Twenty-Nine
Xiu had known, of course, that the parameters of this particular operation would involve dragging Miller out of his comfort zone. She hadn’t expected any literal kicking and screaming, but neither had she foreseen that the literal moaning would have started quite so quickly.
‘We could have been in there ages ago,’ he said.
‘You keep saying that.’
‘Yeah, because we could have.’
Miller had begun complaining as soon as he’d arrived to meet Xiu outside the King’s Head.
She’d suggested that they rendezvous half an hour before the doors opened, and even though he’d insisted that was stupidly early, a sizeable queue was already snaking around the corner by the time he’d got there; a queue – consisting largely of middle-aged men dressed almost exclusively in heavily studded denim and leather – in which Miller and Xiu had now been standing for the best part of forty-five minutes.
‘We could’ve been getting stuck into our second drink by now.
’ He shuffled a couple of steps forward, turned to Xiu and lowered his voice.
‘We are going to drink, aren’t we? Yes, I know we’re on duty, but we need to blend in, and I should imagine that metalheads put a fair amount of booze away on a night out. Cider or snakebite or what have you.’
‘We’re nearly there,’ Xiu hissed, nodding towards the entrance. ‘And yes, we can drink. We should probably stick to just the one, though.’
‘One?’
‘You can eke it out.’
Miller sighed, like a petulant teenager. ‘I still don’t know why we didn’t just march up to the front of the queue and flash our warrant cards.’
Xiu turned to stare hard at him, the twitch around her right eye increasingly evident as she leaned in and whispered, ‘Like you said, we’re on duty. I don’t think queue-jumping and waving warrant cards around would be anybody’s idea of skilled undercover work, do you?’
‘OK, you’ve made your point,’ Miller said.
‘That’s what I’d expect from the likes of Tony Clough.’
‘Now you’re just being nasty.’
‘Oh yes, while I remember. Your “tits on a fish” remark …’
‘This should be interesting.’
‘No, fish do not have “tits” as such, but they do in fact produce a milk substitute.’
‘Do they now?’
‘I just told you they do. It’s actually a highly nutritious mucus.’
‘Yum.’
‘I thought you should know,’ Xiu said. They moved a few steps closer to the door. ‘It’s never too late to learn something.’
Five minutes later they had reached the doors, their way barred only by a bouncer who looked as though he’d been supplied by central casting.
He stood there sniffing like a cokehead and chewing like some hard-case – gum or sweets or possibly even small rocks – then nodded at Xiu, having clearly recognised her from previous metal nights.
He rolled his head around on his thick neck and held out his hand for their tickets, but all Xiu had to show him was the warrant card secreted in her palm.
‘Oh.’ He looked at her again, more closely this time. ‘That’s a surprise.’
‘You could help us out actually,’ Xiu said. ‘Just keep an eye on the crowd in here tonight, will you?’
‘Always do,’ he said.
‘Let us know if you see anyone who looks like they don’t really fit in.’
The bouncer nodded at Miller. ‘Well, there’s him for a start.’
Miller smiled thinly, his first thought being that the bouncer should stick to casual brutality and keep his opinions to himself. His second thought was simply a wish that he still had a bag full of fresh dog shit to hand.
The upstairs room was rammed. The crowd at the small bar was three or four deep, so Miller doubted he’d have had time to get more than one drink even if Xiu hadn’t already made her thoughts on the matter perfectly clear.
‘It’ll get even busier later on,’ she said. ‘A lot of people don’t turn up until the support band’s finished.’
‘Support band?’ Miller clicked immediately back into petulant teenager mode. ‘You mean I’ve got to put up with two of them?’
‘It’s actually a top-notch bill tonight.’
Miller snatched the cheaply produced flyer that Xiu was brandishing.
A cursory look told him that the main event would be taking the form of a Blackpool debut for the tastefully named NunKillaz who – according to the blurb on the flyer – were rising stars on the Lytham St Annes death-metal scene.
Before that, Miller would have no choice but to endure the 100-decibel delights of ‘local favourites’ Drink the Sickbag.
He turned back to Xiu, ready to start moaning again, but she’d gone.
They had been standing in a corner and, in an effort to avoid getting trapped there, Xiu had moved off and begun pushing her way through the crowd.
Once Miller had caught her eye, she signalled to him that they should meet up again on the far side of the room in fifteen minutes.
This would give each of them time to scope out a few of the punters; perhaps even ID a few possible suspects.
