells didn’t need to look at the lobby clock to know it had gone 2 p.m. He could tell by the early-afternoon lull. He couldn’t wait for the shift to end. All that nonsense this morning about the skip had got him pretty peeved. On the upside, he’d had a recent result on the gee-gees and planned to take the wife for a slap-up meal down the Denton Tandoori on his next day off.
Yes, he thought, between two and three was often the quietest part of the day, as though the villains had an afternoon nap, a bit like half-day closing on Wednesday, or a siesta perhaps. He had hoped to have Johnny Johnson’s portable to listen to the races – he felt another flutter coming on – but with Mullett around, fat chance. He daren’t risk riling him further, especially as he’d failed to do anything about the bloody skip. He hadn’t been able to contact Pooley; he lived in a flat on London Street without a phone.
Suddenly the tranquillity of the afternoon was shattered. An almighty commotion erupted just outside the door, and PCs Baker and Jordan burst through, wrestling a large, red-faced man between them.
‘I ain’t done nothing! I’m telling you – geroff!’ Once he was inside the door the two PCs released the man, who shook himself and tugged down his blue sweatshirt, which had been practically pulled over his head. Wells immediately recognized Steve ‘Mugger’ Moore, a petty felon, as his nickname suggested.
As a younger man Moore had been a roofer, and had worked on some major projects for the New Town development in the late sixties. Then one night in the Cricketers – it must’ve been some time in the early seventies – he’d drunkenly tried to lift a toilet up and launch it out of the window in the style of
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
. Wells had been a gawking onlooker, too drunk and meek to put a stop to it. Mugger totally shagged his back and from that point onwards never worked again. He’d turned to drink and Lord knows what else, and here he was now resisting arrest and arguing the odds about some petty crime.
‘Bill, tell ’em I ain’t done nothing, promise.’
Wells raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. His wife was still friends with Moore’s missus – they played darts together at the Cricketers.
‘Caught him red-handed in the pawnbrokers up on Merchant Street,’ said Jordan, hair still on end after the tussle. Merchant Street, a side road in North Denton, was one of those streets full of untaxed cars, betting shops and pubs. It also had not one, but two pawnbrokers. ‘Trying to have it away with a carriage clock. What use that would be to him, I’ve no idea.’
‘I was just looking at it, honest.’
‘But can you even tell the time, Stevie old chap? That’s the 64,000-dollar question.’
At that point a heavily
DC Clarke pushed aside a Tupperware of cottage cheese and picked up a pen. She was following up on the case of the missing boy. Sixteen-year-old Tom Hardy, a conscientious boy just starting his O level exams, had vanished into thin air, which according to his mother was not like him at all.
‘So, Mrs Hardy,’ Clarke said, mustering her patience. ‘Let me get this straight. You and your husband went away for the weekend, leaving Tom on his own—’
‘No, he wasn’t on his own – his sister Emily was at home.’
Clarke took down the particulars. The similarities with the Ellis case were not lost on her. It seemed that as kids reached a certain age the parents wilfully abdicated their responsibilities, and their offspring were taking advantage of the situation and exercising their new-found freedoms, sometimes with dire consequences.
‘OK, Mrs Hardy, we’ll be over. Is your daughter at home?’ She thought that the girl in all likelihood would be the last to have seen her brother.
‘She’s at school sitting exams. I don’t want her getting distressed over this.’
Desk Sergeant Bill Wells didn’t need to look at the lobby clock to know it had gone 2 p.m. He could tell by the early-afternoon lull. He couldn’t wait for the shift to end. All that nonsense this morning about the skip had got him pretty peeved. On the upside, he’d had a recent result on the gee-gees and planned to take the wife for a slap-up meal down the Denton Tandoori on his next day off.
Yes, he thought, between two and three was often the quietest part of the day, as though the villains had an afternoon nap, a bit like half-day closing on Wednesday, or a siesta perhaps. He had hoped to have Johnny Johnson’s portable to listen to the races – he felt another flutter coming on – but with Mullett around, fat chance. He daren’t risk riling him further, especially as he’d failed to do anything about the bloody skip. He hadn’t been able to contact Pooley; he lived in a flat on London Street without a phone.
Suddenly the tranquillity of the afternoon was shattered. An almighty commotion erupted just outside the door, and PCs Baker and Jordan burst through, wrestling a large, red-faced man between them.
‘I ain’t done nothing! I’m telling you – geroff!’ Once he was inside the door the two PCs released the man, who shook himself and tugged down his blue sweatshirt, which had been practically pulled over his head. Wells immediately recognized Steve ‘Mugger’ Moore, a petty felon, as his nickname suggested.
As a younger man Moore had been a roofer, and had worked on some major projects for the New Town development in the late sixties. Then one night in the Cricketers – it must’ve been some time in the early seventies – he’d drunkenly tried to lift a toilet up and launch it out of the window in the style of
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
. Wells had been a gawking onlooker, too drunk and meek to put a stop to it. Mugger totally shagged his back and from that point onwards never worked again. He’d turned to drink and Lord knows what else, and here he was now resisting arrest and arguing the odds about some petty crime.
‘Bill, tell ’em I ain’t done nothing, promise.’
Wells raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. His wife was still friends with Moore’s missus – they played darts together at the Cricketers.
‘Caught him red-handed in the pawnbrokers up on Merchant Street,’ said Jordan, hair still on end after the tussle. Merchant Street, a side road in North Denton, was one of those streets full of untaxed cars, betting shops and pubs. It also had not one, but two pawnbrokers. ‘Trying to have it away with a carriage clock. What use that would be to him, I’ve no idea.’
‘I was just looking at it, honest.’
‘But can you even tell the time, Stevie old chap? That’s the 64,000-dollar question.’
At that point a heavily
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