Paul Finch - Stalkers

At the end of the entry was a small garden, though its grass was thickly overgrown, and the scabby thorn bushes along the fences to either side were hung with rags and waste paper. An old fridge had been dumped in the middle; its open door yawned on mouldy blackness. The windows at the rear of the maisonette had also been covered from the inside, one with stained sheets and another with newspaper. There was a back door, but it was firmly closed. The window panel in it contained frosted glass, so he couldn’t see through.

Heck then heard the squeal of the entry gate again.

He listened as echoing footfalls sounded in the passage. There was a familiar clatter as another foot clouted the emulsion tin. He tensed, moving away from the back of the house, onto the more open ground of the garden.

A figure rounded the corner into view.

Heck couldn’t believe his eyes.

‘So who lives here ?’ Lauren asked.

‘ What the bloody hell are you doing?’ he hissed, dashing forward and glancing past her down the entry; there was nobody else there. ‘ Well?’

She shrugged. ‘I told you, I’m not just going home.’

‘I put you on a sodding train!’

‘No, you didn’t. You kicked me out of your motor. It wasn’t difficult getting a taxi outside a railway station. I think the driver was quite chuffed when I said “follow that car”.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Lauren, this is not a game!’

She looked irritated. ‘You’re telling me that? My sister’s been missing for …’

‘I’m sick of hearing about …’

‘You’re sick of hearing about her?’

‘I didn’t mean it like that. Look, Lauren …’ Her gaze burned into him as he made a succession of helpless gestures, only his concern for discretion keeping him from shouting. ‘Lauren … criminal investigation is a serious business. You can’t play at it like this.’

‘I want to know what’s happening,’ she said firmly. ‘I want to know what leads you’ve got.’

‘Do I really have to arrest you?’

‘Try it. And I’ll tell the first inspector I meet that you advised me to report that hire van stolen. That you were covering up a crime. In fact, I’ll go one better than that. I’ll tell your own boss. What was his name … Commander Laycock?’ She smiled when she saw his startled expression. ‘Ahhh … you wouldn’t want him to know, would you?’

There was no way Heck could answer that without revealing that he didn’t even want Laycock to know he was here in Manchester. He turned stiffly and walked back up the entry to the road.

Lauren followed. ‘It doesn’t have to be this way, though.’

‘You must be out of your mind,’ he replied, shaking his head but talking more to himself than to her. It defied all logic how he’d ended up in a situation like this. He’d planned this trip so carefully. He emerged onto the pavement in a daze.

‘I can help you,’ Lauren insisted.

He swung around to face her. ‘You’ll get yourself killed. And maybe me with you …’

‘You looking for Ron?’ someone asked.

They turned sharply. A man they hadn’t previously noticed was seated on a deckchair in the garden opposite. In contrast to O’Hoorigan’s, this garden had no vegetation at all — it was bare dirt. The man was youngish, but pale and rail-thin, and had hair dyed bright pink. He wore a vest and a pair of cut-off khaki shorts; he was smoking, and drinking from a tin of lager.

‘I said are you looking for Ron?’

‘Ron?’ Lauren said, crossing the road towards him.

‘Ron O’Hoorigan?’ the man said. ‘That’s his house.’

‘Yeah mate, that’s right,’ she agreed. ‘We’re looking for Ron O’Hoorigan.’

Heck crossed the road alongside her, just about managing to hold his tongue. The man eyed them. With Lauren in her dark army-surplus gear and Heck in jeans, trainers and leather jacket, they didn’t look out of place for this neighbourhood.

‘He owe you money or something?’

‘Something like that, yeah,’ she said.

The man nodded as if this was a familiar story. Up close, his face was pinched to the bone. There were matching sets of needle bruises on both his pipe-cleaner arms. ‘You’re not the only ones. He hasn’t been round here for a bit.’

‘So where’s he living now?’ she asked.

‘Couldn’t tell you. Try the Dog amp; Butcher round the corner. It’s his local, or was. He used to spend every day there.’

‘Cheers.’

The man took a drag on his cig as they moved away, before adding: ‘Give him a kicking for me, when you find him, yeah. Our Shaz let him shag her and the bastard never coughed up for it.’

‘See,’ Lauren said, when they’d got back in the car. ‘We make a decent team. I presume this Ron O’Hoorigan is involved?’

Heck rammed his key into the ignition and banged the handbrake off. ‘I’m taking you back to the railway station. And this time I’m going to make sure you get on a train.’

‘One problem. I don’t have money for a train.’

‘You had money for a taxi.’

‘That’s why I don’t have money for a train.’

‘No worries.’ He started driving. ‘ I’ll pay for your ticket.’

‘And like I say, I’ll ring Scotland Yard. I’ll ask for Commander Laycock and tell him you’ve been covering up crimes in Manchester.’

‘You really think this is the way to win my friendship, by trying to blackmail me?’

‘I’ll do anything necessary.’ They’d now turned into the next street, and, as the pink-haired man had told them, the Dog amp; Butcher came into view at its far end.

‘Let me at least help you find this character, O’Hoorigan,’ Lauren added. ‘Look at this place. You’re not going to be asking questions round here on your own, are you? I’m an ex-squaddie. I’ll have your back.’

Heck shook his head as they slowed to another halt. He felt completely helpless.

The Dog amp; Butcher certainly seemed the sort of place someone like Ron O’Hoorigan would hang out. It was one of those one-level pre-fab constructs typical of the 1970s. In a district where tower blocks marched every skyline, it looked more like a shoebox than a building. It was difficult to imagine that any civic architect could seriously have designed something like this without intending it as a joke, yet hostelries of this sort had sprung up all over Britain as part of a grand plan to regenerate the inner cities. Those few that remained, like this one, now stood as monuments to soulless functionalism and intellectual arrogance. It was clear what the locals thought of it. It only had a few windows, all high up and letterbox shaped, and filled with reinforced glass, but even so, many were cracked or broken. Its pebble-dashed walls were daubed with various substances: mud, chewing gum, dog shit.

Heck was unsure what to do next. Obviously, he had to take Lauren back to the station, but what if she really called the Yard and tried to reach Laycock? In addition, Salford station was a good fifteen minutes’ drive from here, now through rush-hour traffic. Driving there and back again would use up valuable time, and might make his Fiat noticeable to anyone round here who happened to be keeping an eye out for unusual comings and goings.

‘Can I trust you to stay in the car?’ he asked, though it tightened his chest just thinking about the risks this entailed.

She shrugged. ‘If that’s what it takes for you to keep me in the loop, sure.’

‘This doesn’t mean you’re part of the enquiry.’

She shrugged again. He eyed her, looking for signs of deceit, but she seemed a lot more relaxed than she had done earlier. He could always produce his cuffs and fix her to the steering wheel, but that really would draw attention to them. Instead, he got out and sauntered towards the pub, glancing up at the licensee’s name as he approached.