by P. F. Ford
“I think we can probably stop this now, don’t you?” he suggested.
“Better keep it up for now,” she assured him, beaming. “Lots of people from the offices come here at lunchtime. You start getting all formal and someone might notice.”
Slater wasn’t sure what to think now, and he was concerned it could get really awkward. He knew she had a crush on him, so, he wondered, had she really been warned away, or had she invented this story just so she could con him into briefly being her boyfriend? He really didn’t need this right now.
They had reached the far side of the bandstand now and she pointed to one of the benches under the overhanging roof.
“This one’ll be dry,” she said.
She let go of him and sat down, patting the bench next to her. He looked doubtfully at the bench.
“Oh come on,” she said, sighing. “I’m not going to bite. Is it really such a hardship to spend half an hour with a lonely girl who never has any fun? Perhaps I’m too ugly for you. Is that it?”
Now she was getting through to his softer side and he began to feel guilty about the whole situation. He heaved a heavy sigh and sat down, keeping enough space, but not too much, between them.
“Look Amber,” he began. “I happen to think you’re very sweet, and you’re certainly not ugly. But you have to understand I’m a police officer. I can’t get involved with girls in situations like this. Besides, I’m old enough to be your father. And I have a girlfriend.”
The last bit was a lie. He didn’t have a girlfriend, but he figured Amber wouldn’t know that and it added a bit more weight to his argument.
“Yeah. I knew you’d say something like that.” She smiled sadly. “I do understand, you know. But can you imagine what it’s like being me? Everyone tells me how sweet I am, but d’you know what? I don’t wanna be sweet. I wanna be like Ruth. She was beautiful and fun.” She seemed to choke on her words and he saw the tears in her eyes.
“You miss her, don’t you?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah.” Amber nodded. “She was good, a ray of sunshine. Now it’s just like someone turned the light off, you know?”
Slater nodded. Yeah. Some people just seem to light up the world, and when they’re gone the world seems a darker place. He knew exactly what she meant. He handed her a handkerchief kept for occasions like these.
“They didn’t care, you know,” she said, suddenly. “Those other coppers. They couldn’t care less what happened to her. I thought that’s what all coppers are like. And then you come along, and you want to find out what happened to her, and you listen to what I have to say…”
She stopped for a moment to wipe her eyes before continuing.
“And you’re nice and you’re kind.” She said, sniffing. “And, well, you just seem to care.”
Slater didn’t quite know what to say to that, so he chose to say nothing and wait for Amber to regain her composure. Eventually she held out his handkerchief.
“You’d better have this back. I’m sorry it’s a bit snotty.”
“That’s ok. You can keep it.” Slater said, smiling at her. “Thanks,” she said, clutching it like the crown jewels. “You’re really nice, you are. You might be old enough to be my dad, but I couldn’t talk to him like I can talk to you.”
She stared thoughtfully at her hands and then finally turned to look into his face.
“Why is the world such a shitty place?” she asked.
“That’s just how it seems, Amber. It seems shitty while you’re growing up because people are always telling you what you should do and what you shouldn’t do, and then when you grow up it seems shitty because you realise it’s no different. If anything, it seems worse, because you still have people trying to tell you what to do, and now you’ve got to start telling young people what to do as well.”
“That sounds pretty depressing,” she said. “Makes you wonder if there’s any point.”
“Oh it’s not all bad.” Slater smiled. “The thing is, you have to find enough good things to cancel out the crap. Find pleasures wherever you can and you’ll be surprised how easy it is to forget about the shitty side of life. I mean, look at my job. I have to deal with crap almost all the time, but then I get to meet some really interesting people. And look at me today, getting paid to spend my lunch break with a pretty young girl. That’s the sort of thing that makes it all worthwhile.”
A huge beam of pleasure crossed her face and then was replaced with a sudden look of alarm. She looked down at her wristwatch.
“Oh bum,” she said. “Look at the time. I have to get back. There’s the shitty side of life creeping up on me again, but I get what you said. I’ve also had the pleasure of having lunch with a handsome policeman, so it’s not all bad.”
She smiled happily at the idea.
“What did you want to tell me?” he asked, panicking slightly that she might disappear without telling him, and silently cursing for allowing himself to get so far off track.
“I found this,” she said, digging in her pocket. “It was in Ruth’s drawer. I was going to take it home and use it, but it’s password protected.”
She handed Slater a memory stick.
“Obviously I haven’t got a clue what’s on it, and it might well be nothing, but you never know. If she went to the trouble of protecting it perhaps it’s important.”
Slater looked at the memory stick in his hand. The possibilities made him feel slightly giddy.
“Amber, this could be really important. Well done! Does anyone else know about it?”
“No one’s ever mentioned it, so I guess not. You and me are the only ones who know it exists,” she said, conspiratorially.
She stood and smiled at him.
“I suppose this is goodbye, then,” she said.
They stood awkwardly for a moment.
“A real boyfriend would kiss me goodbye,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “Even a pretend one would pretend to kiss me.”
