Dead Wrong

The third book in the Sal Kilkenny series, 1998

For Mum and Dad – with love always

It never rains but it pours. Tell me about it. Everything had been quiet for weeks. So quiet I’d been reduced to serving injunctions and other papers for a solicitor – Rebecca Henderson of Platt, Henderson & Cockfoot. Yes, Cockfoot. Not exactly a drought of work but no more than a drizzle. Certainly not enough to top up the reservoirs of cash that I needed to keep myself and my daughter Maddie.

I hate delivering injunctions. It’s a thankless task. The people you’re finding don’t want to be found. And they definitely don’t want to receive the papers. I usually scarper as soon as they’ve got hold of the documents, before realisation dawns, but some of them cotton on quick and are all for shooting the messenger.

I’m a fully paid-up coward when it comes to physical or even verbal aggression. Not only does it hurt like hell and do nasty things to your body, but it messes up your soul too. Scars on the inside as well as the outside. I’ve had my share of assaults and I’ll do anything to reduce the risks of it happening again.

But despite my best intentions I’ve never been able to stick with regular self-defence classes. Life interrupts too often. My fallback position is to practise three simple moves whenever I remember – the knee to the balls, the fingers in the eyeballs, and the one to use when they’ve got you from behind: elbow in the ribs at the same time as you stamp hard on their feet. The follow-up to all of these is to run like mad.

Sometimes I take Digger, the house dog, with me for show. He’s the sort of dog who would lie patiently waiting for me while I was being ripped limb from limb, but I bank on the fact that you can’t tell that by looking. I have toyed with the idea of getting him one of those studded collars to beef up his image but I couldn’t do it. I mean, I wouldn’t be seen dead with a dog dressed like that. Undercover’s all very well but I’ve got to draw the line somewhere.

The night that the monsoon began, so to speak, Digger and I were after Mr Kearsal in Belle Vue. There’s not much of the old Belle Vue left, what with the East Manchester redevelopment. The dog track’s still there – people are still going to the dogs in Manchester – but as far as housing goes there’s just fragments left here and there, cut off from everything by the new wider roads and the barren industrial estates. Bleak places, shops and pubs long gone, they reek of neglect and isolation. Maybe they too are due for demolition, to be replaced by yet more superstores and petrol stations.

Number 53 was in the middle of the redbrick terrace. I parked a little way past it, checked I’d got the right envelope and reined in Digger. I left the car door open for a fast getaway.

The downstairs window was partly boarded up with wood on which someone had scrawled Cantona and Giggs – the kings in red. Someone else had scratched over this in black: Giggs sucks – Man City rule. Given that United had just won the Cup Final, while Manchester City had been relegated, this City fan’s analysis displayed an incredible triumph of hope over reality (no bad thing for anyone having to live round there).

I knocked on the door. There was no answer. It was a muggy June evening, the sky a sullen blank holding onto its rain. I could hear the television from a neighbouring house and a child crying. I knocked again. Where was he? Evenings and early mornings were usually the best time to catch people in, though if they were unemployed they weren’t best pleased to be woken up early by someone at the door. It was nearly seven; I’d timed it so if Mr Kearsal had any plans for going out that night, I’d be likely to get him before he left. I knocked again.

The door of the adjoining house opened and a woman stepped out. She’d short grey hair and glasses and wore a pinafore and mules straight out of the 1950s.

‘Can I help, love?’

‘I’m looking for Mr Kearsal,’ I explained.

She shook her head. ‘Not seen him about. Mind you, I don’t- these days. Not since, let’s think, last week sometime. You from the social work?’