Last Request

Haqib and Charlie appeared from the living room as Nikki knocked on the wall that adjoined her house and yelled. ‘You two, Auntie Anika’s got breakfast ready. Shift it.’

Faint yells of, ‘I’m starving’ and ‘Hope it’s a fry-up’ filtered through the walls and within seconds, Nikita’s younger two children, dressed in school uniforms, faces all rosy and clean, ran into the kitchen and plonked themselves down at the table, grabbing their cutlery and looking like they’d never been fed in their lives. As Nikki grabbed another slice of toast, she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. Pulling it out, she saw it was a text from her boss, DCI Archie Hegley. She circled the table to drop kisses on each of the kids’ heads in turn. ‘Work. Gotta run. Be good and, Charlie, change into trousers. Your skirt’s too damn short.’

Driving down Legram’s Lane in her clapped-out Zafira, windscreen wipers going like the clappers, Nikki wondered if she had transferred her wellies from the pool car back to her own. She had a sinking feeling she hadn’t. Every so often a drop of water landed on her head and Nikki cursed. She really needed to get a new car, but the kids seemed to have an endless stream of requests for stuff that was never free. The car would have to wait. A new drip splatted on her head, rolled down her forehead and landed on her nose. She wiped it off with her sleeve. Maybe after she’d done her Inspector’s exam and got a promotion, she could treat herself to a car that didn’t leak – or maybe she’d have to repair the leaky tap in the bathroom and the thermostat on the central heating and double-glaze the kitchen window before its old wooden frame rotted and released the pane.

After taking a right at Thornton Road, Nikki joined the trail of commuters. A few hundred yards and she could already see the telltale police vehicles and crime scene vans. She abruptly took advantage of a gap in the traffic and bounced her car onto the opposite kerb. Ignoring the hoots from cars travelling in the opposite direction, she got out and turned her collar up against the rain. Typical! Weeks without a suspicious death and then you choose the day when it’s pissing down to reveal yourself. She jogged the last few hundred yards, hoping the crime scene tent would be up and she could get some shelter.

Chapter 2

The Odeon building was all domed shapes and scaffolding. It dominated the landscape from City Park where it was situated next to the Alhambra. Work had recently begun on renovating the building with a view to making it a concert venue. Nikki hoped it would be a success. Bradford could do with the revenue a building like this could bring in. She had fond memories of visiting the cinema as a child with her mum and Anika and … but that was a thought for another day. She wasn’t going to go there.

The site behind the Odeon was a disused car park on Quebec Street facing a Cantonese restaurant that served the most delicious buffet Nikki had ever tasted and had occasional karaoke nights. Behind that was the Renault car dealership, outside which she’d parked her car. As she approached, she saw that the old car park and entry to Quebec Street was cordoned off with crime scene tape. Inside the taped area, a series of diggers and cement mixers had signed a deal with the weather to create a quagmire of khaki-coloured slime that looked as runny as slurry and smelled almost as bad.

‘There’s been a leakage,’ a drenched uniformed officer in a police-issue poncho informed her. Lowering his voice as if he feared a bevy of journos would appear in a puff of smoke to nab his quote, the officer added, ‘Sewage.’

You don’t say? Nikki took the proffered clipboard, signed herself into the crime scene and ducked under the tape. There were no stepping stones and the crime scene officers were busy, so Nikki took a moment to survey the area. Towering above the machinery, the green cupolas of the Odeon surrounded by its protective framework looked angry against the hovering rainclouds. Uniformed officers were dotted round the cordon, chatting to passers-by and drinking coffee from takeaway cups. The crime scene van, back doors open, had parked inside the cordon, as close as possible to the site. A few builders in yellow hats and T-shirts and high-vis tabards hovered near the edges. One of the men was talking to a figure in white that Nikki assumed to be Gracie Fells, the crime scene boss. She’d just decided that there was no option but for her to brave the swamp and join them when a hand on her shoulder made her jump. Shrugging it off, she swung round, a sharp retort on her lips. It was Detective Constable Sajid Malik. ‘Fuck’s sake. What you playing at?’

She glared up at the six-foot-two officer, who held his palms up in a placating gesture. Dark gelled hair was splattered across his forehead, with rain pouring down his aquiline nose and dripping off the end. Not right that even in the pissing rain he could look so bloody handsome. Pity he knew it too.

