Behind Dead Eyes (DC Ian Bradshaw #2) - Howard Linskey Page 0,54

the startled-looking woman who answered.

‘Yes,’ she said in a very quiet voice, as if she wasn’t entirely sure.

‘I’m here to see your husband,’ he told her. ‘I’m Tom Carney.’ He expected her to ask him in but instead she disappeared into the house without another word, leaving the door open. Rather than wait on the doorstep he followed her inside.

As he entered the lounge she was leaving it through the kitchen door and he heard the heavy back door open. She mumbled something that could have been, ‘I’ll get him,’ but it was barely audible. He was left standing in the living room and he was not alone.

An old lady wearing a white cardigan over a floral-pattern dress was sitting in an armchair, peering at him intently, her face cratered by deep wrinkles.

‘Who are you?’ she asked accusingly.

‘I’m Tom,’ he offered, and hoped that might be sufficient explanation.

‘And what do you want, Tom?’ she asked archly, as if everyone who visited the Jarvis household was a con man of some kind.

‘I’m here to help Councillor Jarvis.’ From her age and the fact she seemed quite at home here, this had to be Sandra’s grandmother.

‘Help him with what?’

‘He has asked me to try and find his daughter.’ He knew this revelation could upset the old woman.

‘Oh, that one,’ she said dismissively, ‘she’s a little cuckoo.’

Tom was taken aback by the description of her own granddaughter but from the slightly glazed expression on the old lady’s ancient eyes she did not appear qualified to comment on someone else’s mental stability. She opened her mouth as if she was going to add something. ‘It’s not as if …’

‘Be quiet, Mother,’ snapped Mrs Jarvis, who reappeared suddenly in the doorway. The old woman didn’t seem unduly concerned at being silenced so sharply. The councillor’s wife turned her attention to Tom. ‘He’s not out back. He must be down the allotment.’ She said this as if she couldn’t quite remember whether he had told her or not.

‘Okay,’ Tom said, ‘could you maybe point me in the right direction?’

‘So what can I do for you, Detective Sergeant,’ asked Sergeant Hennessey. He was one of those old hands who was always cheerful because he was edging closer to retirement with every passing day.

‘I’m after some information about Lonely Lane,’ said Bradshaw.

‘Shaggers’ Alley?’ asked Hennessey. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘It’s something I’m looking into for a case.’ He felt no need to elaborate but needn’t have worried, for Hennessey didn’t even feign interest. ‘I’ve heard it’s like the Wild West out there,’ Bradshaw concluded, expecting the other man to play it down.

‘You would not believe what goes on out there after dark,’ he offered instead, ‘other than the obvious.’ Bradshaw assumed he was hinting about darker deeds than teenage sex and extramarital affairs.

‘We’ve not had many arrests though.’

‘There’s been loads,’ said Hennessey and when Bradshaw looked puzzled he added, ‘just not many charges. Between you and me, we let most of them off with a caution or a warning.’

‘Why?’

‘Because, my dear friend,’ said Hennessey, ‘if we arrested every man down there with his cock out, the cells would be fit to bursting and the Assistant Commissioner would have my guts for garters.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Bradshaw and he really didn’t. ‘Surely if these people are caught committing criminal acts we should be arresting, charging and convicting.’

‘Oh my poor naïve soul,’ Hennessey said to Bradshaw condescendingly, ‘it cannot work that way. Why, because all of our recorded crimes would go through the roof in an instant and that’s all anyone in authority cares about these days: stats and figures. No, no, no, we give the perverts a slap on the wrist and send them packing, which hopefully deters some of the less determined ones from getting their todgers out in public again.’

‘So you’re just talking about flashers and the like?’

‘I’m talking about everything,’ he said. ‘We’ve stumbled across gang bangs and even a group of Satanists once, in flowing white robes. We’ve had more than one case of bestiality with farm animals and literally hundreds of married men hooking up with gay boys. Do you want me to charge all of them? I’m sure their wives and families don’t – and they certainly don’t.’

‘What about attacks,’ pressed Bradshaw, ‘on women? Do you ever get anything like that?’

‘Oh God, yeah,’ said the sergeant, ‘every other night.’

Bradshaw was staggered. Hennessey made it sound as if they were discussing trivial stuff like an argument in a pub not men preying on