The Devil's Interval

by J. J. Salkeld

  The two women ran from the car to the front door, and a thin young woman opened the door at the first knock.

  ‘Mrs. Lambton?’ said Pepper. ‘We’re…’

  ‘I’m not fucking simple. Come in, he’s waiting for you. Christ, you two couldn’t have been more obvious if you had bloody blue lights on your heads.’ Pepper didn’t bother to explain that, for once, helping Police with their enquiries would not lead to any negative consequences for Mrs. Lambton or her family, so the fact that the Super was in uniform really didn’t matter. ‘He’s in there’ she said, gesturing with her thumb.

  The TV was on in the living room, but then it almost always was. It made Pepper nervous if she walked into a con’s house and it was too quiet. Like someone had just died, or was just about to.

  ‘Turn that off, Wilf’ she said, to the man lying on the sofa. His track suit carried sizeable branding on both the trousers and the torso. Pepper thought that might actually come in handy, if Wilf was ever cut in half, and the two parts dumped in adjacent parishes.

  ‘Jenny. Jenny,’ he shouted, without getting up, or turning off the TV.

  Pepper reached down, grabbed the remote from the puffy black arm of the sofa, and flicked the TV off.

  ‘I was watching that.’

  ‘Don’t piss us about, Wilf’ said Pepper. ‘I’ve brought my boss, Superintendent Mary Clark, to see you too. So let’s behave, shall we?’

  ‘Jenny, Jenny’, he shouted again, but a good bit louder.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Make a brew would you?’

  ‘Make it yourself.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, can’t you see I’m busy? I’ve got to give my bloody statement to these two.’

  Lambton swung himself slowly into a slouching position, and patted the place next to him.

  ‘We’ll be fine over here, ta,’ said Pepper, turning a dining chair round for Clark to sit on, and then getting one for herself. ‘Now, are you ready to make this statement?’

  ‘Aye, it’s like I said. I heard that Mike Robson on the phone, and he was tipping someone off about a raid. I told you all this before. Now just give me something to sign, and I’ll do it.’

  ‘That’s not quite how this works, Wilf. I need to ask you some questions, and then we’ll get a formal statement written up. So let’s start with a few easy ones. When was this, as near as you can remember it? I expect one day’s very much the same as the next to you though, isn’t it, mate?’

  For the next fifteen minutes Pepper asked and Lambton answered. He kept his answers short, and Mary Clark wondered if he’d been coached. He certainly didn’t say anything contradictory or obviously impossible, even when Pepper asked the same question in a different way, or picked him up on a specific detail. And his story was simple enough. Robson had been standing at the top of an alley near one of the clubs in Carlisle on a Friday night early in the previous April, and had apparently thought that he was alone. But Lambton had relieved himself further down the alley moments before, and didn’t want to be spotted by a copper. On his call Robson was answering questions about a drugs raid due to go off that same night, and Lambton was sure that he hadn’t been talking to another police officer.

  Pepper knew, even as she asked the questions, that the call would indeed show on Robson’s call log, and that it would have been made to the phone used by a local villain who had long since vanished, presumed retired, and who was now far beyond the less than elastic arm of the cash-strapped law. It was a classic fit-up, simple but elegant enough, and while no jury in its right mind would believe a little bastard like Lambton over a straight cop, Robson was certainly not that. Not by a long shot. He’d just ceased to be useful, because he’d been caught, and this was how he was being paid off.

  ‘And you’re quite sure that all this is true, Wilf?’ said Pepper, when she’d finished her questions. ‘You do realise that we’re going to check, and if it turns out that you were somewhere else when you say you were pissing in that alley, well then….

  ‘Aye, I’m sure. Jenny, Jenny. Come in here, you bitch. I’m as dry as a parrot’s cage, with all this bloody talking.’

  ‘All this fucking grassing’ she shouted back. ‘I told you, do it your fucking self, you lazy, grassing bastard.’

