Down Among the Dead Men by Ed Chatterton Page B

Line runs south to Liverpool and then on to unspeakable Speke, the socio-economic demographic falling with every kilometre it travels.
    Here in Birkdale, Merseyside royalty – ex-Liverpool and Everton footballers – own the bars and restaurants, most of them only a minute in the Merc from the six-bedroom with pool on Selworthy Road. The population of Birkdale west of the line seems to be composed of these footballers, as well as entrepreneurs, media figures, accountants, lawyers, doctors, or, as at Frank's Burlington Road crime scene, dentists.
    'You must have been higher up the social scale than you were letting on, Frank. I thought you were a bit of a scally?'
    She speaks.
    He supposes he should be grateful.
    'She – they were slumming it, mixing with us.' Frank isn't protesting. It's a fact. The area of the city he was raised in – Bootle – bears little resemblance to Birkdale. He can't remember the circumstances of being invited to the party but it was rare then for him to venture this far north, which is why it stuck in his memory. That, and the bedroom fumbling.
    Until January, Frank lived three stops down on the train in the equally comfortable neighbourhood of Formby. The only reason he and Julie weren't in Birkdale was that Formby is that bit nearer work.Frank's no working-class hero and he's never met anyone from his background who wouldn't trade the streets of Bootle for the lanes of suburbia in an eye blink. All that bollocks about the inner-city areas being more real? Fuck that. Frank, just like the street rat footballers who migrate from Croxteth, Huyton and Bootle out to the Wirral, or Cheshire, or Birkdale the instant the first million is clocked up, knows that reality is overrated. Give him the suburbs and trees and safety every time.
    Cooper's standing at the garage door trying to mask her impatience, a faithful retriever waiting to show her offering. Harris and Frank move along the drive, past the polished Beemer and a small, equally gleaming Toyota, their feet crunching on the white stones.
    The street outside is still bustling with activity. Civilians too, not just the coppers and technicians, of whom there are many. Curtains are more than twitching. Neighbours in tracksuits and slippers gather in doorways and discuss the possibilities in the hushed, excited undertone that comes with violent death.
    A uniform standing at the garage entrance lifts the white flap guarding the scene from prying eyes and, ducking under, they almost run straight into the pathologist.
    'Evening, Fergie,' says Frank. The Scot glances at his watch.
    'You mean morning.'
    Frank sighs. This isn't one of those love-hate things with Ferguson. He just straight-out hates the stringy Glaswegian vampire.
    'Would it kill you to cheer up a bit? Is it a Scottish thing or just you?'
    'Just me. The rest o' Scotland never stops singing and dancing wee merry jigs all the livelong day.' His face expressionless, Ferguson gestures towards the garage. 'He's all yours until they bring him into the Royal. I'm offski.'
    'Hold on, I need to know what you know.'
    'He's dead,' says Ferguson. 'Same as her upstairs. Time of death from what I can measure here is between three and, say, nine yesterday morning.'
    'Saturday?'
    'That's what I mean by yesterday, DCI Keane. It goes Friday, Saturday, Sunday . . .'
    'I mean it was early hours on Saturday, not early hours on Friday?'
    'Correct.'
    DS Cooper is moving from one foot to the other.
    'You need the toilet, Theresa?' says Harris. Cooper stops moving.
    Ferguson takes his car keys from his pocket and jangles them. 'Look,' he says. 'I know you got here late but DS Cooper didn't and I certainly didn't.' Ferguson begins speaking as if to a dimwitted foreigner. 'I. Have. To. Go. Now.' He brushes past Keane and points at Cooper. 'Your lassie here will fill you in on what I know. I've already given her the gist. I've got a long night of sleeplessness lying ahead and I'd like nothing better than to stand here