by Bo Brennan
“You – no – speaky – English. Pointy – languagio – you – speakio.”
She scanned the laminated page with curious eyes. Every foreign language ever spoken must have been listed. The majority of them she couldn’t even pronounce let alone speak.
“POINTIO – LANGUAGIO – YOU – SPEAKIO,” he almost yelled, punctuating every increasingly frustrated word with a jab of his index finger.
Shayla wearily shook her head and grimaced. The idiot was straight out of a dated comedy sketch show. The crazy accent was something she would once have laughed hysterically about, but not now. Not here. Not today. She was tired. She would laugh later with Naz.
She’d laugh her socks off when she heard about this.
Shayla turned her head, returning her gaze to the world outside her window. Naz would be out there looking for her right now. Would know she hadn’t turned up for her shift last night. It was only a matter of time before she walked through the door. She knew people. She’d know what to do. She always knew what to do.
The Badger Farm Estate, Winchester
India paused at the front gate, gave it a quick kick, stood well back, and waited.
Nothing. Strange.
She peered cautiously over the fence. There’d been a heavy frost this morning. It still lingered untouched on the front garden of the house, turning the marauding weeds into brittle bouquets of beauty, and the mountains of dog shit into delicately iced chocolate muffins. India almost gagged at the sight. Muffins would be off the menu for a while. Gardening was never on it.
The house itself was strangely silent too. The only noise a steady plop-plop-plop as the icicles hanging from the property’s overworked guttering thawed to form a perilous sheet of ice on the path below. The Preston residence was the only house in the street with a clear roof. Interesting.
She pushed the gate open and picked a careful route to the front door. Thumped it four times with the side of her gloved fist and stood her ground as the hounds-of-hell barked ferociously and threw themselves against the long-suffering wood.
“Police! Open up!”
While she waited for the person on the other side to take their time sliding numerous bolts, India eyed the multitude of footprints and dents in the scuffed paintwork of the door. Eventually, a hard-faced woman with a skew-whiff nose, brittle blonde hair and dark, greasy roots longer than India’s tolerance threshold, peered out through the narrow crack above the security chain.
“What do you want?”
India knew the woman well, but raised her warrant card anyway. Force of habit. “Morning, Alice. Your boys home?”
Slack Alice sucked hard on a cigarette through the broad gummy gap in her top teeth, and squinted through the smoke. “What the little fuckers done this time?”
“They phoned us,” India said flatly. “Reported an abduction.”
The woman jerked her head, screwed up her face in disgust. “They fucking what?”
“You heard me. Are they here, or at school?”
She huffed a mirthless chuckle and looked at India as though she were mad. “‘Ang on. They’re still in their pits.”
India rolled her eyes as the door slammed and the woman screeched, “Jason, Leroy! Get your fuckin’ arses down here!” Shortly after, the sound of feet came thumping down the stairs like a herd of elephants, and a muffled conversation took place that sounded distinctly more than verbal. India glanced across at the elderly neighbour – cautiously putting her bin out before scurrying back inside – and shook her head. Fuck living next door to this lot.
She heard a hissing sound and movement inside. Pressed her fist back against the wood and banged hard. “I haven’t got all day,” she shouted.
“‘Old yer horses,” Slack Alice screamed over the barking. “Unless you want the fuckin’ dogs to have ya!”
India gritted her teeth as the hissing sound continued. If the door didn’t open soon her boot would be the next one kicking it in. Just as she was about to raise her fist again, there was a rattle as the chain released, and the door finally opened. Slack Alice appeared in a cloud of smoke and all her glory, cigarette hanging from thin cracked lips, long grey nub of ash balancing precariously. She jutted her chin in the direction of an open door. “In there,” she said, causing the ash to crumble to the carpet amid a thick sticky cushion of dog hair.