  Mary Clark was surprised that Lambton could move quite so fast, track suit or no. She only caught a glimpse of his expression as he passed, but it was enough to know that he was angry. She glanced across at Pepper, who rolled her eyes and smiled. ‘Love’s young dream,’ she said. And then the Lambtons argued for a minute or so, the volume increasing in line with the swear word to non-swearing ratio.

  ‘Should we intervene?’ asked Mary Clark, when it reached 50/50.

  ‘Oi, you two’ said Pepper, not getting up. ‘Shut up or I’ll come out there and sort you both out.’

  The lovebirds weren’t listening, and the volume increased still further. ‘What are we now, invisible?’ said Pepper, getting up.

  The first crash from the kitchen, and the first scream of pain, came before Pepper was even through the door, and Clark dashed after her, calling for back up as she did. She was ten seconds behind Pepper, and the sight of the kitchen knife in Mrs. Lambton’s hand stopped her dead. She had no idea what to do. Lambton was grappling with Pepper on the far side of the kitchen, near the back door, and she watched as Pepper broke the man’s hold, and then hit him in the face. She was still hitting him as he went down.

  ‘Have you killed him?’ shouted Mrs. Lambton, dropping the knife, and pointing at Clark. ‘You saw that, she’s fucking killed him. He’d done nothing. Nothing, you saw.’

  The paramedics were in the house for a long time, but eventually they carried Lambton out on a back board, with his neck braced. His right eye was bruised and closing, but he was conscious, and talking to anyone who would listen.

  ‘Do I still get to make my statement?’ he asked Pepper, as he was carried past. ‘I want to make my statement.’

  ‘Don’t worry, you will. Though I doubt it’ll carry much weight now, what with you getting nicked again. I’m not sure that your employers will be too pleased about that. I can’t believe you’d kick off like that, with the police actually in the house. That must be some kind of bloody first, mate.

  Mary Clark offered Pepper a lift back to the station, and she accepted, although she’d have rather hitched a ride back in one of the police vans that had turned up. Plenty of the lads still loved a decent punch up, and they’d rocked up in the hope of one.

  ‘So did you enjoy the excitement, ma’am?’ she asked, as Clark drove.

  ‘Not really, no. What did you see when you went in to the kitchen?’

  ‘They both had knives, ma’am. I had to step in. You must have seen the one he had? It’s been recovered, anyway.’

  ‘I didn’t, no. And is that how you subdue someone? He’s got a broken cheekbone, apparently.’

  ‘You do it any way you can, ma’am. Lives were in danger. Including yours, I dare say.’

  ‘You still hit him more often than you had to though, didn’t you?’

  Pepper didn’t turn to look at Mary Clark. There was no need. She could just imagine the sanctimonious look on her face. ‘Says who?’ she said, and regretted her tone immediately. ‘I just did what needed to be done, ma’am.’

  ‘Did you? Are you sure about that?’

  ‘What will you say in your statement, then? Something different, like? Will I be suspended?’

  ‘I need to think about this, Pepper.’

  ‘I see, ma’am.’

  ‘You’re a very brave woman.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

  ‘But also a very angry one.’

  Pepper took a breath, and then another. ’I wouldn’t say that, ma’am. And I don’t think that Wilf will be making a complaint, do you?’

  ‘That’s hardly the point though, is it?’ Mary Clark was silent for a few seconds. ‘But just so I’m clear about something else, tell me this. What Lambt
on told us was all utter bollocks, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Not a single word of truth, ma’am. Neat, though, to get someone like him to embellish what we already know to be true.’

  ‘So who put him up to it, do you think?’

  ‘Whoever Mike Robson really did call that night, I expect. Or his boss, anyway. But, despite knowing that, we’ll never break Lambton’s story. Pound to a penny he really was around that club, he maybe even saw Robson at some point, but it doesn’t matter. There’s no CCTV footage available now, absolutely nothing. So all he has to do now is stick to his story, and he’ll earn himself a few quid. Or at least he would have earned it, if he hadn’t got himself nicked like that.’

