Cath Staincliffe - Looking for Trouble

‘How did you find him?’

‘He was on the ramp, same time as me.’

‘On the ramp?’

‘Station approach.’ He said it derisively. His blue eyes were bloodshot now. He looked pale, ill.

A sound of drunken singing carried over from the side street. Leader of the Pack. Someone was trying for harmonies.

‘How’ll I recognise him?’

‘Lanky bloke, half-caste, wears a flat cap, got a dog.’

‘How old?’

‘I dunno.’ He was irritated, drank from the can again. ‘Twenty, twenty-one?’ He stood up and drained the can, tossed it down.

‘Where will you go now?’ I asked.

‘What’s it to you?’ He walked away.

‘Thanks,’ I said. I don’t know if he heard me.

I wasn’t about to start creeping round old warehouses. JB could wait till tomorrow. But I was pleased. At last something was moving. Someone had met Martin, might even know where he was now. As for me, there was only one place I wanted to be and it didn’t take me long to get there. Bed.

On Wednesdays and Thursdays Ray is in charge of the kids: Breakfast, school run, bedtime, the lot. I lay in bed for all of ten minutes, luxuriating in that small sense of freedom. The smell of toast and clinking of pots drifted up from below. In the old days, I’d have burrowed back under the duvet till lunch-time, but Maddie had buggered up my sleep patterns for good. Ray’s mum, Nana Tello (the kids shortened it from Costello), complained bitterly about waking at five o’clock and not being able to get back to sleep. I was heading for the same fate.

Maddie and Tom clattered up the stairs to yell goodbyes.

‘Mummeee,’ Maddie began, ‘I don’t want to go to school.’ Her lower lip trembled.

‘Well, you’ve got to. I’m going to work,’ I slung back the covers and grabbed my dressing-gown, ‘Ray’s going to college and you’re going to school.’ To eliminate further discussion, I picked her up and thundered downstairs, Tom at my heels. She was still giggling as Ray shepherded them out the door. An improvement on most mornings.

Over breakfast, I considered whether to ring Mrs Hobbs. I’d promised to be in touch early in the week. Best to wait until I’d met JB. Hopefully, there’d be more to report.

I got the bus to town. Parking was a nightmare and I didn’t want to push my luck too many times by doing it illegally.

From Piccadilly Gardens it was about five minutes walk to the station. The long curving ramp had nose-to-nose taxis edging up and down and a constant procession of people moving along the broad pavement. I walked up to the station concourse and back a couple of times. No luck. I hovered outside the Blood Donor Clinic for a while, scanning the steady stream of people for a lanky man, of mixed race, with a cap and a dog.

An hour had passed. Maybe I was too early. If JB had somewhere safe and warm to sleep, perhaps he’d stay there well into the afternoon. If yesterday had been a good day, maybe he’d not appear at all today. If I stayed where I was much longer, the Clinic people would take me for a nervous donor and come out to see if I needed a little encouragement to face the needle. I shuffled along a bit to a tool shop. Spent a while looking at the weird and wonderful machines in the window. Ray would be in seventh heaven here. Lathes, saws, chisels. A carpenter’s treasure trove.

My attention was diverted for a while by a cacophony of horns from the taxis. One of the drivers had abandoned his cab, thereby preventing everyone else from moving up closer to the station, and the next fare. The horns blasted out in disharmony for a full three minutes. Passers-by grinned at the scene. It smacked of continental cities. We British rarely use our horns communally. At last, a portly man emerged from nowhere and ran towards the vacant cab. He started it up, the horns fell quiet, the queue resumed its progress up the ramp.

Another walk up to the station. Piccadilly trains run south, down to London, Oxford, Rugby. You can tell. The station’s much more upmarket than Victoria, where all the trains run north, bound for the hills and borders. Piccadilly sports a Tie-Rack, a Sock-Shop, chemist, florist, newsagent, several eateries. A fresh-ground coffee shop. Wooed by the scent of coffee, I ordered an expresso and pastry. It was noon. I was bored.

I set off back for the bus. Halfway there, I came across a young girl seated in the doorway of a Pool Hall. A small, tattered sign stated she was homeless. Pale face, rats tails hair, cheap, thin clothing. She was plaiting bracelets from brightly coloured wool. The sort that are imported by Traidcraft from Third world countries.

I put a pound in her hat.

‘Ta.’ She glanced up and smiled faintly.

‘Excuse me, have you seen JB?’

‘Huh?’ She squinted against the brightness of the sky. She looked very young.

‘JB Got a dog, flat cap.’

‘Yeah,’ she bit through the wool with her teeth, ‘you just missed him. He’s gone for chips.’

‘Where?’

‘Plaza, by the buses.’

I knew the place. Open all hours, cheap take-away. I ran all the way. I got a stitch and my heart beat too hard for comfort. A couple of women waited to be served. No man, no dog.

‘You just serve a bloke with a dog?’ I called to the guy at the hatch.

‘Don’t do dogs, Miss,’ he grinned, ‘we do hot dogs.’ He cackled at his own joke.

‘Wears a cap,’ I persisted.

‘Dog does?’ More laughter. I gritted my teeth.

He nodded. ‘You just missed him.’

I dodged between buses over the road to the gardens. The benches were full of people lunching in the open air. Formal flower beds were ablaze with wallflowers and pansies.

He was there. The dog lay at his feet. As I approached, the man sitting next to him rolled up his newspaper, picked up his briefcase and left. Great timing. I took his place.

‘JB?’

‘What?’ He swung round to face me, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

‘I’m looking for Martin Hobbs. My name’s Sal Kilkenny. I’m a private investigator. Someone said you knew Martin, you put him up for a while.’

‘What do you want him for?’

‘He’s missing. His mother came to see me. She wants to know if he’s alright.’

‘That it?’

‘What?’

‘You’re not gonna try and take him back or owt?’

‘No.’ I was emphatic. ‘All I’m interested in is finding out if Martin’s okay.’

‘I dunno where he is.’ He threw a chip to the dog, had one himself. He was guarded, but without the hint of aggression I’d felt when talking to Blue Eyes and Giggler. JB had the sort of bone structure that models are made of, attractive features, clear olive skin. Black hair hung down in ringlets at the back of his head. What I could see of the sides had been shaved. He wore an old donkey jacket, white shirt, faded jeans, DM’s.

‘But you did meet him? When did you last see him?’

‘Look,’ he crumpled the chip paper into a ball, ‘I’ve got to get back.’

‘Please.’ I put my hand on his sleeve. ‘I really need to find out, just give me ten minutes.’

‘I dunno,’ he sighed. The dog lifted its head as if concerned. He stroked it.

‘Listen, anything you tell me will remain confidential. I won’t pass on your name or anything that could identify you. I’m not a social worker, I’ve no connection with the police. I’m simply trying to find out where Martin is and if he’s okay, so his mum can stop driving herself crazy with worry. Just a few minutes?’

He thought it over. Smiled, a warm, easy smile.

‘Okay. C’mon, Digger.’ The dog sprang up and walked to heel as we made our way across the Gardens and up one of the side streets off Piccadilly itself.