Far From the Tree by Rob Parker

Author:Rob Parker [Parker, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781913331856
Publisher: Red Dog Press/Bloodhound Books

28

Brendan had grabbed an extra-large Starbucks coffee and a bacon and cheese bagel on his way to the M62. On the other side of the motorway, it was jammed going into Manchester, but on his side of the carriageway, heading towards Liverpool, it was almost breezy.

That was the thing about Warrington – you were only ever twenty minutes away from either city, traffic allowing.

The sport chat radio station he usually liked to listen to interrupted its regular programming to bring the breaking news that two suspects had been identified by Detective Chief Inspector Wainwright of Warrington Police. Listeners were being urged to visit the station's website, Twitter and Facebook pages for pictures of the suspects, and the announcer reeled off the number to call to share information anonymously.

Brendan couldn’t believe Wainwright would be so stupid, and he toyed with calling Madison ahead of schedule for an update. After a sip of cold coffee, he decided to keep his powder dry on that one – he had something they didn’t. He had a name, and on top of that? Some scant childhood memories on which to build a bigger picture.

He’d racked his brains overnight, clawing at the tattered edges of his memory, pulling back anything about this man Mal he could remember. In the end it wasn't memory that jogged something loose – it was something in the picture itself that he had missed. And it was all down to a bit of manspreading.

They’d laughed about it, himself and his CID unit, when Madison asked whether it was a real thing or a subconscious territorial power play. Christopher had then come out with the immortal line: You try sitting in a hot meeting room with a sweaty, itchy clutch purse dangling between your legs.

In the photograph, Mal’s choice of posture looked animalistic and territorial – his legs were splayed apart so that you could clearly see what was on the floor under the chair. A Liverpool Football Club cap. It triggered a memory that one of Art Foley’s friends was an avid Liverpool fan who had a knock-off souvenir shop somewhere in Bootle. Brendan pored over his recollections of the man, looking for anything in his memory to add to the picture, arriving at one brief exchange. In 1992, when Liverpool won the FA Cup against Sunderland, Art had promised his kids tickets through the guy with the scarf shop, although they never materialised. Now, Brendan was convinced that the man he was thinking of was the man in the photo – Mal.

He took Edge Lane as far as Low Hill, turning right in front of the new hospital, then dropping down past the central library to angle through Vauxhall to Bootle, just north of the city centre. Before long, he had the docks all along his left-hand side, with the Irish Sea just beyond. Warehouse after warehouse, with a number of shiny car dealerships, his view constantly interrupted by the lorries that were everywhere. It was a hub of import and export.

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