To the Grave by John Barlow

Author:John Barlow [Barlow, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2022-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

36

Ten minutes later the van came to a stop on a street of old terraced houses. They were small and narrow, their doors giving directly onto the pavement. A couple of them were boarded up, and there weren’t many cars about. They’d passed a several shops on the way, all with heavy security grilles, plus a pub on the corner that looked like it’d been closed a good few years.

‘Wish parking were this easy in Leeds,’ Rita said. ‘Old mining village?’

Joe nodded.

Three houses ahead of them the van’s lights went out. A dozen people emerged and trooped through the front door of the nearest house, heads down. The last of them was the driver. He locked the van and went in after them, not so much as casting a glance back at the car which had quite clearly been following them all the way from the farm.

‘Left to rot,’ Joe said, ‘like you leave an old wheelbarrow in the garden. The pits closed, and places like this were abandoned. Everybody in ’em, too. Meanwhile, up in Bilton there’s folk arriving in Ferraris and helicopters to play golf.’ He opened his door. ‘Two worlds. And to think Ana Dobrescu had a foot in both.’

‘Yeah, well I’d gladly take a piss in either.’

They knocked on the uPVC door. A crack ran from top to bottom on the hinge side, repaired with several layers of brown duct tape. They waited. Knocked again. It took a while, but finally the door opened an inch or two. A pair of large eyes peered out. Young eyes, but sunken, the skin around them somewhere between olive and a dusty brown.

Joe held up his warrant card, went through the routine.

The door eased open a little more to reveal the face of a young woman. Her complexion was dull, the skin pulled tight over the features of a strange, asymmetrical face. She was nervous, but her expression was edged with curiosity as she looked past Joe.

‘I’ll tell you what, love,’ Rita said, shoving him to one side as delicately as she could, which was a bit like a Leeds Rhinos prop having a go at ballet dancing. ‘I really need the toilet. Toilet? Can I use your bathroom? Please, love? Busting here!’

They were ushered inside.

‘I’m police, too,’ she said brandishing her warrant card. ‘Rita. My name’s Rita. What’s your name?’

A pause.

‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’

‘Sabina,’ the young woman said, pointing towards the stairs, which were bare wood, half a dozen of them replaced with chipboard, the banister missing many of its uprights.

Rita sprinted upstairs, leaving Joe there in the hall.

‘We need to ask a few questions,’ he said, shifting on his feet, the carpet close to the doorframe damp and spongy underfoot.

Sabina’s head was shaking. She made a vague gesture behind her.

‘Through here?’ he asked, indicating the first of two doors.

Small terraces like these often had the two ground-floor rooms knocked through, but probably not this one, Joe thought. The other room would be a bedroom. He’d lived in

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