Buried - DC Jack Warr Series 01 (2020)

by LaPlante, Lynda

  Jack couldn’t stand any more of this.

  ‘I tripped over a stairlift!’ Maggie stopped talking. ‘And I fell down a flight of stairs. Nobody hit me. I’d rather you’d think I’m an idiot than a thug ‒ but if you repeat what I just said to anyone else, I’ll leave you.’

  She burst into giggles.

  *

  The next morning, Jack looked at his face in the wing mirror of a parked car. His nose was still very painful. Even the breeze blowing in his face made him wince. He called Laura.

  ‘How did you get on with Dougie?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s not him. I’m about to go and see Rachel Yarborough—’

  Laura laughed. ‘She’s blind,’ she reminded him. ‘She can’t possibly be our forger.’

  Jack corrected her. ‘She’s got glaucoma. I asked Mags and she said that, if it’s not too far developed, she’d be perfectly capable of close work.’

  *

  Within seconds of being inside Rachel’s home, however, it was obvious that her glaucoma was seriously bad. Her furniture was sparse so as not to cause an obstacle course, the décor clean and her TV was like a cinema screen.

  ‘If I have the contrast right up, I can see some things. Not details. Tea?’

  Jack declined, not wanting to put her out, but she insisted.

  ‘I’m not useless, Mr Warr.’ As she made the drinks, she talked. ‘Dougie Marshall, eh? How is the old bastard?’

  Jack watched in awe as Rachel made a pot using a push-button kettle that poured exactly the right amount of hot water, and mugs with talking sensors attached to the sides. To see her wander about her home, you’d never guess that she was partially sighted. In fact, if it wasn’t for the living room clock announcing the time on the quarter hour, Jack would never have guessed this home had been modified at all.

  ‘He was a genius back in the day. Sharp as a tack, wily as a fox ‒ that was our Dougie. The only time he ever went inside was when that stupid kid of his was caught forging betting slips. Dougie owned up to that one for him, thinking they’d never send a dying old man down. Got three years. You can’t get a licence to run a betting shop if you’ve got a criminal record, see, so Dougie had to go down for Gareth, in order to secure both their futures. Dougie didn’t mind prison – within a week, he’d forged a medical referral and got a cushy time in the hospital wing. What he did mind was people thinking he’d forged Gareth’s terrible bloody betting slips ‒ very shoddy workmanship. Gareth’s got no style. You met him?’

  ‘Briefly,’ Jack said. ‘Mrs Yarborough, I’m wondering if you can suggest any old-time forgers who might still be active in the area.’

  ‘If by “old-time” you mean anyone mine and Dougie’s age, then no. We’re the last ones. I gave it all up years ago, way before my eyes started to let me down, on account of being a terrible liar. If I ever got questioned by the police, I was bound to give myself away, so I quit while I was ahead. Dougie worked a good twenty years longer than me. Great liar, he was. That’s why all the big names trusted him.’

  ‘Names like Harry Rawlins?’

  ‘There’s a blast from the past! He did do a bit of work with Dougie, yes.’ Rachel smiled as she remembered Harry. ‘He was a master. And we were his willing servants. If you did right by Harry, he did right by you. He liked Dougie because he didn’t look like a genius. He hid in plain sight. What the coppers saw was a fat fucker in a betting shop ‒ what Harry saw was an artist.’ Then Rachel said something quite unexpected. ‘Can I touch your face?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ Jack said when he’d got over his initial surprise, ‘but my nose is a little sensitive at the moment.’

  *

  Jack fitted right in at the hospital; no one gave his face a second look. It was 6.30 p.m. and Maggie was thirty minutes away from starting her night shift. Jack was enjoying doing nothing except eating a beef sandwich and watching Maggie eat a tuna salad. All he wanted to do was sit, relax and enjoy the company of his lovely, beautiful, pregnant, soon-to-be wife. Maggie had other ideas.

  The Antenatal Unit was, of course, empty, but Maggie’s pass got her into any area of the hospital. She opened a wardrobe at the back of the room and got out an ugly, tan-coloured vest with a padded front. She held it up for Jack to put on. Maggie zipped him in.

  ‘Comfy?’

