Free Deadly Friends by Stuart Pawson Page A

and put it on. I was only going to Sparky’s; I’d do.
    Once upon a time I thought I was trendy, at art school, when I was competing with the other young blokes, like a stag at rutting time. I had an Afghan coat. I gave it to the Oxfam shop, and a couple of years ago I’m sure I saw it on telly, when Kabul fell. What goes around comes around.
    I made a mug of tea and relaxed for a while to a Dire Straits CD, hoping Annabelle would call me. It was ten o’clock when the phone rang, as I was opening my front door, leather jacket half on, half off.
    ‘Priest!’ I snapped into it, with faked authority.
    ‘Hi, Charlie. Pete Drago. How are you?’
    Hiya, Dragon,’ I replied. ‘This is a pleasant surprise. I’m fine, how are you?’
    ‘I’m OK, thanks. Counting the days, of course, like you, I suppose.’
    ‘Time flies, don’t remind me.’
    ‘It doesn’t seem like fifteen years since I rescued you from that big nympho when we were at the Academy.’
    ‘Your memory’s playing tricks. It was me who rescued you.’
    ‘No it wasn’t. I was knocking her off for the rest of the course.’
    ‘So were most of the others.’
    ‘Then everyone was happy. I wonder what happened to her?’
    ‘I married her. So where are you, these days?’
    ‘Ha ha! Good one. I’m at Penrith, back in uniform.’
    ‘Penrith? What took you there?’
    ‘It was either move up here and go back into uniform or have my buttons cut off in front of the massed troops of the division. It’s not too bad.’
    ‘I get the message. It sounds as if you haven’t changed much.’
    ‘It was a long time ago. Listen, I rang Padiham Road for a chat with a couple of old pals and they said you’d been after me.’
    ‘That’s right. We have a suspected rapist called Darryl Buxton who may have originated in Burnley. There’s nothing on the PNC for him, so I was hoping for some local knowledge.’
    ‘That’s what I was told. When I heard the name the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, except that it’s not quite right. The bloke I’m thinking of is called Darryl Burton.’
    ‘Burton?’ I repeated. ‘No, this is definitely Buxton. What did your man do?’
    ‘He raped a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl, eight years ago. Invited two of them to his flat one bank holiday Monday and plied them with cheap wine. One of them passed out and he raped the other. He pleaded not guilty and just before the trial the girl’s parents withdrew the charges. It had been made plain to them that heintended destroying her credibility in court. I think she knew what it was all about.’
    ‘It sounds like our man. What does he look like?’
    The description could have been read from Maggie’s report: ‘Yuppy meets football hooligan’ was his final assessment.
    ‘It’s him,’ I said. ‘He’s moved away from Burnley and changed his name.’
    ‘If it is the same bloke he’s a nasty piece of work. He was only about twenty, but he worked as a heavy – a repo man – for a firm of bailiffs, or something.’
    ‘This one works for an estate agency called Homes 4U. He’s a branch manager.’
    ‘That’s them! Homes 4U. Estate agency is putting it a bit high, I’d say. They’re not above calling round to slow payers with the baseball bats.’
    ‘Great. You’ve been a big help, Pete. We’re bringing him in after the New Year, so it’ll be good to have some background on him.’
    ‘I haven’t finished yet,’ he said. ‘I left a few months later, but I’ve a feeling that he pulled something similar after I’d gone. The man to talk to is called Herbert Mathews. He was our collator but he retired on ill health about a year ago. I’ll give you his address. If it breathed in Burnley, Herbert knew about it.’
    We chatted for a while, agreeing that we ought to get together, knowing we wouldn’t. We’d said our farewells when a thought struck him. ‘Charlie!’ he shouted as I was replacing the phone.
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘I just thought of something. I believe