Free Little Triggers by Martyn Waites Page B

answerphone. Actually he leftseveral. Said he’d discovered something, needed to see me. The last message ended really abruptly – too abruptly. Next thing Houchen’s dead – and the police don’t suspect foul play.”
    “Perhaps they would have done if you’d told them this.”
    “I didn’t want to. Those two couldn’t find their arses with both hands. And they pissed me off. The last thing I was going to do was confide in them.”
    Bolland fell silent; Larkin could almost hear him thinking. When he eventually looked up, a flame had ignited behind his eyes. “D’you think there’s a story here?”
    “I don’t know. But it’s worth looking into.”
    “I’m inclined to agree,” said Bolland, the fire now dancing. “Stop whatever you’re working on and do this instead. I’m giving you
carte blanche
. If you find something, I’m backing you to the hilt. If you don’t, all you’ve been doing is misleading the police.”
    Larkin shrugged. “There’s a first for a journalist.”
    “Exactly. But that’s strictly your business. Fair enough?”
    Larkin smiled. “You wouldn’t be saying that if you didn’t think there was something for me to find.”
    Bolland gave a snort that could have been either a laugh or a fly trapped in his nostril. He sat back, put his hands behind his head and sighed. “Bloody shame, though. Waste of a good photographer.”
    “I believe you mentioned that earlier. At some length.”
    “Yes, well … I had to say something. It was expected.”
    Larkin nodded, straight-faced.
    “I suppose we’ll need a replacement.”
    “Yeah,” said Larkin. Suddenly a smile spread across his features. “I know a photographer.”
    “I know lots of photographers, Stephen.”
    Larkin grinned. “Yeah, but this one’s special. He’s
good.
And – we’ve worked together in the past.”
    Bolland furrowed his brow and looked at Larkin suspiciously. “I don’t like the sound of this, Stephen. Who is it?”
    “An old mate of mine. We’ve – been through a few scrapes.”
    Bolland was looking decidedly dubious now. “And can we rely on him?”
    Larkin gave a short, hard laugh. “Trust me. Dave.”

8: Old Friends
    Larkin sat back on the bench and breathed in deeply. Leazes Park on a warm summer’s day wasn’t a bad place to be. His bench was directly in front of the lake where children larked about on pedal boats, laughing and pushing, fooling around, shoving each other: their hurt disappearing quicker than money on a Friday night.
    Toddlers played with absorption, their mothers close by. Precoital couples indulged in surreptitious foreplay on the grass; horny puffed-up pigeons cooed each other on. Office workers – jackets off, collar buttons undone – ate pre-packed sandwiches and planned utopian futures for themselves – until their mental alarm clocks told them lunchtime was over, the mortgage had to be paid, and the desk was beckoning.
    Larkin stretched out his arms along the back of the bench and crossed his legs. A city idyll. An idle city. Post-industrial Eden.
    He didn’t fully buy into the scene before him, though; he knew every garden had its predators. Wherever children gathered so did child abusers, and Peeping Toms cruised sunbathers; an innocent movement or gesture was often the trigger a potential rapist needed to put theory into practice.
    It was the way Larkin viewed things – life glimpsed sidelong, from the corner of his eye, with darkness only a blink away. It didn’t do much good to the inside of his head, but he couldn’t help it. He knew what went on. The monsters didn’t just come out at night; the brighter the sun, the darker the shadows.
    It was now one o’clock in the afternoon and he still hadn’t had any sleep since the night before last. The first thing he’d done after leaving Bolland’s office was rifle through Houchen’s desk. He didn’t know what he was looking for in particular: some clue.Something. An address book, a slip of paper with