  ‘Not remotely.’ He scowled.

  ‘That’s what it feels like to be pregnant.’

  ‘Jeez, Mags. How are you going to carry this lump round?’

  Jack put his hands in the small of his back and pushed his hips forwards, arching. He puffed out his cheeks and then blew, making his lips ripple in a silent raspberry. He started to walk around the room. He bent his knees, widened his feet and waddled.

  ‘Look, Mags, I’m you!’

  As Jack moved with more and more exaggerated waddles, Maggie ran at him, laughing, calling him a cheeky bastard. He dodged her a couple of times, but the weight of the vest became too much and eventually he collapsed onto a yoga mat, exhausted. Maggie sat astride him and strained to lean down over his padded belly to kiss him. She couldn’t get anywhere near his mouth, which made them both laugh.

  Sitting astride Jack, looking down at him in his pregnancy vest, with his two black eyes and swollen nose, Maggie had never felt so happy.

  ‘I love you, Jack Warr. I can’t wait to be Maggie Warr.’ Then her hormones took over and she started to cry. ‘Me and you know so much about pain, Jack. Promise me we’ll protect our baby from it.’

  As Maggie wept, Jack unzipped the vest and sat up. He wrapped his arms tight around her body, let her gibber on about silly things and tried not to make it obvious that he was laughing at her.

  ‘Promise me we’ll teach it only about happiness. Promise me we’ll play sleeping lions, and hide and seek, and at Easter we’ll hide eggs and play the hot and cold game.’

  ‘I promise you all those things,’ Jack whispered.

  And in this tenderest of impromptu moments, he found himself thinking about Dougie Marshall’s grotty little office.

  Hot and cold, he said to himself. I put the painting back over the safe and I walked round the room, looking at his forging paraphernalia. I passed his filing cabinets – not a flinch. Then his drinks cabinet. I even spotted an old £5 printing plate under a bottle of single malt, and that didn’t worry him. Where was I heading that made him jumpy? What made him call for backup?

  Jack visualised the layout of the room, and all he could see in front of him, in the moment Dougie panicked, was the worn old chair.

  That’s what was ‘hot’.

  That’s what Dougie didn’t want him to look at.

  Jack decided, there and then, that Dougie was the man they were after. A ‘wily fox’ Rachel had called him. Jack would go back tonight and discover exactly what Dougie Marshall was hiding in his armchair.

  Maggie pulled away from Jack and wiped her tears on his T-shirt.

  ‘Put it in the wash when you get home. It’ll be nice for you to have an evening in with your parents, just the three of you. Get a takeaway.’

  She stood up, picked up the vest and went to hang it back in the wardrobe. Jack sat on the floor, trying to work out whether chicken fried rice with Charlie was more important than breaking into Dougie’s office and finding proof that he’d helped the women escape the UK.

  CHAPTER 36

  The night bus back to Croydon was full of the dregs of society. A man sat on the back seat with his head back and mouth open, seemingly comatose. Two lads up front rolled themselves a spliff. An old couple, probably homeless, slept against each other’s shoulders. Jack sat in the middle of the bus, and as the driver braked the sleeping man on the back seat suddenly gave a loud groan and a woman got up from the floor in front of him, where she’d been invisible till now. The man zipped himself up and they both got off the bus. Jack closed his eyes for a second. That’s an image that’ll take a long while to get rid of, he thought.

  The entrance to Dougie’s back stairs wa
s slightly set back from the street, so once Jack had stepped into the little recess, he wasn’t visible to passers-by or to CCTV. From the shadows, Jack donned gloves and a balaclava, then got out a lock-picking kit – surprisingly cheap from Amazon ‒ although he did already know how to pick a lock from his school days, when a precocious classmate had taught him . . .

  The day before they were due to start in sixth form, he and his mates had broken into the staff room and the sixth form common room and swapped all of the furniture. They started life as sixth formers with sofas, a telly, a coffee machine, and a microwave. It hadn’t lasted long but they’d made the most of it while it did.

