“When was that?” Thackeray asked, his eyes sharpening. “Before the twins were born or after?”

Wilson screwed up his face as if in pain and allowed Thackeray to refill his pint glass at the bar before he came up with a reply. He took a long pull at his drink.

“After they arrived, I reckon. I remember her being pregnant. Like a barrel, she were. But not this time. She had one of them slinky trouser suits on, tight fit, belly button on show, all that. Back to normal, you might say. Looked as if she’d been shopping. It must have been after t’kids were born. It’s not that long ago.”

“And that’s the last time you saw her?”

Wilson nodded.

“I want you to ask around and see if anyone else has seen Karen - or the babies - since then,” Thackeray said. Wilson turned his glass on the wet ring it had made on the table and looked dubious.

“Ask around who, Mr. Thackeray?” he asked. “They’ll think I’m soft in t’head. Why would I be asking around after Barry’s tart? Me, of all people?”

“Keep it casual,” Thackeray said. “The women in the office always know what’s going on with the boss’s love life. Keep your ears open and see what you can pick up. The girls’ll trust you, won’t they? I want to know if Karen was seen in Bradfield later than that row over the credit card. OK?”

“Summat in it for me, then, is there?” Wilson avoided Thackeray’s eyes and his voice took on a whining note.

“You’ve had all you’ll get out of me,” Thackeray said, getting to his feet. “Call me on my mobile if you hear anything of interest.” He scribbled the number on a beer mat and thrust it towards Wilson. “I’ve not forgotten Malcolm, Stanley, even if you have.”

Wilson watched Thackeray as he walked swiftly towards the door.

“Fuck you,” he said softly under his breath, but he put the mat in his pocket just the same.

Glancing into the main CID office on his way back to his desk, Thackeray’s attention was caught by a flushed looking DC Mohammed Sharif standing by Val Ridley’s desk. Ridley caught his eye.

“You decided to close it then,” she said.

“Close what?”

“The Carib Club. It’s all over the Gazette. Didn’t you know, boss?” Sharif said triumphantly.

Thackeray glanced at the paper Val pushed in his direction and soon picked up the same triumphant note in Bob Baker’s story, in which Grantley Adams and the imam at the local mosque vied for the credit of closing down the den of iniquity on Chapel Street. His face tightened but he said nothing as he finished with the paper and folded it neatly.

“Can I borrow this?” he asked.

“Sure,” Val said. “I hear uniform isn’t very pleased. Reckon it’ll cause more trouble than it prevents.”

“They should be pleased there’s one less source of drugs in town,” Sharif said. “D’you want us to follow up on the DJ, Sanderson, boss? He has to be dealing. I can smell it.”

“It could just be that your sense of smell’s a bit off,” Thackeray said. “And that could worry me a lot, Omar.”

Thackeray went upstairs to Superintendent Jack Longley’s office and barely waited for the secretary to clear his visit before pushing open the door.

“I see we went ahead with closing down the Carib,” he said, dropping the newspaper with its banner headline in front of Longley. “The drug squad’s charged someone, have they?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Longley said. “It’s a voluntary move. And temporary. Let’s just say that they were persuaded, shall we? Seven days peace and quiet while things calm down.”

“Whose idea was that, then?”

“Mine, as it goes,” Longley said tetchily. “We’ve interviews to complete. And I want the place searched thoroughly. Sniffer dogs in, the lot.”

“And you want Adams off your back.”

“Amongst others,” Longley admitted. “But he’s not the only one. As far as I can see the only person who wants the place kept open is Barry Foreman, and that’s only because there.”

“A bit like asking the fox to mind the hen-house,” Thackeray said.

Longley looked at the DCI and wondered how far he was beginning to let his prejudices cloud his judgement.

“Aye, well, I’ve told you what I think about that,” he said, mildly enough. “It’s evidence you need.”

Thackeray looked at his boss’s bland expression for a moment, wondering whether to share his worries about Karen Bailey and her children but at a loss to summon up a single concrete piece of evidence for his fears so he decided against it.

“He’ll trip up eventually,” he said.

“Maybe.”

“I’ll guarantee it,” Thackeray said.

Chapter Ten

Kevin Mower leaned across the boy at the computer screen, a burly youth in dark tracksuit and baseball cap, and flicked a key.

“Use the spell-check,” he said. “Look, it brings up the underlined word and suggests the correct spelling.”

“Oh, yeah,” the boy muttered, evidently astonished by the power of the technology. “If we’ad this at school I mighta’ got me GCSEs. It were the writing and spelling that did for me every time.”

“Everyone uses word-processors now,” Mower said. “If you can get to grips with this you’ll find it much easier. Then you can do a course at the college if you want to later on.”

“They won’t tek me at t′college,” the boy said, successfully replacing Hites with Heights.

“Of course they will if you put in a bit of practice here,” Mower said cheerfully. The boy shrugged uncertainly.

“Mebbe,” he said, but he returned to the slow jabbing at the keys which Mower had interrupted with a dogged determination which few of the Project’s clients had showed when they tentatively sidled in through the doors. Mower glanced across the room at Donna who was helping a tall black girl at another keyboard. Their eyes met and Mower smiled faintly. It was a long time since he had experienced the satisfaction that he gained from helping these kids on the Heights, and he had begun to wonder whether this was not a road he might be persuaded to follow. It seemed to him it might be more productive than helping to dump them in the crime schools which passed by the name of young offenders institutions.

At that moment the door opened and the dreadlocked head of Dizzy B Sanderson appeared in the gap. A ripple of excitement ran round the young people at the computers but Mower quickly ushered the visitor out into the reception area.

“He’ll be here to talk to you when you break for lunch,” he said to the class. “I won’t let him go away.”

Dizzy flung himself into one of the dilapidated armchairs from which the smears of red paint had been more or less removed and sighed dramatically.

“This town does my head in, man,” he said. “You heard about the club being closed down?”

Mower nodded.

“I read about it in the Gazette,” he said. “It seems a bit drastic.”

“Some copper came over all heavy, persuaded Darryl to volunteer to close for a week.”

“D’you know who the copper was?” Mower asked cautiously.

“Some guy in uniform. Not one of your lot. But Darryl says he’d got the whole thing sussed - new people on the doors, some local firm that does most of the clubs round here.”

“Barry Foreman’s mob?”

“That’s the one.”

“I’ve come across Foreman before. A nasty bit of work, if you ask me. I reckon if he’s helping your mate Darryl out there must be something in it for him,” Mower said.

“Protection, you mean? Is he into that?”

“I don’t think we’re sure what he’s into, though my boss is convinced there’s a drug connection. But we’ve no evidence. As far as we know he does doors, does some secure deliveries, that sort of thing. I’ve no doubt we’ll have his lads patrolling the streets up here before long if all this new stuff goes through. Then we’ll see whose side he’s on.”

“Yeah, well Darryl seemed happy enough with him. Anyway, it’s all safe and sorted, and then the Old Bill comes on all heavy anyway. As Darryl hears it, those kids got their Es in some pub, nowhere near the Carib at all. I saw no one dealing that night and I get a good view of what’s going on round the dance floor. There was some dope. You could smell that. But I didn’t see anyone selling anything stronger. They’ve got no grounds to close the place. But the local rag’s running this campaign, stirring things up, and they don’t want to know when Darryl wants to say his piece. Don’t want a few facts to get in the way of a good story.”