by Jack Slater
‘OK.’
‘So, tell me how you came to be here.’
Tommy shrugged, spreading his hands. ‘I was just minding my own business, doing my job, and all of a sudden, this guy’s coming after me, so I ran. They caught me and searched me and, next thing I know, they’re charging me for carrying a tool of the job.’
‘A flick-knife.’
‘Well, I’m not going to carry an open blade in my pocket, am I? And penknives can be dangerous. I saw a kid using one once and it folded up on him, got his finger between the blade and the handle. No, thanks. A flick-knife’s much safer.’
‘But illegal.’
‘As a weapon. Mine’s a tool. It’s essential for the job.’
Davis shook his head. ‘It makes no difference why you had it, Thomas. The simple fact is, you shouldn’t have.’
‘What am I supposed to do then? Bite stuff?’
Davis paused. ‘I’m not saying the law is perfect, Thomas, but it is the law and it’s there to be obeyed. Your father’s a police officer, isn’t he?’
‘So?’
Davis sighed. ‘So, a number of questions arise from that fact. We may discuss them at another time, but the point for now is that you ought to appreciate the necessity of rules.’
‘Yeah. They’re made for the rulers. To keep the little guys in line.’ He sat back, arms spread wide. ‘And what am I?’
Davis smiled. ‘A very clever and resourceful young man, evidently. But still one who needs to learn when to fight and when not to.’
Tommy’s lip curled into a sneer. ‘Try living my life. It’s one long fight. Always has been.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Pete wound up the stop-and-check at just after nine.
‘We’ll take it up again at lunchtime,’ he told the assembled crew when they returned to the cars, parked on a side street just down from Argyll Road, on the opposite side of Pennsylvania. ‘That’ll catch any late-shift workers. Meantime, I’ll get onto communications at Middlemoor and get a couple of signs made up that can be put either side of the junction to pick up anyone we haven’t managed to interview.’
‘So, what’s next other than that, boss?’ Ben asked.
‘We need to interview as many taxi drivers as possible, for one thing. Find out if there’ve been any threats, any attempted robberies or other attacks on them and get whatever details we can. I can’t imagine this came out of nowhere. There’s got to be a history there somewhere. Something significant’s behind it.’
‘Or it could be about the other way round,’ Jane said. ‘Taxi drivers attacking customers. Specifically, our victim and those cases we talked about before.’
He nodded. ‘That would go with the use of the pepper spray before the knife. Have you got any more on them?’
‘When? I haven’t had five seconds to spare yet.’
‘Right. That’s your first priority when we get back then. See what you can dig up. We also need to check the PND, the papers, the Internet. Any other sources anyone can think of. And we can’t do any of that from here, so let’s get going.’
‘Aye aye, Cap’n.’ Dave saluted smartly.
‘For that, you can go down to the Express and Echo and check their archives. Then do the same at the Daily News,’ Pete told him.
‘Oh, cheers.’
Pete gave him a grin. ‘It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.’
*
As the day drew to a close, Pete wasn’t grinning any more. After two days of hard work on the case, he and his team had got nowhere and frustration was setting in. He recognised it even as it took hold, pulling his mood down and breaking his concentration.
He finished his daily case notes and hit save. ‘Right, that’s it. Time to call it a night. We’ll pick it up fresh in the morning.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ Dave agreed. ‘Trouble is, where do we go from here?’
‘Well, we’ve got all night to sleep on it. I’m not going to spoonfeed you now.’ And besides, I’m as bloody stumped as you are, he thought, but kept it to himself. Where were they going to go from here?