  The stench of the bathroom was almost overpowered by the stench of bleach. Jack got an instant headache and his eyes stung through the holes in his balaclava. Using the thin beam from the torch on his phone, Jack moved straight to the worn old chair and flipped the seat up, revealing a crudely placed piece of hardboard cut slightly bigger than the hole it was covering. Underneath it was what looked like £50,000, in five bundles, each wrapped with the now familiar band from the train robbery money, empty passport covers, old and new, inks, gold leaf and all the other paraphernalia needed to forge passports and other IDs. Under all of that, Jack found a little black notebook.

  Inside the notebook was a list of names ‒ Elaine Fortescue, Joanne Lewis, Anita Davidson, Reginald Davidson, Claire Simeon. Textbook: using the same initials as people’s real names often made for an easier transition into a new life. More names – Steven Kirkwood, aged 11. That passport must be for Sam. David Stainer, aged 11. That one would have been for Darren if he’d made it. And Suzie was to become Sharon Whittaker, aged 10. Angela’s kids would have to get used to being called Abbi and Raul – risky, as they were so close to the children’s actual names, but he guessed that Angela wanted them to be as comfortable as possible in their new lives.

  The notebook shook in Jack’s hand. This was the case breaker. All he had to do was walk into the station and hand the book to Ridley; he’d call Interpol and the women would become instantly visible. Within half a day, they’d be back in the UK. Train robbery solved; murder solved. Jack sat down at Dougie’s desk, his breath dampening the inside of his balaclava. He stared at the list. He couldn’t take it in. Jack suddenly spat out a burst of laughter as he read the date of birth of ‘Elaine Fortescue’ – it would have made her 62! How the fuck did Ester think she was going to get away with that?

  *

  Jack sat alone in an all-night café drinking tea from a giant, stained mug, enjoying the privacy and silence. He flicked through the other pages of Dougie’s notebook, reckoning it might help them track down some other missing villains as well. ‘Villains’. He didn’t like that word in relation to the women. He knew it was what they were but after all, Jack had broken into Dougie’s office to get this notebook. So, what did that make him? He liked to think of himself as a copper using his ingenuity, but, in truth, there was no way he could take this notebook to Ridley – not considering the way he’d acquired it.

  For a moment, Jack felt ashamed that he’d crossed a line. Then he felt more ashamed that he could make or break the lives of nine people who, in the big scheme of things, hadn’t done much wrong other than collect a hoard of cash, more than two decades old, that nobody else even knew existed. As he recognised the magnitude of what he was holding, and the lives he could bring down with it, he suddenly felt immensely powerful. His heart pounded and his eyes narrowed – he wanted the ‘kill’ like never before. He was being too soft: these women had stolen the money in the first place. They’d outsmarted him, embarrassed him and he wanted to win. Again, and without any prompting, Jack thought about Harry.

  And then he thought about the only person who really mattered – Maggie. He thought about the lower maternity pay, all of the stuff they’d need for the baby, Penny possibly moving in with them, his promotion to sergeant. Jack needed this. He needed to sacrifice the women and their kids in favour of his newly shaped family. Every man for himself. The women selfishly wanted to better themselves . . . Well – now it was Jack’s turn.

  He dialled a number.

  ‘Sarge, do me a favour, please. First thing, I need DCI Ridley to be told that Dougie Marshall is our forger. A raid on his son’s bookies will confirm everything. I’m going to send him an email shortly with more information, but I’m 100 per cent certain. Can you pass that on? I’ll be in at eight.’

  Across the road from the café, the shadowy figure from outside Eddie’s flat was, once again, following Jack’s every move.

  *

  Jack drove into the police station car park bang on 7.30 – half an hour early for their raid on Marshall’s bookies. Ridley had called Jack back last night, the instant he’d received the email. They’d chatted through how Jack had got Dougie’s name from an unofficial, rather impromptu ‘informant’ ‒ and how Rachel Yarborough had confirmed the old man’s reputation. Jack described the office, highlighting all of the forgery equipment and how he thought Dougie’s age was irrelevant; he was more than capable of giving the best of today’s forgers a run for their money. He ended by reiterating that he was certain a search of the property would come up trumps. It was Jack’s intention to ‘find’ the notebook while on this morning’s raid.

