Layla looked stunned. “How did you come by that?”
“I investigated,” he said with a shrug. “It’s what I do for a living.”
He saw a flash of excitement in her eyes. “So how can I help?” he asked again.
She appeared to be studying the files carpeting the floor. Finally she reached for one labeled “Skipton” and held it out to him.
“The way I see it, Etienne’s death needs an investigator and Noor’s life needs a lawyer,” she said. “I think we’re it.”
44
Bish gave up trying to sleep that night. He found himself writing a piece for Sadia and Katherine’s blog about collective grief, and how it could bring out the best and the worst in a community. Brackenham was a good example of that, so he wrote about Brackenham and how personal it was to him. He uploaded the piece and then started on Layla’s research. Of the three teens arrested for the break-in at the Malham Cove gift shop in August 2002, Alan Penney had been the only one over the age of eighteen. That meant the Yorkshire Post could name him, while the two underage boys remained anonymous. Skipton was a town of fourteen thousand, which meant Alan Penney was going to be difficult to find. Bish missed having access to a police computer. He was left with two options: his Facebook friend Jill from the comms team, who would probably insist on a drink and sex, and the phone book. The online phone book spat out too many A. Penneys to deal with, so Jill it was.
“I’m warning you now,” she said early Sunday morning when she returned his call, “I’m dating someone else. Whatever favor I do for you, there’s to be no sex attached. So don’t even ask.”
“Devastated to say the very least, Jill. Who’s the lucky guy?”
“I’d prefer not to say. After your meltdown at the station, I’d like to keep him safe.”
“I just need a favor,” he said. “It’s linked to the Calais bombing two weeks ago.”
“I heard your daughter was on board.” Her tone had softened a little.
“She was one of the lucky ones,” he said.
“Name?”
“Alan Penney. Lived in Skipton in 2002. He’d be approximately thirty-one years old now. A last known address would be great.”
“Only doing this because you accepted my Facebook invitation, Bish. Others are so rude.”
“Bloody rude,” he agreed, thinking of the many who had ignored his online requests.
This was what Bish’s life was reduced to. Waiting for Facebook acceptance. Or being rejected even by Jill, who popped a condom in her purse every Friday morning on the off chance of getting lucky after drinks. Missing his ex-wife’s company even as she was about to go into labor with another man’s baby. Waiting for his daughter to take out her earphones so they could talk about the real things going on in her life. Driving down to Dover every other day to drink bad coffee with his mother and two lonely housewives. Dangerously attracted to a convicted terrorist who hadn’t been with a man for almost thirteen years and still found Bish undesirable. It was a never-ending litany. Perhaps this was what happened after so many years of getting your priorities wrong. A desperate need to crawl back into the womb, into the comforting arms of a woman so he could get a good night’s sleep.
He flew to Manchester later that morning, picked up a car, and drove north. Jill had promised to get back to him within the hour, but he reached Skipton still with no message. Once upon a time, a week ago, he would have waited in a pub, drinking. It had now been five days without a drink and he needed these little victories. Which left him browsing the high street, where he bought a tea cake boasting a true Yorkshire recipe, and heading up to Skipton Castle. It had been his thing with his father.
He rang Saffron because he thought she’d appreciate a reminder.
“I’m in Skipton. Just remembering Dad and his obsession with castles.”
“Your father hated castles. It was our obsession, Bish. Yours and mine. Rochester, Pickering, that one down in Wales. Let’s do the Scottish castles one day, darling.”
Where were you? he wanted to ask, because he was tired and lonely and heartsick. “I’ll talk to you when I get home,” he said before hanging up.
Jill’s text finally came through. Alan Penney’s last known address was the council flat of his mother in Scarborough, a hundred miles north of Skipton. Bish got back in the car.
Mrs. Penney had seen better days. Or perhaps this had been her life from the beginning. Perhaps her lot was set before she was even born. She had a hard face ravaged by booze or cigarettes, or by misfortune. She stood behind the screen door, wearing a terry cloth dressing gown, her eyes smudged with makeup that looked as though it belonged to the night before. Her eyes were outlined in a way that made them look small. Mean.
He contemplated whether to hand over his business card. Being a cop would get him through some doors, but not in this neighborhood.
“Is Alan here, Mrs. Penney?”