He’d been to the Devon and Cornwall Police Headquarters at Middlemoor to get a couple of road signs made up, asking for witnesses to come forward. DCI Silverstone was dealing with the press office, as usual. Three sessions of stopping traffic at peak times and questioning the drivers had come up empty, as had visits to the two most likely places for him to have picked up the suspect. Investigation of the victim’s past had drawn a blank apart from unsubstantiated rumours from some years ago that couldn’t be corroborated because the owners of the company he’d been working for at the time were currently out of the country and no official complaints had been made. Jane had come up empty on the other complaint. The complainant had moved and left no forwarding address, though census records had last put her in Bristol, and the alleged victim had been from somewhere in Lancashire, and there was no trace of her either. Singh’s family offered no likely suspects. He seemed, of late, to have a decent reputation. There were no signs of enmity with rivals or colleagues. And as for forensics – there were loads of prints on and in the taxi, but none were identifiable and the same applied to other trace evidence in the vehicle. If they got a suspect, then comparisons could be made, but until then, the lab was no use to them. And there had been nothing in the local papers or on the database that helped either.
It looked like the case was going to come down to possible motives.
It hadn’t been a robbery, unless something less obvious than money was the target. No mention had been made of drug traces being found in the car. He would check on that with forensics, but he could probably discount the idea. Was there anything else he might have been carrying in the car? He picked up the phone.
‘I thought you were packing it in?’ asked Jane.
He looked up and saw that she was standing behind her chair, shrugging into her jacket. He hadn’t even been aware of her getting up. ‘Just thought of something. A quick call and I’ll be on my way. You go on.’
‘OK. Night.’ She picked up her bag and headed for the door, followed by the others as Pete flipped through his notebook and dialled the number he’d noted down.
It was picked up on the second ring. ‘Hello?’
That wasn’t the voice he’d expected. ‘Naz? Is that you?’
‘Yes. Who…’
‘It’s Pete Gayle. Could you ask Mrs Singh a question for me?’
‘Yes, Sarge. What is it?’
‘I need to know if he was carrying anything in the taxi that might have given his killer a motive. Something worth stealing, apart from money.’
‘Hold on, I’ll ask.’
‘How’s she doing now?’
‘Still not very good. Very emotional.’
‘Well, it’s still fresh for her, isn’t it? She must have loved him a lot.’
‘Yeah. And yet, I assumed it had been an arranged marriage.’
Pete laughed. ‘They do sometimes succeed, you know.’
‘Yeah, but… I don’t know. I suppose I’m closer to the idea than you. It’s part of the culture, you know. I’ve had pressure in that direction myself. It’s scary.’
‘I bet it is.’
‘Anyway, I’ll go and ask her.’
Pete heard the clunk of the receiver going down. He waited. After several seconds, the phone was picked up again.
‘Sarge?’
‘Naz.’
‘She says no, there was nothing he’d have been carrying that was worth stealing.’
‘OK, thanks.’
He ended the call, one more possible motive eliminated. Something was nagging at the far corner of his consciousness, but he couldn’t bring it into focus. Long experience had taught him that, in that situation, it was better to give up for a while than try to force it, but frustration fought with reason, pushing him on. His lips pressed together as he fought to grab hold of the idea and pull it out of the fog, but it was no good – it just wouldn’t come.
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His hands slapped down on his desk as he stood up. He could do no more of any use here for now. It was time to go home and spend some time with his wife and daughter.
*
Emma had been sitting patiently in the queue created by the roadworks on Pennsylvania Road for a little over ten minutes. Finally, the lights changed ahead of her and she let the handbrake off and moved forward with the traffic flow. The road was coned down to half-width for about a hundred metres, a long trench dug up the middle of the other carriageway, a roll of bright-yellow plastic pipe waiting on the verge to be laid the next day. Accelerating gently up the hill, she was about two thirds of the way through the narrow section when the Nissan’s engine note changed abruptly, faltering and slowing. She pressed her foot to the accelerator, but it made no difference.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, not now!’ She slammed her fists on the steering wheel, dropped the clutch and raced the engine, but still nothing. ‘Buggeration, you horrible, horrible bloody car.’
