The Chosen Ones Read online

  Bradshaw had to fight the urge to say, Oh, that’s all right, then. Instead he managed a feeble ‘Who was it?’

  Kane looked as if he couldn’t quite believe it himself when he said, ‘DI Peacock.’

  ‘Really?’ This was a shock. Peacock had been Bradshaw’s boss back when he was an unpromising detective constable. Even though he had given his subordinate a series of often foul-mouthed bollockings, Bradshaw still respected Peacock and had certainly never questioned his integrity. He couldn’t say that about some of the other officers in CID. ‘What was he thinking?’

  Kane shook his head. ‘He’s been going through a divorce, wanted to keep his house, so I suppose he needed the money. Anyway, he’ll lose it now, and a lot more besides, because they’ve got him bang to rights. He was filmed taking money from a dealer to destroy evidence and let him off the hook.’ Kane snorted his disbelief. ‘Apparently the dealer was shocked and disgusted to find there were corrupt police officers working on his patch, so he decided to do his civic duty and phone the BBC. They got him to wear a wire and hide a tiny camera in a bag. The shit’s already hit the fan. Peacock has been arrested and is looking at proper jail time, unless he gets a lawyer who can perform miracles. The other seven have been suspended on full pay while there’s an investigation. I’m not sure how many of them we’ll be able to clear.’

  Bradshaw couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. ‘Is that the aim of the inquiry, sir ‒ to clear them?’

  ‘Of course,’ Kane snapped, as if he were an idiot.

  ‘Shouldn’t it be to ascertain whether or not they have committed a crime?’

  ‘Don’t be bloody obtuse, man. If we find any evidence of corruption, they will receive the proper punishment, but that’s what it has to be, proper evidence, not the word of some kangaroo court masquerading as a documentary.’ He forced himself to calm down. ‘Deputy Chief Constable Tyler has promised a full and unbiased inquiry into all the allegations, but Peacock is the only one who was filmed taking money directly, so an example will have to be made, of course.’

  A fall guy, thought Bradshaw. Peacock will get a jail sentence and the misdemeanours of the others will likely be swept under the carpet.

  ‘And some of them might have to go before their time,’ Kane said, with some sadness. Bradshaw knew this was a reference to the early retirement so many disgraced police officers took whenever overwhelming evidence of their wrongdoing was presented to them. There really were different rules for the police. ‘In any case, it will drag on for months, which means we have lost eight detectives for the foreseeable future.’ He looked directly at Bradshaw. ‘And some of them had been working on the Disappeared.’

  Christ, thought Bradshaw. Don’t give me that case, but he already knew what was coming.

  ‘I’ll need you to take it on, Bradshaw. I’m up shit creek without a paddle … or even a bloody boat! I can’t spare anyone else and the rest of your team are on this murdered teenager.’

  ‘Everyone reckons it’s the stepdad,’ said Bradshaw hopefully, praying they would solve that case soon, so he wouldn’t be left entirely on his own.

  ‘They do, and I agree with them. I don’t think anyone in the country would dispute it, in fact. He’s not just the prime suspect, he’s the only one, but knowing it and proving it are two different things. That’s why we’ve put Katie’s team on it’ ‒ and in case Bradshaw saw this as Kane giving his DI yet another unexploded grenade to hold ‒ ‘because she has proven herself such a fine investigator.’

  And if she doesn’t get a result, you can throw her to the wolves, thought Bradshaw. There were still a significant number of men in his force who were just waiting for Kate Tennant to make a mistake so they could say, That’s what happens when you put a woman in charge.

  ‘Anyway’ ‒ Kane’s voice went up an octave as he tried to sound positive ‒ ‘you’ve proven you can work on your own.’

  Not through choice.

  ‘And I reckon this could be just the kind of case to challenge that big brain of yours.’

  ‘I thought we weren’t even admitting there was a case, sir.’

  ‘We are not admitting it to the press, yet,’ he conceded, ‘because it might not be, but we know something is up. Five women have gone missing in the past six months, and none of them fits the usual profile of a runaway. You know the score: nearly always, when we start digging, we find something; a reason for just running off – among the women, anyway. They’re not like the men.’