He hesitated for just a moment then stepped forward, giving her a quick hug. She was a good deal shorter so he kissed the top of her head.
“Thank you for the best half hour of my life.” She smiled up at him.
“You’re a lovely girl, Amber,” he said. “But you need a much younger man than me.”
“You’re probably right.” She sighed. “But a girl can dream, can’t she?”
Slater smiled at her as he stepped back.
“I promise you it’ll get a lot better if you try to look for the little pleasures in amongst the crap,” he told her.
“I’m gonna try,” she said. “Probably best if you head off in the other direction now, just in case, you know.”
She turned on her heel and headed resolutely back towards The Magazine and the shitty world that went with it.
Slater watched her as she walked away. He thought she really was a nice kid. If he was 20 years younger he might even have thought about dating her…
He felt the memory stick in his fist. Let’s just hope this might prove to be useful, he thought, slipping it into his pocket. Then he, too, turned on his heel and headed off to catch a train back to Tinton. If he was lucky he’d be early enough to miss the rush hour.
He fumbled his mobile phone from his pocket. No doubt Norman had nothing doing tonight. Perhaps they could meet down the pub and do some catching up.
But Norman wasn’t keen on going to the pub. He had a much better idea.
“Why don’t I come over to your place? I’ll pick up a takeaway on the way over. Chinese or Indian? Your choice.”
Slater didn’t think this was the best idea he’d ever heard, but as Norman pointed out, he had lots of paperwork to show Slater. He could hardly do that in a pub, now could he?
“But, at your place we can spread it out as much as we want and no one sees any of it except us. And I promise you, you will want to see it.”
Slater had finally agreed with a very grudging, “This had better be as good as you say it is.”
> “Oh, you’ll love it,” promised Norman.
Chapter Fifteen
Slater stared at the memory stick in frustration. It was a big one at 64GB, so it could hold plenty of information. Right now, it was plugged into his laptop, but it might just as well have been plugged into the microwave for all the good it was. Of course, there could be nothing on it at all, but he was convinced he had a key piece of evidence in his hands. However, without the password it was about as much good as the proverbial chocolate teapot.
This was so frustrating. How the bloody hell was he going to figure out the password? It could be anything.
“And just how long have you been swearing and cursing at it?” asked Norman, sounding amused.
“Ever since I got home and booted up my laptop,” said Slater, sighing.
“And that was when?”
“About 5.30.”
Norman made a grand gesture of looking at his watch.
“It’s now coming up to 8.30,” he announced. “So that’s, ooh, let me see, almost three hours wasted. I mean, people have spent years developing some very sophisticated software to work these things out, and yet here you are thinking you can crack a password just by swearing at it. Do you really think this is the best use of your time and brain?”
“I suppose you’ve got a better idea,” grumbled Slater.
“Well, I should hope so.” Norman laughed. “The Anglo-Saxons weren’t up to much when it comes to computers, so I doubt you’ll find using their language is going to be very helpful. On the other hand, someone who speaks fluent computer code might just have a slightly better chance, don’t you think?”
“That’s a great idea, Einstein,” argued Slater, “but we don’t have access to anyone fluent in code at Tinton, and do you know how long the waiting list is for stuff like this?”
“Sometimes,” said Norman, patiently, “the shortest distance between two places isn’t the approved route.”
“If you don’t start speaking in plain English,” warned Slater, “there’s going to be a lot more Anglo-Saxon flying around here.”
“Boy, oh boy. You are such a grouch this evening. And that’s after you were given what could be a key piece of evidence. I’d hate to be around when your lunchtime totty fails to deliver.”
“Oh yes, you cheeky sod.” Slater smiled, warming to the argument. “I’ll have you know she was not, is not, and never will be, my ‘lunchtime totty’. She’s just a kid with a misguided crush, that’s all.”
“Well, forgive me for touching a raw nerve,” said Norman.. “Anyway, did she have anything to tell you?”
“Not really. But she has been warned not to talk to me again,” said Slater.
“Who by?”
“Her boss, Camilla. But she was quite happy to talk to me before, and she was happy for me to talk to her staff too, so my feeling is that someone’s leaning on her.”
“Now that’s interesting,” said Norman, thoughtfully. “It would be very helpful to find out who that was.”
“Yeah,” agreed Slater. “I’m beginning to think we could do with another dozen pairs of hands.”
“Small teams make for better security,” Norman said, sagely. “We’ll just have to prioritise what we do.”
“What about this damned memory stick?” Slater sighed impatiently.
“Patience,” said Norman with an evil grin. “You’ve told me about your day. Now it’s my turn.”
Slater pointed to the bag containing their takeaway.
“That’s going to get cold. Let’s eat while you talk.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Norman began to unpack the bag, carefully laying the individual trays on the table.
“I hope you like curry.”
“No problem,” said Slater happily, lifting the lids from the containers. He licked sauce from his fingers.
“Like feeding a donkey on strawberries,” he said, sighing blissfully.