‘Sorry, Nik. Thought you heard me approach.’

Nikki doubted that was true. Saj was nothing if not an annoying little, or rather, big shit who would take great delight in making her jump. But now wasn’t the time to address that. ‘What we got?’

‘Not sure, think the builders found summat.’

‘Duh, you don’t say?’ Nikki belted him sharply on the arm. ‘For God’s sake get a move on, Saj. Let’s see what we got.’

With a quick glance down at her shiny DMs, Nikki stepped into the slurry, ignoring the grin that the DC sent in her direction. Trust him to have his wellies with him. Maybe she’d just have to make sure she splashed a bit of muck on the trousers of his too-bloody-suave suit as she traipsed to the scene. The sludge was like walking through quicksand. Not that Nikki had ever walked through quicksand but, hey – she had an imagination, didn’t she? The rain dribbled down the back of her neck and she wished she’d had the foresight to grab her parka before she left home. Sajid of course was in an ultra-smart raincoat – probably Armani as opposed to her Primani.

Shoving her fists into the pockets of her jacket, she squelched forward, Sajid following behind, like they were on a bloody bear hunt or something. Nikki saw that at last they’d managed to erect a tent. God only knew how that was going to stay upright in this weather. On reaching it, Nikki stuck her head in. ‘Boiler suits? One small, one extra-extra-large with a doubly big hood for Sajid’s over-inflated head.’

Gracie laughed and gestured to a lidded plastic box that stood by the tent flap. ‘Help yourself. Not that I think it’ll do any good. Doubt we’ll find owt forensically usable in this weather. Bloody crime scene nightmare, this is. Body’s in that hole there.’

The hole was about four foot by four – a little shorter than a grave and a little wider. Rivulets of mucky water seemed to be forging into the hole from all directions. That would be a problem for the crime scene techs. A criss-cross of muddy boot prints were rapidly being filled by the rivulets pouring towards the hole.

Gracie grimaced. ‘It’s on a slope – gonna be a nightmare to contain the water. We’ll need to keep everything we drain just in case there’s any evidence. Bloody weather!’

Nikki felt something soft slap her back and turned to see Sajid had thrown a suit to her. ‘Hobbit size – just for you.’

‘Yeah, Troll size for you then or Orc – whichever’s the biggest and ugliest.’

Even before they’d managed to struggle into their suits, Nikki’s was damp with mucky streaks all over the legs. A quick glance told her that, as expected, Sajid had managed to get his on over his dirty wellies and still had only a little bit of muck around the ankles. The man was a bloody contortionist. How the hell could he do that?

As Nikki took a couple of steps towards the hole, Gracie grabbed her arm. ‘It’s slippy. We’re not sure if the sides are going to hold. Don’t get too close.’

Heeding her warning, Nikki stood her ground, but leaned forward and peered into the rapidly filling cavity. Inside she could see the telltale shape of a skull and what might have been an arm, sticking out. ‘It’s a skeleton.’

‘Nobody tell you that? The bloke who found it did say that when he phoned it in.’

Nikki wasn’t surprised that a key detail like that hadn’t made its way to her ears. ‘Who’ve you called?’

‘Langley Campbell’s on his way.’

Beside her, Nikki sensed Sajid tense and then a voice said, ‘No, he’s not, he’s here.’

Nikki turned around to see the pathologist shimmy through the opening, already wearing a Tyvek suit and carrying his bag of tools. Sajid shuffled his feet and edged behind Nikki, avoiding Langley. Ignoring Sajid’s rudeness, Nikki smiled at the pathologist. ‘Don’t think this’ll be yours for long, Langley. It’s a skeleton and it looks like it’s been there for ages. What do you think?’

Langley edged as close to the hole as he could, peered over and then exhaled. ‘Got owt to put down over this bog, Gracie? I’ll lie on my stomach – get a better look that way.’

Gracie and one of her team, with Sajid and Nikki’s help, managed to slide a plastic sheet over the mud and Langley knelt on it before stretching his body along the sheet so he could examine inside. ‘Hold my feet, someone. Last thing I want is to slide into this morass.’

Nikki nudged Sajid, who reluctantly leaned over and held on with his huge hands circling the pathologist’s ankles whilst everyone else waited for Langley’s opinion.

