Behind Dead Eyes (DC Ian Bradshaw #2) - Howard Linskey Page 0,58

skills to try to get to the bottom of Sandra’s disappearance.’

‘And you think she’s still alive?’ Tom probed. ‘I’m sorry, but I obviously have to ask that.’

‘Aye, I do, for what that’s worth. Call it a feeling, call it pig-headedness but I firmly believe Sandra is alive. She’s out there somewhere. If she wasn’t, we’d have found her body by now.’

Not necessarily, thought Tom, but he wasn’t going to share that notion with her father. ‘What makes you think I can succeed where the police couldn’t?’

‘I might be a politician but I don’t live in an ivory tower. We both know there are sections of society, whole communities even, that won’t talk to the police, no matter what’s at stake. I grew up in the west end of Newcastle and to a lot of people there, the police were the enemy. Now if someone out there knows something but they are into drugs or prostitution or Lord knows what then they aren’t going to talk to a detective … but they might talk to you.’

‘Why?’

‘Money,’ Jarvis said. ‘I haven’t got much but I have some and I’m prepared to part with it in return for information on the whereabouts of my daughter.’

‘Contacting a journalist wouldn’t be most people’s first port of call, so who else did you try – aside from the police, I mean?’

Jarvis seemed embarrassed then. ‘A private detective. He approached me and said he’d have her back within the month. I wanted to believe him but he got nowhere. Took me for a fool and took my money too.’

‘What makes you think I won’t do the same?’

‘Because I approached you, not the other way round, and you still haven’t said you even want the job.’

‘The police are going to pay me anyway,’ Tom told him, ‘from some fund they use for specialists and experts, though I am neither.’

‘Oh,’ said the councillor, ‘I didn’t realise that.’

‘You can thank your old friend DCI Kane.’

‘I will.’

‘What if I don’t find anything?’

‘Then we call a halt but I have a good feeling about you. Kane told me all about that body in the field and how you worked it out.’

‘I had help with that,’ Tom told him.

‘I know; a female reporter and one of Kane’s more …’ Jarvis seemed to be searching for a diplomatic phrase ‘… unconventional detectives. I’m happy for you to get help if you need it. I don’t care how you do it. Just help me get my daughter back. Please.’

Tom still wasn’t sure he could help Frank Jarvis but the man looked desperate.

‘Alright.’

‘Good man!’

Tom held up a hand. ‘I’ll ask around and see what I can uncover but it might not be much.’

‘I’m prepared to run that risk,’ Jarvis assured him. ‘So, when can you start?’

‘Now.’

The sun suddenly emerged from behind the dark clouds that had been threatening rain again but at the last moment decided against it. The allotment was bathed in bright sunshine and Tom noticed how big it was. Frank Jarvis had obviously spent a lot of time here since he stepped back from front-line politics.

‘Plenty to do on an allotment.’

‘Always,’ agreed Jarvis. ‘I’ve had one for years. Grown most of me own veg since then,’ he said proudly.

‘My dad used to have one.’ Tom surveyed Jarvis’s plot. ‘Isn’t it a bit high for growing stuff?’

‘The vegetables don’t seem to mind and my bit’s sheltered by the top of the slope. You should have said you were coming though,’ he told Tom. ‘I’d have met you at the house and saved you the bother of trailing up here.’

‘It’s no problem. I went to your house; your wife said you’d be here.’

‘Did she?’ He sounded doubtful.

‘Yeah,’ said Tom, ‘I met your mother-in-law too.’

‘Well,’ said the politician, ‘now you know why I have an allotment.’ And he did a little grimace. ‘No one can bother me up here, including her. If you got any sense out of Audrey you are a better man than me.’

‘I only spoke to her briefly but she did say one thing that puzzled me.’

‘And what was that?’

‘It was about your daughter,’ Tom informed him. ‘She said she was cuckoo.’

Jarvis snorted, ‘She can talk,’ then he turned serious again. ‘You would have thought her own grandmother might have been a bit kinder under the circumstances but she’s always been a malicious old bag that one.’

‘Why do you think she said it?’

‘I have no idea. There’s nothing wrong with my daughter’s mental health. She wasn’t depressed, mad or suicidal. You’re not going