M. Arlidge - Little Boy Blue

Charlie drained the dregs of her coffee and tossed the paper cup in the bin. Would it be bad to have another one straight away? She was tired, but more than that she was cold, despite the autumnal sunshine. She had been pacing Newton Street for over an hour now and had little to show for it, except a mild headache and blocks of ice for feet.

Her cabbie was certain that he’d dropped his ride off near the top of the road. There were several blocks of flats there, but a little basic detective work in the shops and cafés had established that Samantha had been seen coming out of Ellesmere Heights on occasion. It was a fairly sorry-looking set-up and no one was answering the buzzers, despite Charlie having pressed them all several times. There had been nothing to do but watch and wait, so she’d parked herself on a bench outside the launderette with a coffee and a free sheet, arming herself with a puffed-out but empty laundry bag by way of cover. She seemed to spend most of her life on surveillance these days and she hungered for something a bit more challenging. The numerous lattes she was consuming were doing nothing for her waistline.

As the minutes, then hours, ticked by, Charlie’s decision to keep this lead to herself began to trouble her. It was quite probable she was wasting her time and, besides, Helen had reiterated the importance of everyone sharing information from now on. But still… every lead Charlie had pursued so far had proved fruitless. Paul Jackson was a disaster and they were still trying to locate David Simons, though in truth no one genuinely thought he was a suspect. Which just left Michael Parker, aka Samantha. Charlie knew why she was keeping this lead to herself, and she knew it didn’t reflect well on her, but still she sat here, ignoring the occasional buzz of her phone, intent on seeing it through.

How much longer could she stay? She would have to account for her time eventually and the longer she left it, the harder it would be to explain away. She was already in Helen’s bad books, so why risk their friendship further by escalating her war with Sanderson? When all she might end up with for her pains was a stinking cold?

She rose to head back to the coffee shop and almost walked straight into Samantha. It took a moment for her to compute who it was – Charlie was busy apologizing for getting in her way when her gaze was drawn to the bloodshot eyes and the faint scarring on her right cheek. Samantha hurried on, and Charlie, realizing her mistake, flung her newspaper into her laundry bag and walked swiftly in the same direction.

Normally she would have waited longer, but Samantha seemed so determined to make it home that she was fearful of losing her. Samantha hurried up to Ellesmere Heights and pushed roughly inside, her gait unsteady and stumbling. The heavy door swung back on its hinges, then began its inexorable progress back to a closed position. Charlie jettisoned her fake laundry bag and ran. If she didn’t apprehend Samantha now she would have to hand over her lead and take the consequences – and she was damned if she was going to do that. The gap was only inches wide, but Charlie shoved her foot into it, wincing slightly as the door pinched hard. But her intervention had been subtle and silent – she could hear Samantha stumbling up the stairs above, seemingly oblivious to her intrusion, so easing the door open again, Charlie slipped inside.

‘I have a name for you.’

Helen was now standing in front of the team. A new case file in hand, she was determined not to waste any time.

‘His landlord has identified the victim as Maxwell Carter, more commonly known by his professional name of Max Paine. He was a dominator who worked from his flat, so obviously one of our first lines of enquiry is whether he was meeting a client last night. There were no papers or diaries at the scene, so DC Reid, could you liaise with uniform on the house-to-house enquiries – see if we have any witnesses to activity at the flats last night. We’ll also need to interrogate his digital footprint – did he run websites, was he on Twitter, Tinder? There were no devices in his flat, but we did find chargers for an iPhone 5 and a tablet, so check if he backed up at all and if so where to. Fast-track any warrants – we need to know who he was communicating with in the last few days of his life. McAndrew, can you take the lead on this?’

‘On it,’ McAndrew replied, rising and hurrying off.

‘Max Paine is a local boy,’ Helen continued, ‘with one marriage behind him and a son, Thomas, aged six. He divorced three years ago – his wife Dinah now lives in Portswood with their little boy. I will talk to them once we’re done here. For now, let’s focus on the facts. As with the Jake Elder murder, the killer has been very cautious, very precise. We won’t have Jim Grieves’s findings for a few hours, but so far Meredith has found no DNA evidence of our perpetrator within the flat.’

The way Helen said the word ‘within’ made a few of the team look up. Clearly she was building up to something.

‘However, she has just confirmed to me that her team have found a partial footprint in the corridor leading away from the flat. The lino on the floor had been cleaned recently and we’ve got the faint outline of a size 6 boot. It was raining last night, the ground outside the flats was soft and dirty, so -’

‘Does that suggest his visitor was a woman?’ DC Edwards asked.

‘Or a man with small feet. We’ve got an impression of the tread – which is ridged and in waved grip lines – DC Lucas, can you keep on forensics until we have a match?’

‘Will do.’

Helen handed out the rest of the duties to the team – witness statements, Munch follow-ups, financial investigation, family histories – before calling time on the meeting. It felt good to be leading again, but even now something nagged away at her. She had asked for the whole team to attend the briefing – to push forward together on the new leads – but one officer was notably absent. Which left her wondering:

Where the hell was Charlie?

Charlie hammered on the door, but still there was no response. She had followed Samantha up to the fourth floor, calling out her name. But she appeared not to hear and in any event she was too slow to stop her entering flat 15, slamming the door behind. By the time she made it there, the music had already started up. Deafening techno shook the walls of the building and no amount of knocking could raise its inhabitant. What was she doing there?

Charlie walked across to the landing window and looked down on to the street below. Having spent a good five minutes wearing the skin off her knuckles, she’d given up knocking and descended to the entrance once more. Just inside the main door, next to the fire regulations, was a number for the caretaker. He was clearly more used to dealing with leaking roofs and blocked toilets, but once Charlie impressed upon him the urgency of the situation, he had been happy to comply. So why was he taking so long to get here?

This was a calculated risk and Charlie knew it. Technically she should have waited for a warrant, but as long as her entry was not illegal, she would probably be fine. Samantha was only a tenant and the caretaker had the authority to open her door. Furthermore, she had failed to stop when requested to do so by a police officer… Charlie knew she was scrabbling a bit, but she would need to have her story off pat, should the need arise. Helen would see through it, but might let her off if the arrest proved decisive and something told Charlie she needed to get into that flat as fast as possible. Samantha could be doing anything in there. Destroying evidence, preparing to flee, perhaps even making an attempt on her life? What was the reason for the deafening music? What was she trying to hide?