As they feasted, Norman gave a quick rundown on his day’s findings. It turned out Mr Chan had several dodgy businesses.
“The kind,” said Norman, “that the SCU should be very interested in. But even though he operates right under their very noses, they haven’t so much as glanced in his direction.”
“Somehow I’m not surprised after what you told me this morning,” said Slater gloomily. “Pity we can’t get hold of that membership list.”
“Ahem.” Norman coughed theatrically. “As it happens…”
“What?” Slater nearly sprayed curry everywhere. “You mean you got it? But how?”
“It’s probably better if you don’t know that.”
“If it’s iffy, Norm, we won’t be able to use it. You know that.”
“Look,” said Norman. “We needed to know who was on it, right? If we think we need it ‘officially’ we can go through the proper channels to get it. Okay?”
“Yeah, but-”
“Never mind ‘yeah, but’,” interrupted Norman. “If this thing is as corrupt as it looks, do you think these guys are going to play fair with us?”
He let Slater think about that for a moment but continued before he could answer.
“They’ve already tried to push you under a bus, Dave. Do you think they’re going to start playing fair now? Of course not. You said you wanted my experience and knowledge, didn’t you. Well, my experience and knowledge says you gotta fight fire with fire. You just have to make sure you keep the dodgy stuff out of sight, that’s all.”
Slater was still doubtful.
“Trust me,” said Norman. “I’m a detective. How d’you think I’ve survived so long?”
He slid the list across to Slater. It was on a tatty piece of paper.
“Printed it off my own laptop,” explained Norman. “It’s not seen inside Tinton station, so don’t worry about that.”
“I’d be a lot happier about this if I knew how you got it,” moaned Slater, unfolding the list.
He looked through it and whistled softly when he saw the first one Norman had underlined with a biro.
“Well, well. If it isn’t my old mate Jimmy Jones. Now that is good news.”
He looked down a bit further.
“Who’s the other guy you’ve marked?” he asked. “Mark Clinton.”
“Jones’ boss,” Norman reminded him.
“Oh, right. Of course. You told me about him before,” said Slater. A lot had happened since Norman had told him the story.
“Now do you think you’d rather not have this information?” asked Norman with a smile.
“But how?” repeated Slater. “And where? And who?”
“D’you want the password for that memory stick?”
“Of course I do!”
“In that case, I’ll take you to meet the how, the where, and the who. But you have to promise me you keep it to yourself. And no more questions about it.”
Norman’s tone had changed now. There was no doubt he meant exactly what he said. This was no joke and he obviously intended to protect whoever was behind this. But Slater was pretty sure he could trust Norman so if that was the deal it was ok by him.
“When will you take me?”
“I need to make a phone call, but I should be able to set it up in a day or two, so let’s see,” mumbled Norman. Slater could almost hear his brain whirring. “It’s Friday now, weekend coming up, but that shouldn’t make too much difference. Give him time to get here and get settled in…” Then, turning to Slater, he asked, “How about Monday morning?”
“Is that the soonest you can do?” sighed Slater, impatiently.
“Of course,” said Norman, sounding irritated with Slater’s impatience. “If you can get anything arranged sooner…”
Okay, okay,” agreed Slater. “You’re right. I can’t do any better. We have a deal.”
They toasted each other with their half empty beer cans.
“Right then,” said Norman. “As we’re going to have the weekend off, how about we have a run through, right from t
he start? It’ll give us a chance to see if we’ve missed anything, and I find it seems to set my subconscious to work. You never know, after 48 hours not focusing on the case one of us might just come up with some idea that will move us forward.”
“Weekend off? Don’t know what I’ll do with a weekend off.” Slater hadn’t even thought about having the weekend off, but Norman was right, a break was probably a good idea.
“Well, for a start you could phone that girl in the tea shop. Jelena, wasn’t it?” suggested Norman.
Slater thought that might just be the best suggestion Norman had made so far. Or it could be a really bad one. He didn’t know why, but something about that girl made him think twice.
An hour or so later, they were pretty sure they were both on the same page. In fact, they were in complete agreement. They completely agreed they had no idea what it was they were investigating.
The original inquiry into Ruth Thornhill’s disappearance appeared to be changing into something quite different. Bizarrely, they seemed to have lots of suspects, but as yet, they had no specific crime. It could even be possible they had stumbled across several overlapping crimes. Or, then again, it could just be they had stumbled across lots of people behaving suspiciously.
“My head hurts from trying to figure this all out,” moaned Slater as he opened the door to let Norman out.
“And that,” said Norman, “is exactly why you need to take a weekend off. Call Jelena. Have some fun. It’ll do you good. I’ll pick you up here on Monday morning.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Where are we going?” asked Slater, as they pulled away from his house.
“Oh, it’s not far,” smiled Norman, knowingly.
“What is this? A magical mystery tour?”
“Well, it could be said that you’re going to meet a magician, and what he does is certainly a mystery to me,” said Norman. “But it’s hardly going to be a tour. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