‘Look, visibility is rubbish. But there’s a huge crack in that skull – whether it’s peri or post-mortem, I can’t say for sure yet. But I can tell you that the skull looks to have been there for at least ten years and it’s human and I can see metacarpal bones, an ulna and a radius. You’ll be needing to get in a forensic anthropologist.’

Nikki uttered a silent, ‘Yeah!’ to herself. Thank God! This one was someone else’s business, not hers. They had a cold case team for this sort of thing and she’d be happy to hand this over. She had more important things to deal with on the Listerhill Estate and a decade-old murder, for that’s what it surely must be, wasn’t going to detract from her little discussion with Deano Gilmartin.

Chapter 3

Who’d have thought it? For years they’d been banging on about doing up the Odeon. Years! Now they’ve finally started – and I’ve been waiting, wondering when they’d get round to that car park. Wondering how far down they’d dig, how far they’d need to go. Some days I convinced myself they’d leave the foundations – the ones they put in fifteen years ago. Other days I was certain that they’d pull the lot up. Made sense really. They’d need to go deep if they were going to extend their plumbing and their electrics – stood to reason, didn’t it?

It’s been grand watching them, waiting to see when they’d hit gold. When they started near the building, I knew who they’d find. I nearly pissed myself though when I saw who rolled up from the constabulary. Couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried. Nikita Parekh! I’ve seen her loads over the years. ’Course I have. Bradford’s not that big a place and of course, she hit the news a few years ago. Got her that jammy promotion on the back of it.

They all mouth off about the Yorkshire Ripper and the Crossbow Cannibal, but they’re amateurs compared to me – abject amateurs. How fucking sick of them to go for women – prostitutes. Disgusting really. Sexual motivation makes me sick, makes me want to vomit. I can feel the hatred surging in my stomach. I knew a man like that once but he’s where he belongs now If you’re gonna rid the world of scum, make it the right sort, eh? Them that deserve it – not just so you can get your rocks off.

Wonder when they’ll realise though. Wonder when they’ll expand their horrid little narrow minds and see what’s really going on here. Don’t think I’ve owt to worry about for now. Don’t think they’ve got the brains. They’ve already let one slip through the crack – bet they’ll do the same this time. They’ve got no imagination, that’s their problem – no imagination at all.

Chapter 4

Listerhills was a strange estate. A combination of terraced houses backing onto one another and worn cobbled alleyways like moats winding between them. Running at either end, like the top and bottom strokes of a capital I, were two Seventies-style ex-council-housing estates. As a whole, the area was known as Listerhills despite the fact there wasn’t a hill in sight and Lister – presumably he of Lister woollen mills fame, Samuel Lister – was long dead. What made Listerhills so notable was that unlike many of the Bradford estates, it was a hotchpotch of races and cultures. Bordering the university and being within spitting distance of the city centre, it was unique. In Bradford, the word estate was often considered a mucky word. Nikki hated it. Folk used it as an insult and, once branded an estate kid, it was a difficult label to shift.

Nikki often wondered which jackass had thought that nobody would notice that Listerhills was missing a botanical garden, a boat pond, a pavilion and a manor house, when they’d categorised it an estate. Did they think snotty-nosed kids forced by economics and unemployment into wearing wellies in summer and sandals in winter would grow up to have high aspirations? Nikki snorted. Who was she kidding? That was her childhood, these kids faced other challenges. Poverty only changed its face, it never went away.

She stood on the corner of Lister’s Front Terrace, leaning against the wall, waiting for Deano to emerge from his mother’s house on Lister’s Avenue. In the shadows, she was barely visible, although the flicker of lights in the houses opposite kept her company. The rain had persisted throughout the day and it seemed that most people had been driven indoors for the road was almost deserted. Cars lined the streets, half of them mounting the kerbs, and standing like sentries along the pavements were a series of wheelie bins. Must remember to put the bins out tonight. On a different day, Nikki would have got out her supply of police notices, to tell people to park properly. Not that it did any good. Within days, they’d be back to their old tricks, blocking the pavements making it impossible for wheelchair users or mums with pushchairs to pass. She’d swapped her leather jacket for a parka and had replaced her mud-soaked Doc Martins for her old pair. She reckoned she’d be lucky to salvage them, but she’d bunged them in the washing machine on a quick low-temp wash, in the hope that she might be able to eke out a few months of wear in them.