  Jack sat in his car for a second, preparing for the impending praise he was about to get from Ridley. He checked the small rucksack by his side – the notebook was on the top, in pride of place. Jack took it out and put it into his glovebox. He then checked his mobile. In his photo album was a picture of every page in Dougie’s notebook . . . just in case he ever needed it in the future. He didn’t know quite what he might need it for, but he was certain that it was something Harry would have done.

  The battleship-grey corridor looked oddly bright and cheerful this morning. Jack entered the squad room to a chorus of friendly ‘well done’s and, less cordially, the odd ‘jammy wanker’. Then, as they took a closer look at him: ‘What the hell have you done to your face?’

  From behind his desk, Ridley stood to meet Jack and, for the first time since his interview, he offered Jack his hand to shake. Jack took it with pride – his broad smile was making his nose ache.

  ‘Was that in the line of duty?’ Ridley asked.

  ‘No, sir. Just a fall. It’s not as bad as it looks.’

  ‘Well . . . you were bang on the money.’

  Jack’s smile dropped. What did Ridley mean, he was bang on the money?

  Ridley reached into his out-tray and dropped £5,000 in an evidence bag onto his desk.

  ‘Anik argued a case for moving the raid to seven, so we went with that. He said he’d called you to let you know. That’ll teach you to start picking up your bloody voicemails, won’t it?’

  Jack was furious. What the hell was he going to do now? He could hardly claim to have found the notebook in the raid, if he wasn’t on the fucking raid! He daren’t turn round in case seeing Anik’s stupid face made him snap and rip the little shit’s throat out. All of his plans were ruined in a split second of selfish, petulant jealousy.

  ‘We’ve got Gareth downstairs,’ said Ridley. ‘He’s waiting on his solicitor, so we can’t interview him yet.’

  ‘What about Dougie?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Dead.’ Jack couldn’t hide his shock. ‘According to Gareth, someone saying they were a policeman barged into his dad’s office yesterday, and scared the crap out of him. He had a massive angina attack later that night and . . . Well, he wasn’t strong enough to come back from it. There’s no CCTV, but Gareth says he’d recognise the man if he saw him again. But we’ve got them, Jack! We found passport sleeves, driving licences, and £5 k from the train robbery. Gareth will talk. And then we’ve got them!’

  CHAPTER 37

  Jack leant heavily on the edge of the sink in the men’s loo, water dripping from his face. He stared at his reflection; his eyebrows were down, the furrow between his eyes was deep, his cheek muscles flinched. Who was
this angry man? Jack tried to change his expression, but he couldn’t. Anik’s betrayal was impossible to forget. Ridley’s pathetic, thoughtless, disrespectful decision to leave an immature prick like Anik to contact Jack with such vitally important information as a change of time to the raid was unforgivable. Jack didn’t know how to feel about this side of the law any more. Were they really worth his time, his skills, his dedication?

  Behind Jack, a stall door opened and Anik emerged. He knew enough to freeze as Jack’s eyes stared him down in the mirror. Jack said nothing. Anik said nothing. Jack stood statue-still, his prey in his sights, toying with the poor defenceless weasel. Anik sidestepped out of his stall and left without washing his hands.

  *

  Jack’s demeanour on entering the interview room had not yet improved. Gareth sat alone, back from the table, legs crossed, sipping a cup of coffee. He was still waiting for his solicitor, so there was no camera or tape on yet. Gareth scowled at the sight of Jack.

  ‘You! You got a whole heap of shit coming down on you, copper,’ Gareth growled.

  Jack was unfazed.

  ‘Your old man’s dead, meaning you’re suddenly very rich. You want to stay free to spend your money? Or am I gonna put you away for aiding and abetting four of the UK’s most wanted, and for nicking the other £45 k that I know was in that chair? Your choice. ’Cos this is all just a game, Gareth ‒ you run with your gang, I run with mine, and every now and then we cross paths. Sometimes there has to be a winner and a loser, but not today. Today, you get to go home if you do the smart thing.’

  As the blood drained from Gareth’s face, he swore blind that he didn’t know what his dad had been up to.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Jack said. ‘All that matters is what my boss believes.’

  And, right now, Jack could tell Ridley that the sky was green and he’d believe it.

  Jack’s mobile rang. He left the room to answer it.