Deadly Serious Read online

  Before Cannon relinquished the driving seat, the two men shook hands. Cannon stood looking after the blue estate as Jim Maddern set off – briefly – back to his home before setting off on a long drive to the South West.

  Walking round to the back door of his pub he saw that the kitchen light was on. Liz had either left it on for him, or more likely not gone to bed. She, and the smell of metal polish cleaner, met him at the door. Nearly as tall as he was but as blonde as he was dark, she had on blackened rubber gloves and a black smudge on her cheek. Behind her, the table was covered in newspaper and the sparkling horse brasses and hunting horns that interspersed the display of traps that hung from the pub’s beams. She must have been at it for hours.

  ‘Not polished the traps yet, then?’ he asked.

  She pulled off her gloves. I’d thump you if I had the energy,’ she said, and folded into his arms as he reached for her. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, her hands going from his face to his shoulders as if checking him over. Then, finding him intact, she asked, ‘Why didn’t you bring the car round?’

  He shook his head. ‘Make me a cup of tea, love, and I’ll try to explain.’

  Experience had taught him that on the whole it was much better to put Liz completely in the picture from the word go, so it was three cups of tea later when Cannon reached the end of the story. ‘So once the Madderns are safely away, I must find out if that boy’s OK.’

  She had listened intently, shaking her head in dismay and disbelief from time to time. ‘Poor Jim,’ she said quietly, then added, but there is something I have to tell you, and you’ll find it fairly surprising. Inspector Jones came into the bar tonight – for a drink.

  Cannon laughed in disbelief. ‘He doesn’t drink here.’

  ‘He did tonight. I told him you were visiting an old friend when he wanted to know where you were. Then he asked me if I knew where Sergeant Maddern had gone for his holidays, and when I said I had no idea …’ she paused for effect, ‘he began to quiz Hoskins.’

  ‘Hoskins?’

  ‘Yes, about a local family called Jakes.’

  Chapter 6

  ‘Alamat will come with me, then he can drive your jeep back.’ Liz told him her plan to recover her MG. ‘If we leave it any nearer the weekend we’ll be too busy, then it’ll stand there until next week. You know cars like that attract attention if they stay put long.’

  ‘Does it have to be today?’ Cannon had not been up long, half the day was already gone and his mind was on his promise to Jim Maddern.

  Liz laid her hands on his shoulders as he sat over one of the pub’s all-day breakfasts she had cooked for him. ‘We should still be back before, say, midnight, and you’ve time to go and see Mr Russell about Danny before we go, and you’ll also be able to talk to Hoskins when he’s the first customer in tonight.’

  She had, as always, worked out the pros and cons of her argument; he knew it made sense, daily life had to go on, but he would just rather Liz stayed put. There was always the wish to keep her out of any possible action, at home, safe, though driving to Leicester and back with Alamat could hardly be regarded as perilous. ‘I’d rather you drove my jeep,’ he said morosely. ‘You understand it.’

  ‘I understand you,’ she said, kissed him on top of his head and sat next to him while he finished local bacon and sausages with all the trimmings. ‘You know, all this business with Jim and the paperboy reminds me of a poem….’

  ‘A poem!’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Great.’

  ‘No, seriously, it says just what this is all about, if only I could remember it. I think it’s called “Inheritance” or something like that. Definitely something about the “family face”. I will remember, it’ll come to me eventually.’

  ‘Well, don’t get carried away while you’re driving,’ he said as the kitchen door was knocked and Alamat came in. The slightly built Croatian had on his suit, the one he wore for worship on Sundays.

  ‘Morning, Alamat, you’re dressed up?’ Cannon said.

  ‘He looks very smart,’ Liz said.

  ‘We go joy-riding.’ His grin was wide as, with a lift of a triumphant finger, he used another new phrase he had learned. He had begun basic translations into English some years ago for fellow countrymen and now took pleasure in learning the meanings of the more obscure sayings of the language. ‘And when I see Mr Hoskins next, I shall tell him the true meaning of “coming a cropper”. This he is always saying.’

  ‘I’ll be interested in that,’ Cannon said, adding as Alamat drew breath, ‘but not now. I’ve an errand to do in the jeep before you can leave.’