  This was a compliment. Bradshaw knew what he meant – men cracked and left, abandoning wives and family, jobs, homes, even their cars, along with any kind of responsibility, often on a whim. Sometimes there was a reason – debts, scandal, huge pressure of some sort – but often they just couldn’t hack modern-day life, so off they went without any explanation. Women didn’t usually do that. If they left, they were more than likely fleeing something. It was usually abusive partners or stepfathers, sometimes their own dad. Violence or abuse, either sexual or domestic, figured high on the list of reasons why women were so desperate they chose to run. Rarely did a woman abandon her children, like the men often did ‒ though Bradshaw realized he knew of at least one case where that had happened, because the child affected more than a quarter of a century ago was his friend, the journalist Tom Carney.

  ‘We’ve found nothing to indicate that any of the women planned to leave,’ continued Kane. ‘Not so much as a bus ticket or a train timetable. No bank accounts were emptied or cash cards used after they left.’ He paused. ‘So it’s possible they were taken.’

  ‘But how could a man do that without attracting any attention? A woman would struggle. She would scream, surely, unless she knew the man. Were these women linked in any way?’

  ‘Obviously, they looked into that.’ Kane meant the suspended detectives he had previously tasked with the investigation. ‘And there was no common denominator. They were from different parts of the county and led very different lives. The only commonality is that they are all youngish women from the region. It’s hard to imagine how they could have all known the same man.’

  ‘Have we been given any possible explanation from their nearest and dearest?’

  ‘None of them had any reason to go. They vanished abruptly, during nights out or on their way home from somewhere ‒ work, a friend’s house …’ He suddenly grew tired of explaining it all. ‘Look, it’s all in the case files. I asked Malone to sort them out for you.’

  She will have loved that.

  Bradshaw thought for a moment. ‘You said five women had gone missing. I thought it was four.’

  ‘Another one went two nights ago.’

  ‘And you want me to work this out on my own?’ asked Bradshaw.

  ‘Have I not just told you about the eight detectives?’

  ‘Yes, but ‒’

  Kane interrupted him with a raised hand. ‘No buts. There is no one else. I can’t spare anyone for what could prove to be a wild-goose chase. You have to remember that no demands of any kind have been made, so that rules out kidnap. No bodies have been found, and all these women might simply wind up unharmed in London, or Blackpool, or somewhere. We just don’t know. That’s why we’re not making a song and dance about it in the press. We don’t want to panic people unnecessarily.’

  Bradshaw folded his arms defiantly. ‘I hear what you’re saying, sir, but I am still going to need help.’

  ‘I get it.’ Kane looked at Bradshaw as if the DS had let him down somehow. ‘You want me to hire the princess and the pain in the arse again, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, sir,’ said Bradshaw more brightly, ‘I think it would be a step in the right direction.’

  ‘Norton and Carney?’ mused Kane. ‘Do you really think it’s wise to involve them in this?’

  ‘They’re both excellent investigators, and I don’t see how I’ll be able to do it without them.’

  Kane thought for a full minute before answering. ‘All right, I’ll have a word and see
if we can put them back on the pay roll for a bit, assuming they actually want to work with us again, instead of flogging stories to the tabloids for obscene amounts of money. Bloody journalists. They’ve got the life of Riley.’

  At that moment Kane’s phone rang. He answered it, listened for a while then threw his DS a significant look. Kane asked, ‘When?’ then, ‘Where?’, wrote notes on a pad then thanked the caller and hung up.

  ‘What’s that word, Bradshaw,’ he said thoughtfully, as he tore the top sheet off the pad, ‘the one that means you’re the opposite of a lucky mascot?’

  ‘A jinx?’ offered a puzzled Bradshaw. ‘Or a Jonah?’

  Kane handed him the notes. ‘A Jonah, that’s it. How long have you been on this case?’ He pretended to look at his watch. ‘About five bloody minutes.’ His eyes widened. ‘And already they’ve found a body.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tom Carney turned off the car radio as soon as he heard the words ‘Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime,’ from the man widely considered to be the Prime-Minister-in-waiting.