Letting the clutch re-engage, she sat there at the mercy of fate as the car coasted steadily to a halt. A horn sounded from behind her, then another. Another.
‘Shut up, you idiots,’ she muttered. ‘I’m not stopping from bloody choice, am I?’
The engine cut out completely, an awful silence replacing its comforting hum. She sighed, pulled up the handbrake and unclipped her seatbelt. More horns sounded as she stepped out, turned to face the offending drivers and raised her hands in a gesture that said ‘There’s nothing I can do’.
She heard a handbrake being applied and the door of the car behind hers opened. A man stepped out, tall and good-looking in a dark suit. ‘What’s the problem? Have you run out of petrol or something?’
Anger flared. ‘It’s over half-full, thank you. The engine just cut out.’
‘Well, try giving it some revs.’
He might be good-looking, but the guy was an arse, she decided. ‘I did. It didn’t help.’
He sighed pointedly, as if it had to be her fault rather than the car’s, then turned and beckoned to the other drivers behind him, motioning with his hands in a pushing action.
A few doors opened. People stepped out of their cars.
‘What’s the bloody problem?’
‘Engine’s cut out.’ The guy gave an open-handed shrug as Emma’s hands were planted firmly on her hips.
It wasn’t her bloody fault. Just because she was female…
Four other men joined the first one, heading up the hill towards her.
‘What’s the problem?’ one of them asked as they drew closer. He was wearing leathers. She’d seen him pull off his helmet and climb off a big, black motorbike, running a hand quickly through his short, dark hair.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. It just lost power and then cut out.’
He nodded. ‘Could be a number of things. Best just push it out of the way for now and call the AA or whatever. You got a membership?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hop in, then, and steer. It ain’t going up that kerb so we’ll have to push it up just past the lights and leave it over there, out the way.’
‘Are you sure? It seems a long way.’
He smiled. ‘Only a small car, though, isn’t it? We’ll manage.’ He glanced at the others. ‘Come on, guys.’
She climbed back into the car, looked in the door mirror.
The biker was on the corner of the little car, right behind her. ‘Everybody ready?’ he asked. ‘Right. Handbrake off, love.’
She complied.
The sounds of straining came from behind her. She thought for a moment that she was going to roll backwards, that they wouldn’t be able to hold it, never mind move it forward, but then the little car began to inch slowly, hesitantly, up the hill. It was a weird feeling, slowly gaining momentum, the only sounds those of the tyres and the men’s feet on the tarmac as she held the steering wheel steady.
After a few steps, gravity seemed to somehow give up the fight and they were moving at almost walking pace. Then, before she knew it, they were approaching the end of the roadworks.
‘Steer it over to the side and you can let it roll back up to the traffic lights,’ the man behind her called. ‘It’ll be out of everyone’s way there.’
‘OK.’
She steered the car across with the angle of the red and white cones, letting the men continue to push her a few yards beyond the temporary lights on their bright-yellow stand.
‘There you go,’ the man in leathers called and stood away.
She pressed down on the brake pedal.
‘Right. Ease it back down to the lights. They’re tall enough to be seen over it.’
She checked that the men were all standing clear, then used the far door mirror to guide herself slowly down the line of the kerb until the man raised his hand, calling, ‘That’ll do.’
She stood on the brake, pulled up the handbrake and put the car into first gear as extra insurance, then stepped out. ‘Thank you so much, all of you.’
‘No problem.’
‘S’all right.’
The others simply nodded and headed back to their cars.
‘You sure you’re all right now?’ the guy who had taken charge asked.
‘Yes, thank you. I’ve got my mobile. I’ll just try to sound helpless.’
He laughed. ‘OK. Take care.’
‘Thank you,’ Emma called again as he raised a hand and turned away.
She reached into the car for her phone, brought up the menu and dialled.
By the time the connection was made, the traffic was moving again, the rhythmic hum of passing engines acting as a background to the call.
A female operator answered after just two rings.