  ‘Oh, I should change and do work.’ Alamat was at once all remorse, his gratitude to them for giving him home, work and official residency was at times a little overwhelming.

  ‘No,’ Liz told him, ‘sit down and I’ll make you and me some lunch before we set off. There may be one or two in the bar, but nothing much, we can eat and keep an eye on things.’

  Cannon left immediately, refraining from making a diversion to Sea Lane to see if Maddern was back, although he hardly thought that possible: the sergeant would have to crash out for a few hours before driving back from the South West.

  When Cannon entered the newsagent’s shop, Russell immediately raised a hand above the customers at the counter, and as soon as he was free took him through to the back room.

  ‘Been hoping to see you,’ he said. ‘Have you found out anything?’

  ‘It’s not your paperboy who is making the insertions in the death columns. Beyond that …’ he shrugged.

  ‘Well, there’s something very wrong with that boy,’ Russell said, shaking his head, ‘very wrong in his life, or at school, something bloody serious. Not the boy he was even a week ago. I was going to say something to the mother, but she’s not been around. Then I thought of going to the house….’

  ‘But?’ Cannon prompted.

  ‘I was warned off, actually,’ Russell admitted, ‘a neighbour said he would steer clear if he was me, so I’ve left it.’

  ‘This neighbour …’ Cannon ventured, fishing for more.

  ‘Thompson, loves a bit of gossip, always wants to know your business, not afraid to ask either. Talkative when anyone’ll listen, lives alone, nosey old bugger really,’ Russell paused to laugh, ‘in both senses of the word. He must see a bit, though, his side door faces the Smithsons’.’ He put his hand thoughtfully on a pile of news delivery bags, ‘I think this lad needs some help. Thompson says there are some right roughnecks visit the house, but if you think it would help I’ll …’

  Cannon shook his head decisively. This shopkeeper would be well out of his depth. ‘Sergeant Maddern knows more now. He’s on the case,’ Cannon said and Russell looked relieved.

  ‘So I don’t need to do anything?’

  ‘No, I think you can say it’s all being covered,’ Cannon told him. He said he was in a rush and had to get back to the pub but he hoped Russell was still busy as, instead of going back to his jeep, he once more walked up Snyder Crescent.

  There was no sign of life at the Smithsons’, no hand moving a curtain as he turned in at the gate of the next house. He noted the difference in the state of the small front gardens. The path he walked along was edged with crocuses and snowdrops already blooming, backed by stout wallflower plants to follow with their fragrant flowers. The Smithsons’ plot was no more than bare earth, looking as if a veritable army of feet had pounded across it, ignoring the path.

  He tapped the shiny frosted glass and the door was opened with remarkable rapidity as if the occupier had seen him coming and was ready for him. ‘Yes?’ demanded a middle-sized pensioner with a nose that was large, red and pitted.

  ‘I wondered if I could talk to you for a moment,’ he said quietly, ‘I am concerned about a neighbour of yours.’ Cannon indicated the Smithsons’ with a slight backwards movement of his head. The message went home.

  Thompson stepped back for him to enter, closed the door and asked, ‘You from social services?’ the
n immediately contradicted himself. ‘Nah! I’ve seen you afore, in the newsagent’s, took you in the back he did. Asked old Russell who you were next time I went in. He said you were the landlord of The Trap public house out Reed St Clement way.’

  ‘I can’t say I recognize you,’ Cannon said.

  ‘You mean not even with a conk like mine,’ Thompson said good-naturedly and waved him to a kitchen chair, where the local newspaper was spread over the table. ‘Read every word of it,’ he said, adding, ‘read a bit about your exploits in the past. Ex-London bobbie. Reckon you’re the boy I need to talk to. Tea?’ He lifted and waved the kettle, filling it even though Cannon said he had not much time.

  ‘Reckon you’re a god-send,’ Thompson went on. ‘I’m getting more and more worried about them two next door, need taking under somebody’s wing a bit smartish, they do, and I’m not making a fool of myself at the police station again.’

  ‘How come?’ Cannon posed the question lightly.