India eyeballed the dubiously stained, but most appropriate, black and white spotted cow onesie she was sporting. “After you,” she said knowing better than to turn her back on the woman. Been there, done that. Alice hadn’t bothered to fix her teeth from their last encounter. Nor her nose.
She snatched a denim jacket from the grimy banister and shrugged into it. “Not me,” she said, pulling the hood of her onesie up. “I ain’t no fuckin’ grass. Meeting me new fella down the pub.”
India stared at her. Punter more like. “They’re twelve and thirteen.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said one corner of her mouth curling into a sneer as she edged warily past India. “Pub won’t let ‘em in.”
India watched the trollop skate up the garden path in her slippers and trudge out the gate, without a backwards glance. Doubting the wayward witch could truly be classed as an appropriate adult anyway, she stepped inside with a grimace and closed the door. No amount of cigarette smoke and sickly sweet aerosol air-freshener could mask the overwhelming stench of wacky baccy that greeted her.
Jason and Leroy Preston were lined up on the sofa, eyes the size of flying saucers, looking like they were about to face a firing squad. A fresh, bright red handprint clearly visible on one side of the older boy’s face, a humdinger of a black eye on the other.
“Morning, boys,” India said, standing in front of them and staring at them intently.
As the seconds silently ticked by, they squirmed uncomfortably and shrunk in their seats. India said nothing, just continued staring, purposefully heightening their cannabis induced paranoia.
“What’s she doing, Jase?” the little one mumbled.
Jason Preston kept his head down.
“Where’d you get that black eye, Jason?” India asked. “One of your mother’s fellas been getting slap happy again?”
“Nah, the Paki who took that bird done it,” he said, fixing his eyes on her boots while leaden fingers traced the bruise across his brow. “That’s what you’re here about, innit?”
“What else could it be about?”
“Told that fat fed all I know,” he mumbled.
India rocked back and forth on her heels, messing with the boy’s mind as he tried to keep his focus on her boots. “You didn’t tell PC Smith that bit. Why’d he hit you?”
He groaned. “Tried to stop him, di’n’t I.”
India raised a brow. That was a first. “Bit out of character for you isn’t it, crime prevention?”
He hung his head lower, almost curling in on himself, and gave a sheepish little shrug. “Yeah, well. She was all right, that bird. For a Paki like.”
“So you know her?”
He grunted and a bit of dribble ran down his chin. “Nah, she’s always there with her nose in a book.”
“Whereabouts?”
“I told the fat fed,” he moaned, wiping his chin with his sleeve. “At the bus stop on the high street. Outside the bank.”
“What time?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. Whatever time I belled the feds.”
India gritted her teeth. These two were fucking useless. The brain cell they shared had melted. “Do you even know what time it is now?”
Jason Preston pulled out his state of the art phone and squinted at the display. “‘Alf eleven,” he mumbled, spittle clinging to the corners of his gaping mouth.
“That’s right,” India said. “So what are you two doing at home, fucked off your faces, when you should be at school?”
The little one snorted a laugh and his older brother elbowed him in the ribs. “Got suspended,” he said.
“Dealing drugs to your class ma
tes?”
“Nah.” Jason Preston seemed almost affronted by the suggestion. “Crazy Craig said he done our ma up the arse for a quid . . . so we done him. Ain’t that right, Leroy,” he said, rocking into his little brother who gave a vigorous nod.
India rolled her eyes. Sadly, it could be true. “Empty your pockets.”
Both their heads snapped up to look at her through glassy red eyes. “What?” Jason spluttered. “Thought you wanted to know about that Paki in the white van.”
“We’ll talk about that when your spaceship comes back from planet puff,” India said, inclining her head. “C’mon. Both of you, empty your pockets, now.”
The little one glanced at his brother. When he nodded, they both slowly began to rummage through the contents of their crumpled tracksuit bottoms, offering bits and pieces up to her. “On the sideboard,” she said jutting her chin towards the gaudy black ash monstrosity taking up most of the room. “All of it, you know the drill. Don’t make me hang you upside down by your ankles and shake you violently.”
