The Journal

by John R McKay

  Sean Lange loved his mother. That is why he had never left home, even though he was thirty six years old. He had never felt the need to live on his own and until she had become virtually bed-ridden following her illness the previous year, she had done everything for him. Cooking, cleaning, ironing, all the usual household things. She even bought his clothes for him. Apart from the clothes he wore for work, they were his own choice. Now, he conceded, it was only appropriate that he looked after her when she needed him. Kind of returning the favour. He was also lucky to have Irene living next door, who took on the role of carer when Lange was away on business. Irene and his mother had known one another for over fifty years and had lived next door to each other for all that time. They had never had a crossed word and when Lange’s mother had taken ill, Irene was the one person who he had turned to for support. They were like sisters. It made the whole arrangement perfect for him. It allowed him to do what he did, in the knowledge that she would be looked after when he was not there.

  He made his way up the stairs three minutes later, the tea in his hand in her favourite china cup. Made just how she liked it. Strong with just a hint of milk and half a teaspoon of sugar.

  He entered her bedroom and smiled. She was sitting up in bed, the curtains still closed and the television on. He had paid for satellite television to be installed six months ago so she could watch her favourite programmes in her room, and more too should she wish. But despite now having hundreds of channels to choose from, she still stuck to the old terrestrial ones.

  Without taking her eyes from the television set she said, ‘Draw the curtains back will you, I could do with some sunlight in here.’

  Dutifully Lange walked to the window and drew the curtains back, allowing the morning sunlight to enter the room. Immediately she shouted: ‘Shut the bloody curtains you stupid sod, it’s shining on the screen.’ Lange leaned over and closed the curtains again.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. Since returning home in the early hours he had been busy and was now very tired. He had taken off all the clothes that had any trace of Kieran Pearson’s blood on them and put them all through the washing machine three times. He had ironed them, bagged them all and then taken them to a charity shop on Victoria Street, where they hopefully would be sold to someone who could make use of them, with the added bonus that they would be off the scene forever.

  Lange had not heard from ‘Roger Moore’ since Thursday and was dreading the next call from him, should it be made. He was sure that ‘Roger’ had kept him free from prison for years and allowed him to carry on with his own interests, unmolested by the police, in exchange for the odd job or two. Lange was aware that that arrangement could change at any time.

  Lange had absolutely no idea of the identity of his employer. He had received an anonymous telephone call four years ago from someone with an extremely refined voice who had seemed to know an awful lot about him. He knew of the drug deals and of some of the work he had carried out with his friends in Holland and Ivan in particular. It was enough to scare Lange half to death. He could not go to prison because who would look after mother? The thought of leaving her defenceless and alone petrified him.

  This anonymous person had asked him to do a job for him. It had been a simple job. All it involved was sticking a knife into someone and he had done that plenty of times before. Someone Lange did not know so it did not concern him who it was. He had no interest who they were or what they had done. For this Lange had been sent the key to a safety deposit box at a well-respected bank in the city. When he had checked the box he had found it contained ten thousand pounds in twenty pound notes and a pre-paid mobile phone.

  And so had begun a perfect working arrangement.

  Every now and then the phone would ring from a blocked number where this stranger would tell him to check the deposit box. Each time this happened there would be either photographs, instructions or money, sometimes all three. Often there would be photographs of himself walking in the street or sitting in a bar. Once there had been a photograph of his mother in the minibus she took on the occasions she used to go to the bingo. He knew that these had been warnings to him. Warnings that he took very seriously.

  For some reason, Lange had the impression that whoever was controlling him was not your typical criminal, they seemed too professional. The hits had usually been high profile people, some made to look like accidents and some not so. Lange thought that ‘Roger Moore’ may be working for the police in some capacity, or the government, but he was not too sure. Whoever he was he was well connected, knew what Lange was doing and did not suffer fools. Lange guessed he was a very dangerous man.

  But the job in Manchester had been an inconvenience to Lange and he had sub-contracted this to an associate of his that he had done some business with on a couple of occasions. Kieran Pearson. Pearson was a thug who would think nothing of shooting someone if the price was right, no matter who they were or even how old they were. A man with no morals.

  The lad had been unexpectedly totally useless and Lange cursed himself for not dealing with the job himself. He had not wanted to go all the way up north for a hit someone else could carry out for half the payment. His instructions on this job had been to make it look like an accident, so the perfect idea was a hit and run. Even Pearson could manage that, surely. He was to pay him five thousand pounds, half of the fee. Easy money he had thought, five for Pearson and five for himself for one phone call and the price of a small parcel. He was going to post the money after the event but Pearson insisted he deliver it in person as he did not trust that kind of money with the Royal Mail. Lange now had no choice. Once he had passed the job on to Pearson, there was no going back. He had handed control over to the idiot too easily and Lange had cursed his own laziness. Pearson now held all the cards and wanted Lange to be there to make sure that the target was where he was expected to be and to confirm his identity on the night of the hit.

  Pearson had been following the target for a couple of weeks and knew his routine. Walking home from the pub on a Friday night was the ideal opportunity to do it as there were usually not many people about and any witnesses would be kept to a minimum. He wanted Lange to be involved, to point out the target to him, to make sure that he was in the correct place. When Lange had called him to confirm the target was ripe for the taking the rest should have been easy. Should have been, he thought. But it hadn’t been!