It seemed like a reasonable plan.
A quarter of an hour later, they reconvened as agreed, and it was clear that the fatal flaw in Xiu’s plan had become quickly obvious to both of them.
‘We’re looking for blokes who, at least broadly, match Sania Malik’s description, right?’ Miller nodded towards the dozens who were still queuing at the bar. ‘But none of the blokes in here are bald. Or if they are …’
‘Oh, some of them definitely are,’ Xiu said.
‘Seriously?’ He saw Xiu start to nod, looking more than a little sheepish, and turned to study the suspiciously luxuriant tresses of several metalheads standing nearby.
‘OK, yeah a couple of them look like they might be wearing wigs, but it’s not like we can just grab their hair and give it a tug, is it? ’
‘It’s like this every week,’ Xiu said. ‘Actually, the wigs are more like costumes than disguises, because there’s always an element of … dressing-up. It’s the same as when people go to see The Rocky Horror Show.’
‘Don’t tell me some of them are wearing suspenders as well,’ Miller said.
‘I feel stupid,’ Xiu said. ‘I should have realised it would be a waste of time, especially as I’ve been caught out by the whole … wig thing before.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘I’d rather not talk about it.’
Xiu should have known better than to say that, because now Miller could not resist talking about it. ‘So, what … you took someone home who had hair like Slash from Guns N’ Roses and then you woke up next to someone who looked like the bloke out of Right Said Fred?’
Xiu refused to make eye contact with him.
‘That must have been deeply traumatising,’ Miller said. ‘Was he too sexy for his wig?’
Xiu waited a few seconds to be sure that he’d finished. ‘So, we might as well leave, don’t you think?’
‘Don’t be daft. I can’t pretend the whole “bald” thing isn’t a setback, but it might still be worth sticking around for a bit. You never know, we might spot something.’
‘OK … if you’re sure.’
‘I’ve got bugger all else to do,’ Miller said. ‘Besides which, I’ve taken the trouble to dress up like this, so there’s no way I’m leaving without downing at least one pint of snakebite.’
‘I’ll go to the bar,’ Xiu said.
As Xiu was swallowed up by the crowd, the lights dimmed to indicate that Sickbag were about to kick off the evening’s proceedings.
Miller dug quickly into the pockets of his flared and faded jeans, as four hairy and profusely tattooed individuals shambled on to the stage.
The guitarist and the bass player plugged in while the bare-chested drummer took a healthy swig from a bottle of Jack Daniels.
The lead singer – whose hairstyle was one Miller had last seen in a Cher video from the late eighties – eyeballed the crowd for a few seconds, then screamed over a wail of feedback, ‘Are you ready for the METAAAAL?’
Several people cheered and a few did that weird ‘devil horn’ hand gesture, to indicate that they were indeed more than ready.
‘Because this is Blackpool rock … one-two-three-f—’
Thankfully, Miller had just managed to insert the second earplug by the time the band started their first number. The earplugs helped, certainly, but Miller still felt like his skull could shatter at any moment as he walked towards the bar to give Xiu a hand.
Half an hour later, having snuck out during the interval, they said their goodbyes to the bouncer, who asked them if they’d had any luck.
‘Not really,’ Xiu said.
He told them that his name was Jeff and that he didn’t really like the word bouncer, preferring to be called a ‘door supervisor’ or ‘security enforcement agent’.
Miller said that he couldn’t hear what the bouncer was saying and then – after he’d taken the earplugs out – that he didn’t much care what Jeff liked and didn’t like to be called.
They walked to where Miller had left his dirty blue moped and Xiu had parked her shiny red Yamaha Tracer 9.
The weekly heavy metal night attracted a fair few bikers, so there were plenty of machines even more powerful than Xiu’s lined up on the street and, had he been the type to be bothered by such things, Miller might have felt just a little bit emasculated.
If he cared about that sort of stuff.
He could hear Alex laughing.
‘I’m sorry, Miller,’ Xiu said. ‘That was a complete washout.’
‘It’s fine. Like I said, I had sod all else on and, as it happens, Sickbag didn’t sound too bad.’
‘You had earplugs in.’
‘Which obviously explains it.’
‘Even so, I should never have dragged you along.’
Miller did not like to see her blaming herself for something that was not really her fault. ‘Look, it really doesn’t matter. You were here and that’s the main thing, because you wanted to do something that might help. We didn’t get lucky tonight, but maybe next time we will.’