They sluggishly hauled their arses off the sofa and dumped their items on the sideboard next to her. King-size Rizla papers, the packaging torn, for roach making. Lighters. Ten Benson & Hedges cigarettes. Some door keys. A flick knife. A wad of crisp fifty pound notes. And finally, a fragrant bud of well dried grass in a plastic Central Bank change bag.
“Well, well, well,” she said, using her phone to photograph the items. “Looks like you boys might be dealing after all.”
“Swear on me ma’s life we ain’t,” Jason spluttered as she counted out six hundred and fifty pounds in notes. “We found it.”
“Course you did.” India chuckled as she pulled an evidence bag from her handbag and dropped the cash into it. “Proceeds of crime,” she said. “Confiscated.”
She held up the knife. “Protection,” Jason said.
“Confiscated,” India said, dropping it into the bag.
When she picked up the weed and said the same, little Leroy whined. “That’s personal use, innit?”
“Er, no,” she said, taking out her notebook, resisting the urge to smack him around the head with it. “You’ve confused Jelly Tots and pot, Leroy. In fact, neither of you are even old enough to smoke tobacco,” she said, sweeping the cigarettes and smoking paraphernalia into the evidence bag too, leaving just their house keys behind.
Jason Preston covered his face, spinning away as she turned to a fresh page in her notebook, pencil poised. “Can’t get another ticket, man. We’ll get evicted. Me ma’ll kill me.”
Deep joy. India thought of the elderly neighbour as her pencil touched the paper, and then paused when she caught sight of the little one – wide-eyed and genuinely frightened, desperately trying to console his big brother. India chewed at her cheek, torn between the young and old. These kids weren’t beyond hope, yet. They’d seen something that had freaked them out enough to call the police, and taken a hiding for their trouble – total scumbags didn’t do that. Total scumbags turned a blind eye, or wanted a cut of the action. And if she wanted them to cooperate with the sketch artist this afternoon, she needed them onside and on planet earth.
With a sigh, she dropped her notebook into her bag and eyeballed Jason Preston. “Do a good job with the sketch artist this afternoon, and I won’t come back to nick you. But next time I see you, you’d better be off the gear and back in school. Dumbo here looks up to you,” she said, pointing at his little brother. “It doesn’t matter what your mother does, you are old enough to make your own choices. Don’t be a waster and ruin his life as well as your own. You understand me?”
He nodded, and the little one chewed his thumb.
Chapter 8
The Paedophile Unit, New Scotland Yard, London
Colt stood in the viewing room watching Detective Constable Clorindar Hussein, alongside DS Nathan Sharp, interviewing their lawyered up National Front Councillor, Colin Cooper.
Her questioning was well planned and pointed. Three times she’d asked for passwords to computers they’d seized from his house, and each time he’d racially abused her. Other than that, the councillor hadn’t veered from ‘no comment’ once.
Clorindar remained cool, calm, and professional.
No children herself yet, she had the makings of a bloody good officer, if she could get past the tears and keep her emotions in check. She’d had a good grounding with time in the Drug Squad, but hardening her up was taking longer than most. Nine months in his unit and her emotional breakdowns were less frequent, but the images work still regularly reduced her to a sobbing wreck. They’d all been there. And they’d all had to overcome it, or at least find a way to cope with it. The job would break you if you let it.
Colt glanced over his shoulder at the knock on the door, and frowned when Maggie’s drawn face appeared. “What’re you doing here?” he asked, looking at his watch with surprise. It was later than he’d expected, the day had run away from him again.
“Judge got fed up with the defence team shredding the witnesses,” she said. “Sent everybody home early.”