  DC Henry Armstrong was glad to be on his own in the CID office. He was behind on his paperwork, and his ‘to-do’ list had been gradually getting longer by the day. It made him slightly nervous, as if he’d forgotten to do his homework and was just about to be found out. Rex Copeland never seemed especially bothered about his workload, and was out following up on an assault investigation that had been on the books for months, and which Pepper seemed to have lost interest in. ‘It’s just wanker on wanker violence, is that’ she’d said, when they’d discussed it in the team meeting. ‘They both ended up in A&E, didn’t they? So I’d call it a score draw, like.’

  Armstrong was still smiling at the memory when he glanced up and saw the ACC Ops, already only a few feet from the desk. The bloke must wear silent shoes. Henry jumped up, and started to salute, just as he would have done when he was in uniform.

  ‘Sir’ he said.

  ‘Relax. Henry, isn’t it?’

  Christ, how did he even know his name? Armstrong had seen ACC Carter once or twice, but only from a safe distance. And that was strictly the kind of range that would allow him to further increase it, without drawing undue attention to himself. But that was out of the question now, of course.

  ‘Yes, sir. DC Armstrong, sir.’

  ‘Sit yourself down, son. Mind if I join you for a minute?’

  ‘Not at all, sir.’

  ‘Quiet in here today, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The DI’s still off sick, and Pepper, DS Wilson, is out on enquiries.’

  ‘Never mind. It was you I’ve come to see.’

  ‘Me, sir?’ Armstrong started to wonder if he could possibly have done anything badly enough to earn himself a visit from the ACC. It would be as irregular as God bollocking a sinner personally.

  ‘I know your dad, did you know that?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He has mentioned that in the past.’

  ‘I was based at Keswick, back when I was a young beat bobby. Me and your dad worked on more than one drowning together, in fact. Happy days.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ll pass on your regards, shall I?’

  ‘You do that, Henry. But I had something I wanted to talk to you about, a crime report. It’s reference C/12794/AT.’

  Armstrong typed in the details, and prayed that he’d remembered them correctly. As he skimmed the details he was far from sure that he had.

  ‘The theft of a motor vehicle from Stanwix, sir?’ That just couldn’t be right.

  ‘That’s the one, a 1975 Ford Granada in copper brown.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Armstrong scanned the page frantically. Was there a body in the boot that no-one had noticed, or something? What the hell was he missing? And then he saw it. ‘Reported by a Mr. Carter, sir.’

  ‘That’s right, my old fella. He’s had that car from new, Henry. Before you were even born.’

  Henry nodded, and tried to look sympathetic. ‘There’s nothing much in the crime report, sir. Taken away overnight three days ago, keys still in the house. Crime number issued. A straight to insurance job, by the looks.’

  ‘So case closed, would you say?’

  ‘Well, sir…’

  ‘It’s all right, I know that the fact that dad is so attached to that old car makes no difference to us. It’s a file and forget case, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, sir.’

  ‘But what if I told you that it fits into a wider offending pattern, young Henry, what then?’

  ‘Then that would be different, sir. Potentially, anyway. It would depend…’

  ‘We’re talking about a gang here, lad, stealing these old cars, these classics, if you like. Did you know that ten have been nicked in the force area over the last six months? And guess how many in the year before that?’

  ‘Twenty, sir?’, Armstrong ventured, hopefully.

  ‘No, lad, none. Not a single bloody one. So someone is at it all of a sudden, I’m sure of it.’

  Armstrong did his best to look suitably concerned. ‘But why would someone steal a 1975 Ford, er, Granada, sir?’

  ‘Exactly. My dad has been saying that his old banger is a sure-fire classic for the past twenty years, but it’s still worth next to nothing.’

  ‘Then why nick it?’

  ‘The parts, son. Chummy is nicking these cars, and he’s breaking them for bits. A pound to a pinch of snuff. My old man says that there are parts on his car that you can’t get for love nor money nowadays. And you know what collectors are like, lad, they’re obsessed. My wife spends half her bloody life online looking for those little model cottages. And she’s made up for a month when she actually finds a new one, like. They all look exactly the bloody same to me, though.’