  ‘Why switch it off?’ Helen Norton asked him. ‘It’s the news,’ she reminded Tom sarcastically, ‘and we are journalists.’

  ‘Because I’ve heard it all before,’ said Tom, ‘and any minute now he’ll say, “Education, education, education,” again; whatever that means.’

  ‘I thought you’d be happy that Blair is going to win the election.’

  ‘Most people think he’s going to win and I’m not unhappy about it. I just don’t believe he’s the messiah, that’s all. Because, well, no one is.’

  Helen rolled her eyes, even though she knew her business partner in the journalistic enterprise of Norton‒Carney was driving and couldn’t see it. Tom pulled out into the fast lane of the two-lane A1 and overtook a lorry. A large German car immediately appeared from nowhere, raced up behind them and tailgated their car, flashing its lights repeatedly to shoo them out of the way.

  ‘Tosser,’ muttered Tom.

  ‘Are you going to pull over?’

  ‘Because this guy thinks he owns the road? Why should I?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘To prevent the idiot causing an accident, maybe? Just a thought.’

  Tom sighed, ‘Anything for a quiet life.’ He pulled over, and the driver of the German car flew past them, pipping his horn to signal his impatience with Tom’s driving.

  He turned the radio back on and switched to a music channel. ‘Shit,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Spice Girls.’ He nodded at the radio. ‘I’ll vote for Blair if he promises to ban them, and fox-hunting.’

  ‘He’s promised a free vote on fox-hunting,’ said Helen. ‘I think it should be a three-line-whip against the Spice Girls.’

  ‘We agree on that, at least.’

  ‘Have you noticed,’ Tom asked Helen as they climbed from the car half an hour later, ‘that it’s either crumbs or a banquet?’

  ‘What is?’ They were parked outside a crumbling block of flats on the outskirts of Leeds, and Helen peered up at it.

  ‘Journalism,’ he said. ‘The freelance variety, anyhow.’

  ‘I’d settle for crumbs right now,’ she told him. ‘Lately, it’s been more of a famine.’

  She was right about that. Sometimes the young team of Norton‒Carney, aka Helen and Tom, would crack a big story, often while assisting Durham Constabulary to investigate one of its ‘unsolvable’ cases. If they did blow one of these cold cases wide open, usually with the help of DS Ian Bradshaw, there was a brief honeymoon period while they were courted by every major newspaper and radio station in the land for their exclusive story. Occasionally, an article would be sold for a substantial amount of money, but interest in that case would inevitably wane quite quickly, and they would have to write more mundane stories to pay the bills. Even those were proving hard to come by at the moment.

  ‘This could be a crumb,’ he reminded Helen hopefully. ‘It was a good spot.’ It was Helen who had first read about the woman they were about to visit, in a discarded copy of a West Yorkshire newspaper left on a north-bound train.

  Tom pointed to the tower block in front of them. ‘What floor is she on?’

  ‘The nineteenth.’

  ‘Bugger,’ he said, ‘and I’ll bet the lift’s not working.’

  ‘At least we have a guaranteed sale,’ she reminded him. Tom had sounded out one of the women’s magazines in advance, because Leeds was a fair drive from Durham and not worth the hassle if there wasn’t any money at the end of it. This story was perfect for a low-budget, gossipy publication, the type sold in supermarkets and petrol stations all over the country. They usually focused on celebrities but paid reasonable money for outlandish stories involving real people. The woman they were here to see certainly had one of those to tell, and Mandy Brook was keen to sell her exclusive.

  The magazine needed photographs, so Helen had brought her camera and they had endured two hours of stop‒start traffic to get here. Tom jabbed at the button on the lift and there was a whirring, cranking sound as it juddered down to them.

  ‘It’s working, then,’ said Helen doubtfully, just as the doors opened.

  Tom recoiled. ‘Christ, it smells like a toilet. Do you really want to risk it?’

  The prospect of being trapped inside the foul-smelling lift for hours, if it suddenly broke down, was enough to convince them both that climbing nineteen floors was a better option. ‘Come on,’ said Helen. ‘Just think of it as exercise.’