“Hmm,” Colt murmured. Ten defendants meant ten defence barristers. Each one getting an individual shot at breaking down every victim’s testimony, line by sordid line. The oldest girl taking the courtroom stand was just seventeen. The youngest, aged nine, was appearing via video link. The only difference their ages made to the pack of hungry defence barristers baying for their blood, was how soon they got to taste it. God knows how much trauma the trial itself would add to their young shoulders.
“The girls seem to be holding up well, though,” Maggie said, sensing his concern. “Better than the parents anyway. The Joneses came back with me. They want a word.”
“I’ll be there in a second,” he said, returning his gaze to the interview room.
Maggie came to stand next to him, bumping his arm with her shoulder as she jutted her chin towards the glass. “What d’you reckon. Is the commander’s niece a keeper, or what?”
“It doesn’t matter whose niece she is, Mags. She’s either cut out for the job or she isn’t.” Not everybody was. Most of their new hopefuls quit within the first week, but not Clorindar, she had grit. Colt admired that. He’d already doubled her trial period from six to twelve months, but he couldn’t afford to extend it further. Finding and training the right people took time. The unit was two people down and the strain was taking its toll on the rest of his team. “For the next three months, I want her working every image that comes in,” he said.
Maggie nodded approvingly. “Good move. Make her or break her.”
Colt watched her through the glass. He desperately wanted Clorindar to make it, wanted her on his team. Only time would tell. “Where did you put the Joneses?” he asked, turning his attention to Maggie.
“Interview room one,” she said. “They’re not happy. I’ve stuck a uniform on the door. I think he’s been on the sauce, guv.”
Colt tutted. A pissed parent was all he needed this close to knocking off time, especially one who was known to get a bit handy when he’d had a few.
Hampshire CID, Winchester
India pushed the bus timetables aside and studied the three coloured loops she’d drawn on her map. They denoted the route plans of the buses that stopped outside the Central Bank around 5.27pm – the time Jason Preston made his treble-nine call. One took a sweeping arc into the rural outskirts north of the city, another took a tight loop clinging to the city walls, and the third went south, all the way to Portsmouth.
The abducted woman could’ve been headed anywhere. And with the council still not getting their finger out their arse and fixing the CCTV at that end of the high street, the only description of the vehicle involved was ‘a white van’.
India threw down her pencil and sat back in her seat, staring at the red ‘X’ marking the Central Bank. If she was always there – she either lived or worked locally. Someone would know where. Someone would know her. That bus stop was the only logical starting point. Now a
ll she needed was the sketch.
Where the hell was it? Why was it taking so bloody long?
She scrolled through the email on her phone, wondering if she’d missed it while listening to the recording of Jason Preston’s emergency call. Nope. All she’d missed was a shouty all caps email from Sangrin, entitled: PROCEDURE, CASE UPDATES AND ATTITUDE. India rolled her eyes and deleted it, along with all the others he’d sent her today.
“Kane!”
She lifted her eyes to see him standing in the guv’nor’s office doorway. Firman sat behind him, wearing the weary look of a man for whom retirement couldn’t come soon enough.
“Get in here!” Sangrin shouted, jerking his thumb over his shoulder like a demented hitchhiker. “We’re waiting!”
India rose with a groan. Clearly she had missed something. “Guv,” she said, nodding at DCI Firman as she entered his office.
“Take a seat, India,” he said.
She did.
Sangrin didn’t. He stood staring down at her from the side of Firman’s desk. “Did you get my email?”
“Which one? You send me three hundred a day.”
Sangrin’s eye twitched. “Procedure –”
“The manager of the Central Bank has filed a complaint,” Firman cut in, pinching the bridge of his nose. “He thinks you’re rude and obnoxious.”
India shrugged. “Well, I think he’s a prick who puts profit over people and has terrible taste in ties. Who do I complain to about that?”
Firman’s hand slid down his face.
Sangrin set his jaw and took a step forward, looming over her, hands on his hips. “He wants a personal apology from you.”
“He’ll know what it is to want then.”
“He said your update consisted of absolutely nothing.”