  ‘Went a few weeks back, said I was sure there was a lot going on that wanted looking into, spoke to an Inspector Jones, stout chap, sucks his teeth when he’s talking to you; that didn’t help.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He said locals did tend to be suspicious of anyone new in an area, then his telephone rang, he said thanks for coming in and I was back out, thank you very much.’

  So Jones had managed to lose the trust of the public as well as his own men, Cannon thought. ‘Tell me what you know,’ he said.

  ‘It’s more what I’ve seen,’ he said, ‘since they’ve been here, sort of adds up to … well no, let me just tell you from the beginning.’

  Cannon suspected the story might be lengthy.

  ‘When the lad and his mother first moved here, she didn’t seem a bad gel – no one man around, no one the boy called “Dad”, but she spoke and I gave her quite a few bits out of the garden, carrots, peas.’ He shook his head, then grinned. ‘Don’t think she was used to cooking fresh things, but she did when I took to handing them over ready for the pot. She’s not a bad gel, just got involved with the wrong man, I reckon, with Danny the outcome.’

  Cannon had known more than one case where a girl had stuck to a criminal family to be near her child.

  ‘Then suddenly she changed,’ Thompson went on. ‘Overnight, you might say. She didn’t want to talk, gave me the cold shoulder.’

  ‘Was there anything or anyone else you’ve actually seen?’ Cannon asked, hoping to speed matters a little.

  ‘Yes, I’m coming to that.’ Thompson nodded enthusiastically. ‘Not long after they’d been here, two of the men carted all kinds of stuff down and put it in the garden shed. Just after, we had a right windy night; the next morning the doors were wide, and there were wooden tripod things, planks and a red painted sign saying “Road Closed”; didn’t seem to me to be the sort of things ordinary folk had.’

  Cannon pursed his lips, nodded, stored this piece of information for future reference.

  ‘And I’ll show you something else. Come up onto my landing.’

  Thompson led the way up his worn stair-carpet to stand on the landing and look from his window directly towards next door’s landing window – which as far as Cannon could see was blocked with cardboard.

  ‘Someone did that about a fortnight ago. Until then at night when their light was on I could see along their landing into their box room, and boy was that room full of goods. Stacked high, it was, like a shop storeroom, but stuff in small boxes. I don’t know, perhaps it could be phones or something small like that, but they were new boxes, sort of posh for expensive stuff – stolen stuff – I reckon.’

  ‘Why do you think they blocked it up when they did?’ Cannon asked.

  ‘Someone new on the scene?’ Thompson suggested. ‘Only know there’s been a lot more coming and going in the hours of darkness, usually during the early hours between three and four; more men carrying holdalls, more than I’ve seen before, but all about the same build, hefty blighters, some taller than others, but … you know.’

  Cannon nodded. He believed he did know. Hadn’t he seen a trio of them outside Leicester prison. ‘Was there anything else?’ Cannon asked. ‘For instance, has Danny been going to school every day?’

  Thompson nodded. ‘Looking like death warmed up, mind.’

  ‘And his mother, she been shopping, doing her usual things?’

  ‘No, she’s not. Not seen hide nor hair of her, and I tell you another strange thing. All of a sudden that posh shop – you know, top one for sales online thing – they’ve started delivering. Can’t see what they bring, it’s all in bags and plastic boxes. Man carries it in the front door, someone takes the bags from him, and off he goes. Plenty of bottles going in – I hear them rattling sometimes. What d’you make of that?’

  Posh deliveries linked to the stretch limo? Thompson was probably right, someone new had probably arrived. Was Grandfather Jakes already next door incarcerated in a run-down ex-council house, but anxious to be resuming “the high life” these big criminals enjoyed on the back of their ill-gotten gains? If that was so, events were likely to move pretty fast.

  ‘I think you must be extra careful from now on,’ Cannon said, suddenly very concerned for this all-seeing neighbour. ‘Keep a low profile, stay away from your windows, don’t let them suspect you are watching or listening.’

  ‘I warned old Russell off,’ Thompson said sanguinely, ‘and I see them by the light of the street lamp, they don’t see me. Now will you have that cup of tea with me?’

  Cannon shook his head. ‘I really haven’t time. I’ll come and have one with you another day,’ he said, aware the old boy was disappointed. He pulled out one of the pub’s cards. ‘But if you’re especially worried, ring me, and if that happens to be busy—’ he turned the card over and wrote his mobile number on the back, ‘on that.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Thompson’s face brightened. ‘Wish The Trap was nearer.’