‘Hello, yes. I’ve broken down. The engine just died on me. I’m at the top end of the roadworks in Pennsylvania Road, Exeter.’
‘Is the car in a safe position?’ the woman asked.
‘Yes. Some men helped me move it.’
‘Are you on your own there?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘OK. We’ll have someone there with you as soon as we can.’ She heard the tapping of a keyboard faintly over the line. ‘It’ll be about twenty minutes.’
‘Thank you.’
She slipped the phone back into her handbag and stood beside the car, on the far side from the passing traffic. She checked her watch. Six-seventeen. She watched the lights change. The downhill traffic started flowing through. The evening was warm, almost muggy, as if a storm could be brewing. She took off her jacket, folded it and put it on the passenger seat. After a few moments, she reached into the back of the car and moved her briefcase to the front passenger footwell so that everything she would want to take with her if he couldn’t get the car going again was in one place, ready.
*
Tommy was in the TV lounge with most of the other eighteen residents, watching the last few minutes of a documentary on the nature of New Zealand, when the single warder who was sitting with them got up and announced, ‘Back in a minute. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t, any of you.’
He stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him.
‘Yeah, more like ten minutes,’ said one of the other kids. ‘Must be them steroids, I reckon. Mess him up something terrible. Bloody bog stinks like hell after he’s been in there.’
Several of the others laughed and Tommy joined in as he filed the information away for future reference.
‘Should be plenty.’ The bully who had attacked Tommy earlier, who he had since learned was called Sam Lockhart, turned in his seat and grinned at him.
Tommy frowned…
Had barely had time to form the expression when his seat was tilted suddenly back. His arms and legs darted out reflexively, but there was no stopping it. His grasp slipped from the shoulders of the two boys either side of him and he landed on his back. The lanky blond kid from this morning grinned down at him as some of the others laughed. Tommy slammed a fist up into the
lean face, felt his second knuckle impact directly on the tip of the boy’s nose. He yelled, darting back out of reach, as Tommy rolled sideways off the upended chair.
In the confined space, he hadn’t reached his feet when he was grabbed from behind and yanked backwards. His feet tangled with the chair, almost spilling him again. Then his right foot landed on the front edge of the chair and he pushed hard against it, driving himself backwards into his new attacker, who stumbled, letting go of the back of Tommy’s standard-issue polo shirt as he swore.
Tommy turned the opposite way to the other boy, landing on his side and shoulder across the back of two chairs, the occupants of which had sat forward and begun to turn to see what was going on. The padded chair backs dug into his ribs, but not as badly as they would have if they had been wooden. He grabbed them with his upper hand, turning further as he got his feet under him. Someone shoved him from behind, but he righted himself and saw that, as he’d suspected, it was Lockhart who had attacked him.
The bully was pushing himself up off the backs of the two lads he’d fallen against, struggling upright in the tight space between the rows of chairs and the feet of their occupants. Tommy only needed one foot and he didn’t care where he put it. He slammed his right foot down, the leg still slightly bent when his heel drove into the top of someone’s foot, and he launched himself forward in a dive as the person behind him howled in pain.
Tommy’s grasping hands both caught hold of something: the right got Lockhart’s belt while the left gripped his right forearm. They went down in a tangle of chairs and legs. Tommy’s head bounced off the edge of a chair seat, but he paid it no attention, using his arms and his grip on Lockhart to power himself forward, landing on top of the larger boy, who slammed his head forward in a butt that was aimed to smash Tommy’s nose.
His aim was way off. Tommy’s move had brought him further and higher than Lockhart had anticipated so that his forehead struck Tommy in the chest.
It was like being hit with a hammer. It stunned his ribcage into inactivity, but survival was Tommy’s only motivation now and inactivity would not allow that. As Lockhart’s head fell back, Tommy relaxed his arms, falling flat on top of him, at the same time ducking his head so that his teeth hit Lockhart in the face.