‘You saying you’d come with me again?’
‘Not a chance in hell.’
Xiu shrugged and began fastening up her leather jacket.
‘Look, you’re clearly passionate about this case and that’s what really counts. That’s what Sania would want.’
‘It’s what she deserves,’ Xiu said. ‘But caring about a case isn’t enough, is it? I can see how much you care about the Darren Grant murder, about nicking Malky McDougall and his boss for it. Three days in, though, and we’ve still got nothing.’
Miller stared at his feet. He did not need reminding.
‘Why does that one matter to you quite so much, anyway? Just out of interest. Why are you so desperate to put Jacqui -Cutler away?’
‘I don’t know about desperate.’
‘It can’t just be about the cake.’
Miller smiled at hearing Xiu come perilously close to making a joke.
He cradled his crash helmet and leaned back against the wall of the pub.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘Seeing Wayne Cutler get banged up was one of the best days I’ve ever had on the job.
Maybe the best. Certainly right up there with the day Tim Sullivan was trying to arrest a shoplifter by the South Pier and got kicked in the nuts by a donkey.
‘So … after we’d nicked him and I’d twisted his arm a bit, Wayne was happy enough to give up the man who’d murdered Alex, which was fantastic.
To this day, though, I can’t be certain that killing Alex was something Wayne had asked the man to do.
It might have been a contract or it might just have been something the killer decided to do off his own bat, because he knew Alex was on to him.
But, if Wayne did organise Alex’s murder, I can’t believe that Jacqui didn’t know about it.
She seemed to know everything else Wayne had been up to and thank God she did, because we couldn’t have put him away otherwise—’
There were cheers from above as the headliners took the stage. Miller quickly put his crash helmet on. It would not be quite as effective as the earplugs had been, but it would certainly help.
‘Here’s the clincher, though. Even if Alex’s murder wasn’t Wayne’s idea, Jacqui must still have worked out that the man who’d killed her was someone in Wayne’s pocket.
’ He looked at Xiu. ‘She could have told me that much at any time. She could have given me somewhere to start looking, maybe even slipped me a couple of names … but for whatever reason, she said nothing. Even after I’d caught her son’s killer, she chose not to help.
God knows why not, but I think we can be fairly sure it wasn’t because of undying devotion and loyalty to her husband.
So yeah, I’m still just the littlest bit grumpy about that, and it goes without saying that I’d feel a damn sight better if I could put the murderous witch away for the rest of her life.
’ He climbed on to his moped and fired it up at his third attempt.
‘I still don’t think desperate is the right word, but getting the best result possible on this case would certainly put a spring in my step. ’
‘I get it,’ Xiu said. She did not need to raise her voice much to make herself heard above the chunter and whine of the moped’s engine.
The sound of those 70 pitiful ccs would normally have been the cue for her to make some spiteful remark, but she clearly decided that now was not the right moment.
‘It’s like you said about tonight. We just haven’t got lucky yet, but we will.
Or maybe the Cutlers will run out of luck. ’
Miller nodded, though when it came to luck he was a firm believer in making your own. With that in mind, he’d already decided that he’d be stopping off somewhere on his way home. He puttered forward and drew level with Xiu, who was showing no inclination to leave.
She appeared to be … lurking.
‘Did you forget something?’
‘Actually, I thought I might go back upstairs.’ She took a step back towards the entrance. ‘Have one more look around. Plus I wouldn’t mind seeing NunKillaz.’
‘OK …’
‘They’re supposed to be really good.’
Miller fought to keep the smirk from his face, knowing that she would not react well. ‘So, nothing to do with the fact that the lead singer of Sickbag was eyeing you up all night?’
‘Was he?’
‘Don’t worry, I’m fairly sure he’s not bald.’ Miller began to rev, ready to pull away. ‘Mind you, there’s every chance he’ll try and nick your hairspray in the morning.’
Following an exit line with which he was disproportionately pleased, his intention had been to accelerate triumphantly out of the car park, waving as he went.
As it was, he got no more than a few feet before spluttering to a stop.
While Xiu sauntered back into the pub, he could do nothing but sit and swear loudly, his bout of furious effing and jeffing soundtracked by the scream of a seagull perched on the roof of a nearby Ford Mondeo and the somewhat less tuneful guitars of the NunKillaz, as Miller tried to restart the moped.