  ‘And so much cheaper than gym membership.’

  They arrived breathless, with sore legs, late for their appointment, but Mandy didn’t seem to mind or even notice. She was loving the attention and commenced excitably telling her story almost as soon as they were through the door. Tom was forced to cut her off to get her back on track.

  ‘Our theme,’ he said forcibly, ‘is the possibility of finding love in the unlikeliest places, and that’s exactly what you did, isn’t it, Mandy?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I found it in Leeds.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking geographically,’ he explained patiently. ‘I meant what happened after your wedding.’ And when she needed further prompting, he added: ‘Which was what, exactly?’

  Tom held up his tape recorder to prompt her to speak into it.

  ‘He left me, didn’t he?’

  ‘He left you,’ repeated Helen, to show Mandy that she was listening. ‘Your husband, you mean? And when was this?’

  ‘The day after the wedding.’ She said this as if it were a relatively common occurrence.

  ‘The day after,’ repeated Tom, when she showed no outward sign of devastation. ‘And how did that make you feel?’

  ‘I were gutted, weren’t I?’ Her Yorkshire accent got broader along with her indignation. ‘I were miles from anywhere, on our honeymoon, in the middle of piggin’ Thailand. I knew no one, and he just left me. How d’you think I felt?’

  ‘With respect to you, Mandy,’ said Tom, ‘that’s what the readers are going to want to know, but they need to hear it from you, not me.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ she said. ‘Well, I cried myself to sleep for ages. Anyway, I never saw him again.’

  ‘He just disappeared in Bangkok and never got back in touch?’ asked Helen.

  ‘No one knows where he is. I knew he weren’t that bothered about getting married, see, but I never thought he’d run off like that. When the honeymoon was over I had to come home.’

  ‘And what happened then?’ asked Helen, knowing the answer already but needing Mandy to put it in her own words.

  ‘Well, he were an angel, weren’t he?’ she said. ‘He took my side completely and he comforted me and made me realize my life weren’t over at all. In the end, I fell in love with him and he with me. He was everything piggin’ Darren weren’t.’

  ‘Who was?’ asked Tom. ‘For the benefit of the readers.’

  ‘Gary,’ she beamed happily. ‘Darren’s dad.’


  ‘Just to confirm, then, so we haven’t got this wrong …’ summarized Tom, because he had no wish to be sued at a later date. ‘You were married to Darren for twenty-four hours before he disappeared for good in a foreign country, you came home and were comforted by your husband’s father and now you are with him.’

  She nodded happily. ‘We got married in’t registry office as soon as my divorce came through.’ She frowned. ‘It took two years, you know, because that’s how long you have to leave it to prove desertion.’ She looked at Helen when she said this. Perhaps she thought it was information that might prove useful to her one day. ‘I said to the lass, “He ran away from me the day after our wedding, isn’t that proof enough of desertion?” but she was having none of it, the stroppy cow.’

  ‘What a wonderful story,’ said Tom, and he winked at Helen while Mandy wasn’t looking and she had to try hard not to laugh.

  ‘I’m surprised by how much attention I’ve been getting about it, to be honest. We’ve had the local paper round, and that other magazine.’

  ‘Another magazine?’ asked Helen abruptly.

  Mandy mentioned the name of a rival publication and added, for good measure, ‘They were here a few days ago.’

  ‘You’ve spoken to another magazine already?’ ‒ The woman nodded happily ‒ ‘but you promised us an exclusive.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed.

  Realizing they were not dealing with an intellectual giant, Tom turned off the tape recorder and put it back inside his jacket pocket. He managed to stay reasonably calm while he explained the definition of ‘exclusive’. ‘It means you don’t give it to anyone else. We didn’t realize you’d already sold your exclusive story?’ he said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘But it’s okay, because I’m happy to sell it again, to you.’

  ‘That’s not how it works!’ protested Helen, who by now could have cheerfully thrown the camera at her.

  ‘It’s all my fault,’ Helen told Tom as they climbed back into the car.