  Lange squirmed to himself. How could he have been so stupid to involve someone else? He had not done it before and certainly would not be doing it again, that was for certain. Laziness, he thought, sheer laziness. The ironic thing was that in the end Lange had had to make two trips up to Manchester, the first to assist with the hit and the second to sort out Pearson. What a total mess. And to compound things he had then received a rare phone call on the mobile phone he had been given. Whoever was on the other line, this ‘Roger Moore’ character, had not been pleased. Not one bit. It was only through Lange’s gift of the gab that had persuaded whoever this person was to leave it to him, that he would sort it all out. ‘Roger Moore’ had told him to wait for further instructions and not to go near the target again. Another attempt would make it too coincidental and it would no longer look like a tragic accident.

  ‘What’s up with your bloody face?’ said his mother, disturbing him from his thoughts.

  ‘Nothing mother,’ he replied. ‘Just thinking of work stuff, you know.’

  ‘Well you’re not at work now are you, so straighten your face.’

  ‘Yes mum.’

  ‘And I thought you were supposed to be in Amsterdam. You told me you were going to Amsterdam this week. Why do you have to keep going away so often? Can’t you find another job? It’s not fair on Irene to have to keep coming over here all the time to see to me.’

  Lange looked at her. ‘No mother, I can’t. It’s the only thing I’m any good at. And something came up. I’ll be going to Amsterdam soon, but not yet.’

  ‘Bloody computers
,’ said his mother. ‘We used to manage just fine without them.’

  ‘It’s a different world now,’ Lange replied. ‘I have to go to these places to fix them. Otherwise the world would stop.’

  ‘The world would stop? Full of yourself, you are,’ she said condescendingly. ‘I don’t know who you think you are sometimes. I never brought you up to be so selfish and such a little shit.’

  ‘Yes mum,’ said Lange standing up. ‘Do you want any breakfast?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, scowling. ‘Get me two boiled eggs and two slices of toast.’

  ‘Will do.’ He left the bedroom and went down the stairs.

  Sean Lange loved his mother. But most of the time he despised the bitch.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Julie Green had been busy. That morning she had visited the local council control room to check if they had any more CCTV that could give them a clearer picture of the black BMW. She knew the car had turned right onto Wigan Road, as that was the information Danny Cooke had provided, but from there she had no idea where it would have gone. The manager in the control room had been very helpful and had pulled the recordings, which were digitally stored, for any route the car may have taken. There was not really a lot to go on as most of the cameras were set up for the town centre where potential anti-social behaviour was more likely to occur and not for roads on the edge of the town. She had then gone on to local shops on the route to see if their security cameras had picked anything up but was unsuccessful there too. If they had CCTV, then most had recorded over the date in question and those that had not, the footage did not show anything conclusive. Not a very productive morning she thought as she headed back to the police station. Getting nowhere fast, she thought.

  She considered giving up and not bothering to pursue it any further but when she thought about doing that she remembered the photographs on Danny Cooke’s living room wall and felt she owed it to the young woman who had died. Julie was pretty much the same age as Lucy Taylor and hoped someone would do the same for her if it had been she who had been killed so violently and without reason, so early in life. She thought of Danny too and what a nice guy he was and wanted to give him the answers he needed so he could move on with his life.

  Jim Lea was unaware of her morning’s activities and she wondered what he would say when she told him what she had been up to. DI Raymond had advised them not to pursue this line of enquiry and in a sense she felt she was disobeying an order. But then, she thought, it was never that. She had her own philosophy. If a line of enquiry was worth pursuing then pursued it must be!

  She parked her car on the station car park and entered the building. She was greeted by Jim hurriedly coming down the stairs towards her. ‘Where’ve you been all morning?’ he asked excitedly. ‘No don’t answer that. I think you need to come with me.’ He turned around and headed back up the stairs toward the incident room, Julie following behind. ‘I saw you park up outside,’ he said, ‘and came down to make sure you didn’t bugger off again. There’s something I think you need to see. And for God’s sake switch your bloody phone on!’

  Shocked by his demeanour and the excited look on his face she followed him into the incident room. ‘Where have you been?’ he asked again.

  ‘I’ve been searching for CCTV for the BMW,’ she replied. ‘I know you said to ignore it, but I can’t.’ She fumbled for her phone and noticed there were four missed calls, all from Jim. She had put the thing on silent when she had been in the first shop that morning and forgotten to switch it back on.

  ‘I know you can’t,’ he said. ‘And neither can I to be honest. You are a bad influence on me.’

  They got to Lea’s workstation and he sat in a chair and faced his computer screen. She stood behind him. ‘While you’ve been running around all morning, chasing shadows no doubt,’ he looked back at her and she nodded, ‘I’ve been doing some detective work. You see, Julie, a lot of what we can do nowadays does not require you to leave your desk. You can do all sorts without having to waste petrol or physical energy. You can solve crimes now, with a computer screen, a mouse and a lot of wit and brain matter.’

