David Belbin - Bone & Cane

Now that there was a chance of Nick getting back with Sarah, he couldn’t resume the sexual relationship with Polly. He wasn’t like Joe: he couldn’t be with Polly one day and Sarah the next. Whatever happened, he must not sleep with Polly this afternoon. The kids wouldn’t be in bed yet, so he should be spared the temptation.

It was a mild, spring evening, not yet dusk. By the time he got to Polly’s, he had worked up a mild sweat. The oldest girl answered the door. Kayleigh was one of Polly’s nieces. Behind her, the house was a chaos of younger kids shouting, playing, running around.

‘Is she in?’ he asked.

‘I thought you only came when it was dark?’ Kayleigh said, looking him up and down. The girl was only eleven but already had discernable breasts. Her knowing look made him uncomfortable.

‘Isn’t this night?’ he tried to be funny, pointing at the strong evening sun that beamed through the window. ‘It’s awfully dark outside.’

‘You’re weird,’ Kayleigh said. ‘Polly’s with her boyfriend. Upstairs.’

Now she was winding him up. Nick laughed and went up the stairs. He tapped on her bedroom door. ‘It’s me. Nick.’

‘Hold on.’ It was a long minute before Polly pulled the door half open. The girl wasn’t lying. She did have someone in there.

‘This isn’t a good time,’ Polly said, her face contorted. With guilt or shame, Nick wasn’t sure.

‘I can see that.’ Nick was unsettled, but Polly was breaking no promises. She’d let him think he was her only lover, but he had never asked for, and she had never offered monogamy. Only, why was this bloke allowed in now when Nick was normally invited over only when the kids were at school or had gone to bed? At least she had the good grace to look uncomfortable.

‘I had some news,’ he told her. ‘It’ll only take a minute.’

‘Spit it out, then.’ Polly’s dressing gown was old and her short hair was a mess, sticking up in several different directions. He didn’t want to be here. After two months, Nick knew every part of Polly’s body, but he had never got far inside her head.

‘It’s Ed Clark. He’s passed his test to get a taxi permit. The firm I’m with has given him a job. Sorry, there was nothing I could do about it.’

‘You could have phoned,’ Polly said, her expression morose, inscrutable. ‘You’re a bit late with the news anyway.’

‘You mean . . .?’

‘S’right,’ said a familiar, male voice. A large, pale, tattooed arm slid round Polly’s waist, then a bald head slid into view. Ed Clark gave Nick a lascivious grin. ‘You see, kidder, I’ve already given her a ride.’

21

Arnold had two sides. There was a wide suburbia of dull, detached houses that spread all the way up a long hill before merging with middle-class Mapperley. Then there were the mean terraced houses off the left of the main road, a more working-class area where there were few posters for Gedling’s Tory MP. It was a small Labour zone in a safe Tory seat. Sarah was pleased to note that the house she was visiting had a poster for the Labour candidate, a deputy head who at least had a job to return to in a week’s time. Maybe she should get her red rosette out of the car and put it on.

The guy who opened the door was Sarah’s age. Unshaven, he wore a white vest with faded blue jeans, gone at both knees, and filthy trainers. Seeing Sarah, he smiled, revealing tobacco stained teeth and a mouthful of NHS fillings. Yet Phil Bolton was handsome, in his fashion. He looked a little like Nick, with a strong jaw and dark, thick hair. Sarah could tell what Polly Shanks had seen in him. The eyes were his only weak point: slightly sunken and pale blue, giving him a haunted air.

‘I’m Sarah. I phoned last night.’

‘I can see who you are. When you rang, I thought you might be some kind of debt collector. Nearly went out. Not that I owe anyone ought, but I wouldn’t put it past Polly to buy something in my name.’

‘Actually, it was Polly I wanted to see you about.’

Sarah stepped over old newspaper covered in oily motorbike parts. This wasn’t a home that children lived in, but Phil didn’t live alone. A couple of bras and a skirt hung from a laundry rack near the gas fire.

‘You helped get that Ed Clark out, didn’t you?’ Phil said.

‘Yes. Your ex wasn’t too pleased about that.’

‘If you say so. Why do you want to see me?’

‘I want to help the police find Terry and Liv’s killer. I thought you might be able to help me.’

‘Doubt it.’ Phil took a copy of the Mirror off an uncomfortable looking armchair and waved Sarah to sit down. ‘Terry was always all right to me, but I wasn’t around when he died.’

‘You were married to his sister, though . . .’

‘Legally. But I’d moved out by then.’

This confused Sarah. ‘I thought you moved out just after Terry and Elaine’s kids came to live with you and Polly.’

‘Nah. I moved back in for a while, after the murders, to help Polly out. But the marriage was shot soon as she started having it off with Ed Clark, eighteen month before.’

Sarah bit her lip to disguise her surprise, then asked Phil to repeat his last sentence.

‘Claimed she hated him after, of course. Begged me to stay with her. But she doesn’t know what she wants, Polly. More sides to her than an old threepenny bit. Clark probably wasn’t the first she played away with. I don’t even know if the kids are mine. She wanted money, went through the CSA, but wouldn’t let me do paternity tests. So I’ve stayed clear of them, too. I’m well rid.’

Sarah was still having trouble taking in what he’d told her. ‘She was sleeping with Ed Clark before he got arrested the first time? Polly told you this?’

‘Not her, no. Terry knew about it before I did. He suggested I put the bug in our bedroom. You don’t know about the bug?’

‘There was no bug mentioned in the trial transcripts.’

‘It was inadmissible evidence for the court case. Poll didn’t contest the divorce, so it was never used. But that’s how they caught Ed and his mates. They got the shithead on tape, in bed, boasting to Polly about how he was going to turn round all this tobacco from a warehouse job.’

‘Who planted the bug? CID?’

‘The bloke who came round with Terry was called Slater. Jack Slater, I think. He was in plain clothes, but that doesn’t mean he was CID. Terry wasn’t in uniform either.’

‘And Polly didn’t know she was being taped?’

‘Not far as I know. They had to get permission from the homeowner, and that was me, but I certainly didn’t tell her.’

‘Terry went through you to get at his sister’s lover?’

‘I got on better with Terry than Polly did.’

‘And none of this came up at the trial?’

‘No. Ed must have worked it out, though. Otherwise, why would he have killed Terry and Liv?’

There was an accusation in his tone but Sarah ignored it. ‘Liv knew about the tape but Polly didn’t?’

‘Oh yeah. Terry had no secrets from her. Liv told me getting Ed sent down was one of the best things Terry had ever done.’

Sarah understood why Terry Shanks’ role in Ed’s original arrest was kept so low-profile. He wouldn’t want his adulterous sister dragged into the case, especially when she didn’t know he’d recorded her in bed with her lover. In the murder trial, it would have suited both prosecution and defence not to explain how Terry Shanks had been instrumental in Ed’s arrest: a role that didn’t reflect well on either Shanks or Clark.

‘But you don’t think that, do you?’ Phil said.

‘What? Sorry, I was lost in thought.’

‘You don’t think Ed killed Terry and Liv?’