  So did Cannon as he revved the jeep to its full speed – its deep agricultural note turning quite a few heads – and brought Liz to the kitchen door as he slewed it round ready for her to drive away.

  She came to him as he was opening the door and he sat and waited, thinking she was dressed as if the two of them were going out together, which had become a bit rare with the pub to look after. He noted the designer jeans, sparkly embroidery down the front of each slim thigh, blonde hair spread loosely over the shoulders of a red military-style jacket. Smart and stylish. He wondered how he could bear to let her go even for a few hours. Alamat followed her out, still in his suit, jacket still buttoned, looking less than comfortable, and for a second Cannon really resented him; if there had been no second driver on hand Liz could not have gone anyway. ‘No,’ his lips framed the censure for the injustice.

  ‘Everything all right?’ she asked by his side, watching, reaching in to touch his shoulder.

  He nodded. ‘I’ll tell you all the details later, but Danny’s going to school and delivering his papers.’

  ‘We go now?’ Alamat asked, coming up to the jeep.

  ‘Yes,’ Liz said, ‘I’ll just fetch my handbag, you get in, I’ll drive.’

  Cannon caught her hand as they returned to the kitchen. ‘Sorry it took longer than I expected.’

  ‘We’re probably not going to be back until the early hours now,’ she said, ‘but I still think it’s best to go, get it over with, and you’ll have Hoskins here in less than an hour. He’ll keep you company.’

  ‘Hoskins? Thanks, not sure how good he’ll be in bed.’

  ‘John!’ she exclaimed as she rounded up handbag and the keys for the MG from the kitchen table. ‘The old one track …’

  He silenced her with a kiss and a swift fierce embrace that made her gasp.

  He wanted to say drive carefully, don’t hurry, but did not want to earn the scathing look she was capable of if he overdid the nanny bit. Liz had already triumphantly survived more trauma than most women, or men. But before she left the kit
chen it was she who turned and said quietly, ‘Take care, my love.’

  ‘And you.’

  He did not go out, just listened to his jeep being driven away, then walked through to the bar. There were memories of other solitary times in this echoing place now she had gone.

  He tried Maddern’s number but there was no reply, and he was pleased when opening time came, pleased to slide back the bolts and step outside into the evening. Still fairly isolated, this road-house had its seventeenth-century roots in a coaching inn on a toll road leading the Wash to the Humber. Nowadays it drew enough regular customers from nearby villages to support darts and table skittle teams during the winter, but came into its own when the holiday-makers arrived. Cannon loved it all, the hectic times and the peace, as now, and he smiled to himself as he saw his first customer approaching. Hoskins, right on time, cycling up to leave his bike inside the archway to the stable-block. Cannon walked out to meet him. He was thinking of having a special place reserved for Hoskins’s bike when the conversions were finished.

  ‘Not opening tonight then?’ Hoskins greeted him as he emerged from the gateway carrying a sack weighted with something or other.

  ‘No point till you got here,’ Cannon replied, ‘you old poacher.’

  ‘They’re yours,’ Hoskins said, ‘as ordered by your better half.’

  Cannon took the bloodied hessian sack cautiously.

  ‘Vermin,’ Hoskins said. As Cannon gave it a speculative shake, as if to make sure whatever was in there was well and truly dead, Hoskins added, ‘Rabbits; everybody wants them since the telly chefs started cooking ’em.’ He gave a derogatory snort. ‘Kept my grandparents and most of the country going in the war. Hang ’em up in your back porch,’ he instructed, ‘I’ve told Liz I’ll skin ’em if she wants me to.’

  The rabbits disposed of, John pulled his first customer his first pint and Hoskins asked, ‘So, what’s going on?’

  When John took time to answer, placing the brimming pint carefully on the counter, Hoskins added, ‘Come on, you have that policeman’s look about you. What was Jones doing here, leaning on the counter? Thought for one wild moment he was going to buy me a pint, but he wanted to talk about a family who left this area years ago,’ and he added, ‘thank God’ with genuine reverence.