  Armstrong glanced back down at his screen, then back at the ACC. He tried to look confident.

  ‘Leave this with me, sir. I’ll get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘That’s the spirit, Henry. And I’ll email you the crime numbers for the other cases that I found. That should give you a head-start. And time is of the essence here, son, because these buggers will strip my dad’s car down in no time. They might even have started already. And the others too, of course. All council tax payers to a man, the victims, I’m sure. But I’m sure you’ll bear that in mind, young Henry.’

  When Rex Copeland returned to the office, about twenty minutes later, he dumped his messenger bag by his desk and suggested that he and Henry go out for lunch.

  ‘Sorry, mate. I’m bloody snowed under here.’

  ‘We’ll only be half an hour. What’s the worst that could happen?’

  ‘The ACC could come back, and ask if I’ve found his dad’s old banger yet.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘The ACC’s dad has had his car nicked. And now he’s sent me a list of similar stolen car reports. A Jaguar, an old Land Rover, even an Austin Maxi.’

  Copland laughed. ’My dad had one of those, a Maxi, when I was a kid. It was donkey’s years old then. Shit brown it was, and it was absolutely, completely crap. Even he thought so. I’m surprised the thief managed to get the one he nicked going, to be honest.’

  ‘Well, the ACC reckons that it’s a right crime wave, these old cars being nicked for parts. And I’m the man to deal with it.’

  ‘Really? Unlucky. And whoever’s nicking cars like that should get a bloody reward. They must be death-traps, old heaps like that.’

  ‘Thanks for that, Jeremy Clarkson. But, like I said, God’s right hand man has a personal interest in this one. Any bright ideas to contribute?’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe.’

  ‘What do you mean, maybe?’

  ‘Tell you what, mate. I’ll help you out with the great rust-bucket mystery, if you give me a hand with my common assault.’

  ‘Sounds fair. What’s it all about, then, your case?’

  ‘No idea, not a bloody scooby. That’s what I need your help with.’

  ‘But I thought you’d just been out interviewing one of the complainants?’

  ‘Yeah, I have. But I’m still none the wiser. They’re both farmer Giles types, out towards Wigton, and I couldn’t understand what the guy I saw today was going on about. I think their dispute was about a horse, although it might have been a woman. Or possibly both. In the end I stopped interrupting the bloke and just let him ramble on. What’s a ‘cuddy’, by
the way?’

  ‘Oh, that’s a horse, so you were on the right track, I reckon. You didn’t record it all, by any chance?’

  ‘I did, on my phone.’

  ‘All right then, I’ll have a listen for you. Tell you what the craic is, like’

  ‘Don’t you bloody start. But I appreciate it, honest. The bloke was a right pain in the arse, I can tell you. Come to think of it, did you know that ‘farmer Giles’ is rhyming slang for piles?’

  Armstrong laughed. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘There we are then. We’ve both learned some new words today.’

  ‘Every day’s a school day. And, talking of which, what’s your big idea about my missing cars?’

  ‘I’d start with the local breakers yards. I assume the rightful owners have pictures of their cars?’

  ‘Aye, they’re bound to have.’

  ‘And are any of your local salvage guys straight?’

  ‘They all are, as far as I know.’

  ‘That’s your starter for ten, then. Have a drive round, and see what you can find out. But take my advice, Henry, if you use the pool car make sure that you leave it parked where they can’t grab it with those claw things. That heap is a bloody death-trap. The gear knob came off in my hand just now. Honest, it just bloody fell right off.’

  Later, when Pepper Wilson returned to the office, DC Armstrong went to the kitchen, made a round of teas, and took hers to her office. She looked grumpy, he thought, but that wasn’t unusual. He expected it was down to the paperwork, or the bosses. It was almost always one of the other, and almost never the actual cons, no matter how annoying and stupid they were. She was always surprisingly calm and patient with them.

  ‘The ACC was round earlier, Pepper.’