  ‘Just get on with it Jim,’ she replied. ‘Stop showing off. Do you have something or not?’

  ‘I most certainly do young lady,’ he said. ‘While you’ve been running around looking for CCTV that either doesn’t exist or will be of no use to us, I’ve been making a couple of phone calls and receiving emails. All from the comfort of my own swivel chair.’

  ‘Well ain’t you the modern day Sherlock Holmes,’ Julie replied sarcastically.

  ‘Now now Watson,’ said Lea, smiling at her. He continued: ‘I got to thinking about the BMW too and how you had a bee in your bonnet about it. I lay awake last night, thinking about all sorts, to be honest. I didn’t have the best of meetings with Jo on Monday night and things got a little heated. But that aside…. I digress….I had a sudden thought about the car and if it had any relevance to what happened. So when I got in this morning I checked with traffic to see if any cars like that had been stopped or caused any kind of suspicion on the night of the incident.’

  ‘Did they have anything?’ asked Julie.

  ‘Oh yes they had something alright,’ replied Lea. ‘A car matching the description was caught on speed camera on Warrington Road about half an hour before the incident happened. Not only do I have the full registration, but I have a very clear photograph in my inbox right now.’

  ‘So how do you know it’s the same car?’

  ‘I don’t. Not one hundred per cent anyway. But take a look,’ Lea clicked on an iconised picture on his computer screen. The screen was suddenly filled with a photograph of the back of a dark coloured BMW. The number plate was displayed brightly on the left side, but the right of the plate was barely visible. This was due to one of the lights over the plate being defective. ‘As you can see,’ continued Lea, ‘the first part of the plate matches the bit we got from the CCTV outside the George and Dragon. The rest of it is slightly obscured, due to a broken light. This could explain why we can only make out the first couple of letters on the CCTV footage. But this picture is a lot clearer. I know it’s only faint, but you can just make out the whole of the number. And it’s a London reg. You don’t get too many of them up here now do you?’

  Julie ruffled Jim’s hair. ‘I take it back,’ she said. ‘You really are a modern day Sherlock!’

  ‘Elementary my dear Julie. Elementary.’

  #

  The telephone on the desk of Detective Constable John Hollins of the Metropolitan Police began to ring. He looked at it and sighed. It had been a long shift. He could really do without these early morning starts as having a new born baby in the house was playing havoc with his sleep routine. Although his wife was getting up in the night he was still awakened by the baby’s cries and found it hard to get back to sleep once awake. He looked out of the window. It looked like it was developing into quite a nice afternoon.

  He picked up the receiver. ‘DC Hollins.’

  ‘Hello DC Hollins,’ came a female reply. ‘DC Julie Green here from Greater Manchester Police.’

  ‘Hello, how can I help you?’

  ‘We are conducting an investigation into a fatal hit and run that occurred just outside Wigan last week,’ said Julie. ‘The owner of a vehicle that may be a witness is registered to your area. We were wondering if you could get someone to knock on his door for us.’

  ‘I’m sure we can do that. What are the details?’

  ‘A black BMW was seen acting quite strangely just prior to the incident. It’s not involved in the actual hit and run but the driver seemed to know the partner of the victim who was walking with her at the time,’ explained Julie. ‘He shouts over to him. The girl’s partner says he doesn’t know him. We’re not sure if it’s related but we’d like to find out.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘We did get CCTV footage but it was inconclusive as the VRN wasn’t very clear. However a black BMW was caught on speed camera ab
out half an hour before the incident occurred where we could get a clearer picture. We believe it to be the same vehicle but aren’t one hundred per cent to be honest. The car may have a broken light above the rear registration plate. On the right.’

  ‘Right,’ said DC Hollins. ‘No problem. Can you email me all the details and what exactly you want me to pass on to the responding PC?’ He gave her an email address.

  ‘Thanks loads,’ said Julie Green and hung up.

  Two minutes later, DC Hollins received the email. He double clicked his mouse and opened it. Attached was a brief resume of where the investigation was up to and a photograph of the car in question. The PNC check had shown the car belonging to a Mr Sean Lange, of Winchester Drive, Tooting. Hollins picked up the phone and dialled a number.

  ‘Hello,’ came a male voice at the other end of the phone.

  ‘Hello, Ian,’ said Hollins. ‘John Hollins here from headquarters. I’m going to forward you an email from our colleagues at GMP. A request for a door knock and maybe a statement. Possible hit and run witness for a fatal in Wigan last week.’

  ‘No problem mate,’ replied Detective Sergeant Ian Lloyd of Tooting police station.

  DC Hollins put the phone down and hit the forward icon on the email. Seconds later the problem was someone else’s. Hollins switched off his PC. Early starts meant early finishes. Every cloud, he thought, every cloud.

  CHAPTER NINE

  She was at it again. It was constant. Up and down the stairs like a yo-yo. If it wasn’t the curtains needed opening, they needed closing. If it wasn’t a cup of tea with half a sugar, it was a cup of coffee without. She was really starting to irritate him. But then it was his mother and he loved her. Those were the rules, the way things had to be. And then he smiled to himself. It was quite endearing really. Endearing, but irritating nevertheless.