Cath Staincliffe - Stone Cold Red Hot

I got through to Caroline Cunningham who sounded to be lost in a heavy cold. I explained who I was, how I’d got her number and what I wanted to talk to her about.

“Honestly?” Her voice rose to a squeak.

“Yes, I’m talking to all her old friends and neighbours. Whereabouts are you?”

“Sheffield, are you coming from Manchester?” She began to cough.

I waited for her to stop before I replied and used the time to calculate whether I could make the journey there and back and be certain of being able to pick up Maddie and Tom. It was too tight, I didn’t need to kill myself over a visit to Caroline. “Yes, it would have to be Monday though, if you’d be at home.”

“Yes, there’s no way I’m goid in like this,” she coughed again to prove her point, “the doctor said take a week minimum. Bordig?”

It took me a second to translate. “Morning would be fine. I’ll aim to get to you about eleven.”

“OK.”

The phone was engaged at Frances Delaney’s house. I put a cross on my list, I’d try her again later.

I made a coffee and had it with the vegetable samosas and the tomato that constituted lunch. I washed the grease off my hands upstairs; the Dobsons let me use their bathroom. The shelves bulged with bathstuffs and cosmetics and towels were stuffed onto rails and hooks any old how. Four girls lived here and the array of bottles bore witness. I’d this to look forward to with Maddie – and teenage rebellion. I knew that the Dobsons had an easy time with their eldest – she was eager to travel and had been too busy earning cash for her adventure to be out clubbing it or in slumming around. It was different with their second girl. They were in the throes of teenage hell. The fact that both parents were teachers and had masses of experience working with youngsters hadn’t seemed to help at all.

Jennifer had been a typical teenager, eager to become independent, desperate to leave home. Her parents had disliked her clothes and the lifestyle she enjoyed but didn’t that just come with the territory? I was becoming more convinced that I would have to speak to Mrs Pickering eventually. If anyone could tell me the essential facts it had to be her: exactly when Jennifer had left her course at Keele, whether she’d given any indication whatsoever of where she was going, whether she talked about having a baby. After all at that point Mrs Pickering had deemed her daughter a disgrace. Hardly a term for someone who’d dropped out of an English degree. If I didn’t get any joy from Keele I would have to persuade Roger to let me approach his mother.

The neighbours who had lived on the other side of the Pickerings had moved to Bradford. I dialled their number. “Hello?”

“Is that Mrs Shuttle?”

“Yes.”

“You used to live in Heaton Mersey?”

“Yes.”

“My name’s Sal Kilkenny,” I began, “I’m trying to trace a missing person, Jennifer Pickering, I know you and your husband lived next door to the Pickerings while Jennifer was still at home.”

“I don’t know anything about all that,” her voice was glacial, “I can’t help you.” She hung up on me.

I sat there for a moment stunned by her abrupt dismissal. I toyed with the notion of ringing her back to press the issue but I realised it would be a futile thing to do. The woman obviously didn’t want to have anything to do with me. Why? It happens that people shut the door in my face. It happens quite a lot actually, especially when I’m serving injunctions. But in other cases there’s generally a little more interaction before people choose not to get involved, not to answer questions, not to waste their time. The speed of her decision and the frostiness of her response got me thinking that there must be some history there, some reason for Mrs Shuttle to turn arctic at the mention of the Pickerings. It was the only untoward reaction I’d had and it intrigued me, made me want to start burrowing away to find out what lay behind it. Oh, it was probably something innocent like the two families had fallen out over a border dispute or the Shuttles’ cat had persisted in fouling the Pickerings’ garden, maybe Jennifer had been a bit lippy to the neighbours. Whatever it was I didn’t know whether it would bring me any closer to finding Jennifer and I wasn’t sure that I should pursue it. I thought it was probably a red herring albeit an interesting one. I know better, now.

I finally got through to Frances Delaney and explained why I was calling.

“Can it wait till after the weekend?” she asked. “It’s just that I’ve had one of them off with chicken pox and my husband’s parents are visiting, arriving tomorrow. I’ve not even done the shopping…”

“That’s fine,” I interrupted. I didn’t need any more persuasion. “I’ve already got things booked for Monday, some time on Tuesday perhaps?”

“Erm…About ten thirty? The baby usually has a nap then and Gemma will be at playgroup. How long will it take?”

“An hour at the most, probably less.”

“OK. I’ll give you the address.”

I wrote it down and said goodbye. So I couldn’t see either of Jennifer’s remaining friends until the following week. I’d still a couple of hours until school finished and that evening I began my surveillance for the Ibrahims. I could usefully prepare for that.

Coming back from school we looked for conkers. There are two huge horse chestnut trees on the way. Tom charged around lamming bits of stick enthusiastically into the trees while Maddie systematically combed the area looking for conkers on the ground.

After ten minutes we had a reasonable haul and at home we set about conducting an experiment. Two conkers each went into vinegar to soak, two each in the oven to bake. We would see which turned out toughest. Meanwhile I took a handful down to the cellar where Ray has his woodwork shop and drilled holes in them. We threaded them on bits of string and bootlaces. Tom and I played the first game. Taking turns to bash each other’s conker with our own. After half a dozen strikes my conker split in half much to Tom’s delight. Seeing this Maddie decided she wanted to keep hers to look at ‘not ruin them like that’ and she took them up to her room to a place of safety. After one more match which Tom also won, he went to watch telly and I started making tea. While I peeled vegetables and boiled rice, my mind turned to work and I wondered what awaited me later that day. My stomach fluttered with anticipation-and not the pleasant sort.

The area of St Georges where the Ibrahims lived had all the depressing features of urban poverty. Just one of the row of shops I passed remained open though only the illuminated sign gave the game away as the windows were covered with steel shutters and the roof edged with vicious looking razor wire. The surrounding shops were boarded up, and covered in graffiti. Litter pooled around the pavements and broken glass glimmered in among the weeds.

Several of the houses also had broken or boarded up windows and one was blackened by fire. A little further along a car had met the same fate, its charred shell yet to be removed by the authorities.

I turned into Canterbury Close and drove along looking for Mr Poole’s. There were semi-detached, redbrick houses either side and a turning circle at the dead end. The road curved so it wasn’t possible to see the junction once I reached his house which was about half way down on the right hand side. Most of the houses looked in need of repairs and a fresh coat of paint. The council had been selling off stock but this wasn’t the sort of area where tenants would exercise their right to buy even if they had the means. All the houses had gardens and, here and there, I could see the proof of someone putting in time and attention: trees in autumn finery and winter pansies in a hanging basket. For others the garden was left untended, left for the children to run wild in or used to dump rubbish.