Even from across the road she could hear the TV from Deano’s house. Anywhere else there’d be a noise complaint within minutes, but not here and definitely not now Deano was back. Deano’s house was like a cold sore between two perfectly manicured premises. The gate was hanging off its hinges and someone had wrapped a rope round it in an attempt to stop it clattering to the pavement. The garden was more weeds than flowers with an old sofa, its arse hanging out as if it had evacuated a volcano of yellowing foam from its innards. Three old crates, two burst black bin bags and a broken coffee table completed the ensemble. Deano’s wheelie bin lay on its back, lid half detached, and with the house number 38 scrawled across it in black paint. An enormous tabby cat sat on the windowsill observing the proceedings indoors like some sort of feline Gogglebox character.

As she waited, Nikki scrolled through her texts. One from Charlie saying she needed twenty quid for some school trip or other and five, no six texts from Marcus. She responded to Charlie’s, telling her to tidy her room and help the younger two with their homework and maybe she’d consider it. The others she deleted, squashing the pang of guilt that she was becoming more and more used to of late. Marcus sensed she was pulling away and she knew she was. The one thing she didn’t know was why. And that was something she’d analyse sometime in the future when hell froze over.

If the little rat didn’t come out soon, she’d be forced to head over and knock on the door. Last thing she wanted, though, was to stress Margo out. Poor woman had enough on her plate with an abusive husband and now her runt of a son was back. If Nikki turned up on her doorstep, she could guarantee that Margo would be sporting a black eye at the very least, next time she saw her. No, best to get Deano on his own and exert her own kind of threat if his mum got hurt.

The cat stretched its front paws out on the windowsill and yawned. The roof overhang was keeping him dry, unlike Nikki who was beginning to feel like a damn fish. The door clattered open, sending the cat in a yowl of meows skittering over the rubbish and into the next-door neighbour’s garden. Deano, all five-foot-one of sheer unadulterated nastiness, hunched over on the doorstep, lighting his cig. He took a few hard drags before stepping out into the rain, designer hoodie pulled up over his shaved head so that the swastika at his left temple was covered. Nikki was familiar with the artwork on his arm as well: a St George’s cross with the slogan Pakis Out underneath. What made it worse was that the stupid arse was half-Pakistani himself.

When he was younger – hell, he was only 18 now – she’d wondered if his stunted growth had made him a victim. If it was the bullying that had pushed him to the dark side. Now, though, she didn’t care. She just wanted him and his puppet master, Franco McNally, off her estate.

He walked down the path, phone held to his ear. ‘Come on, Kayleigh. For fuck’s sake pick up, will you? Need to know you’re okay.’

He flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the neighbour’s garden and kicked the gate, before dragging it open. It grated against the cement slabs as he walked onto the street, with a quick glance up and down the road.

Watching with interest, Nikki wondered who this ‘Kayleigh’ was, who was causing Deano such stress. If she ever met her, she’d be sure to buy the girl a drink. Stepping forward into the gleam cast by the streetlights, Nikki waited. He stopped, lit another fag, took a quick puff and then, using his thumb and index finger, he flicked it through the drizzle, to land in the gutter in a flicker of orange embers. ‘Aw for fuck’s sake. If it isn’t piggy, piggy, oink, oink.’

‘That the best you got, Deano? Losing your touch?’ She crossed the road, one hand stuffed in her pocket and gestured for him to walk with her. At five-foot-two, Nikki just topped the lad by an inch, but the way he walked, the way he held himself, still had her wary of him. She’d turned her back on him to show him she wasn’t cowed by him, but her entire body was on alert, her shoulders tensed, ears straining for any rush of activity behind her. Inside her pocket she gripped her Mace. In the other hand her car keys protruded from her knuckles ready to blind the little bastard if he chanced his luck. It was the only way to go with thugs like Deano. In fact, it was that same attitude that had earned Deano his reputation. His inability to back down, the way he bulked his small frame up to its maximum – Nikki used the same strategies in her professional life. It was the only way she knew to survive. Sometimes she wondered if she had that same look in her eyes too. The one that made people quickly glance away and cross the road. The one that looked like his soul had been ripped out through his throat and all that was left was a mulch of dark, bloody gore. ‘Having girlfriend trouble, are we?’

‘Eh?’

‘Kayleigh? Giving you a hard time, is she?’

