‘What more?’ Her voice dangerous.
Richard exhaled. ‘Chris Chinley was seen in the area around the same time.’
‘What!’ she snapped. ‘You are joking!’
Pete raised Charlotte high. ‘Houston,’ he said, ‘we have a problem.’
*****
Butchers and Shap waited in the car. They had driven round in circles looking for signs of the missing men but seen nothing.
Shap was bored, shifting in his seat and sighing loudly. Butchers was tight-lipped; he started when the radio crackled. ‘Two men answering descriptions of suspects seen on Bradbury Road, near Halton Lane junction, heading west.’
Butchers started the car. ‘Unit responding.’ It was five minutes away. Butchers made it in three. The location was deserted, amber streetlights reflecting off broken pavements. Small houses, curtains drawn and locked up tight. Everyone in safe behind closed doors.
‘Get a closer look.’ Butchers said unbuckling his seat belt.
‘What’s the point?’ Shap asked him. ‘They’ll be long gone.’
‘You coming or not?’ Butchers snarled.
‘Not,’ Shap retorted, folding his arms and wriggling down in his seat.
Butchers slammed the car door, fastened his coat against the rain, switched on his torch and walked along the street. Once there had been a parade of shops but a combination of vandalism and poverty had forced most of them to close. Nowhere now to get a carton of milk or a packet of fags. Butchers walked round the block and back. He could smell curry from somewhere and for a moment he thought about getting a take-away. There was a place back towards town – Chinese. It was hours since he’d eaten.
On the side road he saw movement, a dog? No, a fox. The distinctive tail, the rusty colouring. He smiled. The animal slipped out of view into some sort of an alleyway. Butchers crossed over and followed, the beam of his torch picking out steps. Not an alleyway but an old subway tunnel. He wondered why they’d built it here, something to do with the warehouses across the way, or the railways. He went down the steps, played the light into the subway.
He could see the fox ahead; the animal hesitated at a heap of rubbish by the far steps, glanced at Butchers and then back at the rubbish, reluctant to leave. But as Butchers drew closer the animal skittered away up the far steps. Butchers swung his torch over the rubbish. His heart juddered, his hand began to tremble, the yellow light of the ray jouncing up and down, erratically.
‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ he prayed. ‘Oh, no. No,’ as he stared at the crumpled figure, the clothes. The dark mess, the slick pool on the floor. Jeremy Gleason. With half his head blown off.