Glancing round, Deano hesitated and then fell into step beside her. ‘You stalking me now, Parekh? Got an obsession with me, eh? Want a bit of my meat, do you?’ He thrust his hips out and cupped his groin with his hand as he walked.

‘Your meat still come with a side helping of chlamydia and crabs, does it? Think I’ll pass, if it’s all the same.’

At the end of the road, she stopped and leaned against the post box that stood on the corner. Cars drove by, their headlights sweeping past them, bouncing off the puddles and sending up a thin spray of water as they passed. On the opposite side of the road a Chicken Cottage was doing a roaring trade and Deano, if his glances in that direction were anything to go by, had been heading there.

‘Say what you gotta say and then fuck off back to your pigsty.’

‘Oh, Deano, Deano, Deano … originality isn’t your strong suit is it?’

‘Eh?’

‘Thing is, you’re not welcome here.’ Her tone was conversational, tired, bored almost. As if she couldn’t quite bring herself to be overly concerned with him. Of course, it was all an act. A squirm of emotions, like maggots on gone-off meat, wriggled inside her chest. Deano was only a kid, yet he was toxic and she would never forgive him for the things he was responsible for. Never. His presence on her estate was a scab that she couldn’t avoid picking.

‘Just visiting me mum. Nowt wrong wi’ that.’

Nikki shook her head and took a deliberate step forward to invade his space. A glance over the road told her Sajid was parked up in his car, as arranged. She relaxed a fraction. Not even Deano would knife a police officer in full view of CCTV and, if he did, Sajid would have him within seconds. ‘Thing is, Deano. That’s where you’re wrong. You being here puts Margo in danger.’

‘Humph, I’ve never hurt me mum.’

‘No, you haven’t, but your stepdad has. He doesn’t like you, does he, Deano? What with you being of dual heritage and all.’

In the streetlights, she saw his face flush, then his bottom lip curled, eyes darkening. Her grip on her Mace tightened and she released her keys from her other hand and pulled her hood down. Sajid would recognise her prearranged signal and be on high alert.

‘I’m not a fucking Paki – not like you, Parekh.’

‘Not sure your stepdad sees it that way, but hey ho, that’s neither here nor there. He’ll take it out on your mum and you know it. So, you need to shimmy back under whatever rock you’ve been living under and stay there. We had a deal, remember?’

‘You can’t make me go. This is my home.’

Nikki took another step forward, her chin jutted up, her face distorted in a scowl that betrayed her feelings. ‘You are a poison that we don’t need here. You will go. And you’ll go tonight. Tell Franco we won’t accommodate him here. Not then, not now and not ever.’

Bluster fading, Deano stepped back off the kerb, landing in a puddle, with a ‘For fuck’s sake.’ He jumped back onto the pavement, his mouth open in a snarl. ‘You can’t do this to me, Parekh. You just fucking can’t. I can’t move till Franco says.’

Nikki stepped back and twisted her mouth into a smile. ‘’Course I can. You know I can. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you just forgot what I have on you, eh?’

Deano kicked the post box. ‘He’ll kill me. Franco will kill me.’

‘Really? And I care about that because …?’

‘Give us a break.’

‘No bloody way. You had your chance. You blew it when you brought ecstasy and MDMA to our streets. Then you did something even more stupid when you double-crossed Franco. Wonder what he’d do if he found out you’d been skimming off the top, eh? So …’ Nikki smiled. ‘You pay the price. Get off my fucking estate and take your drug-dealing boss with you. This is non-negotiable.’

She turned to cross the road, pulling her hood back up over her sleek dark-brown hair, then, as if in afterthought, she turned back. ‘Or of course I could make sure that package is delivered. Up to you, Deano. Up to you.’

Chapter 5

‘Why do we always need to come here?’ Sajid waved two fingers in the air signalling to Gordon, the owner, that they’d have their usual and followed Nikki over to a booth with worn but clean seating. Nikki grinned. He said this every time they came to The Mannville Arms, but the truth was he loved it – Saj just liked to moan.

The gleam from its buffed wooden walls caught the light from the vintage glass lamp that cast a yellow hue over the equally well-polished table. The faint smell of beeswax contributed to the old-fashioned feel of the pub. Nikki slid into the side facing the doorway. ‘You know you like it here. So stop moaning. It’s one of the few pubs left in Bradford where you can get real ales.’