There, that was the edges all done. Time for the roller. Checking one final time for drips and loose brush hairs, Tammy descended the stepladder.
Of course, it hadn’t been really immediate, she comforted herself. It had been a good eighteen months since she’d come home that fateful day and walked into her kitchen to find Maureen spreadeagled on the table, moaning as Neville, the cheating bastard, pumped away with his trousers round his ankles. Damn, there went a drip, running down. Catch it quickly before it starts to set. Too much paint on the roller.
It wasn’t as if he wasn’t keen, Tammy comforted herself. It wasn’t like she was chasing after him or anything. He called to chat pretty well every afternoon, and by the way he was always available and wanting to go out on her nights off, she suspected he might have rearranged his schedule. And it wasn’t like she’d gone looking for a man, like some people, signing up to those awful websites and claiming to be cuddly and have a GSOH, which meant you were hugely fat and a slapper with no manners. Now that really was desperate. Never in a million years would she go near one of those.
Thinking about it, Tammy decided, she was almost sure he’d rearranged his work schedule. Ben’s work with Tom, silly as it was, did all happen at night, and it just didn’t seem likely that a relatively junior cop would always have weekends off.
There, the first wall was done. Tammy set down the roller and stepped back to admire her achievement. It was a bit streaky in the top corner, but the second coat would take care of that, and she could always put on a third coat if necessary. How lovely it was going to look. She planned to accent it with dark blue curtains and rugs. The floor natural wood, of course, stripped and polished. If it was a bit old and hacked about, so much the better; it would add character.
How was that getting on, Tammy wondered as she started on the front wall. This one didn’t have much area because of the big French windows, but then that also meant there were lots of edges to be carefully done first with the brush. The last she had heard, Tom had still been declining to go anywhere near Fred Steiner’s house. They’d resorted to sneaking up at four in the morning and rubbing anchovies on the windowsills, but even this creative move had not been productive of any result. Tom, apparently, had, upon his release, invariably headed straight for Tammy’s house, and cried outside the finally-fixed door. You’d think they’d know better, Tammy sniggered. Honestly, as if a cat was interested in what you wanted.
There went Vanessa again, loading up her car with another load of those big plastic boxes. How could she even lift them? And what on earth was in them?
And then.
The penny.
Dropped.
Tammy sat down suddenly, cross-legged on the floor, the loaded paintbrush delivering an unnoticed dollop of mushroom-coloured paint into her crotch. The boxes, those incessant, unnecessary plastic crates, being taken, day after day, week after week, to all three high schools. Going full, but not really that heavy, and coming back less full. No one would think anything of the home economics teacher turning up with her usual load of gear. No one would probably even consciously see her as she carried her deadly payload right into the classroom. And once there, how easy, how completely unremarkable, how invisible to ask particular children to see her after class. She wouldn’t even need to ask them, Tammy realised, after the initial arrangements had been made. She probably had a few kids acting as distributors within each school.
It all made sense. The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. The Evil Drug Lord (Tammy allowed herself the small luxury of thinking in terms of melodrama) trapped, disabled and languishing in Durance Vile. His Faithful Moll (alright, Vanessa wasn’t exactly the moll type, but you had to have some artistic licence) loyally carrying on the family business in his absence. She’d have had the contacts to set everything up; in fact, whatever supplier she was dealing with might not even realise she was acting on her own and not on her husband’s behalf. And in fact, she might not be. Suppose they’d been in it together right from the start, Vanessa not an innocent dupe but in fact a willing partner, perhaps even the instigator of the vile trade?
She had to get hold of Ben right away. Where was her phone? Wiping paint indiscriminately on jeans, shirt and the actual painting rag, she cast about for her handbag. Oh yes, she’d left it in the kitchen. Hold on, though, she ought to finish the bit she was doing and clean her tools. Yes, that would be best. But Vanessa might be poisoning some little kid even now. On the other hand, it would dry streaky. But it was only the first coat, so would that matter? But the paint would set in her brush and roller. She’d bought the best tools she could afford, and didn’t want to have to replace them after only one use. But then the children.
Minutes ticked by and paint dried in the drip tray as Tammy vacillated. Eventually, she pulled herself together and dumped roller, brush and tray into the laundry tub. They could soak in there. She was drying her hands when the doorbell rang. Swearing under her breath, she rushed to the door, snatching up her bag on the way, and dumped its contents one-handed onto the sofa as she opened the door with her other hand.
There would be no need to hunt for her mobile phone, though. Ben stood on the step. He seemed to be struggling to hold back tears.
Everything flew out of Tammy’s head as she wrapped her arms around Ben and steered him into the kitchen, murmuring soothing nothings. She got him into a chair and switched on the kettle for tea. Tammy was a great believer in tea as an instant remedy for all forms of emotional distress. It never did any harm, she felt, and often did good, even if it was just to make you stop panicking.
Ben had buried his face in his arms and was mumbling incoherently. She couldn’t make head or tail of it. Never mind. Get the tea first. She slid a mug onto the table in front of him, teabag still dangling from it, and sat next to him, a hand on his shaking shoulders.
“Ben, whatever is it? What’s happened?”
This elicited a stream of garbled talk, of which Tammy could only distinctly make out the word ‘Tom’, although the general tone of it seemed to be one of self-accusation.
“What’s happened to Tom?”
Ben sat up, scrubbing at his face, pulling himself together with visible effort.
“Sorry to go off like this, Tammy. I just don’t know what I’ll do without the little bugger.”
“Do without - what d’you mean, he’s not dead, is he?”
“No, but he might - he might die, Tammy, he’s at the vet’s now, they said they’d call me... I should never have brought him home. He’s supposed to stay in his enclosure at the station when he’s not working. He’d have been alright there.” He shook his head and reached for the mug, wrapping his hands around it as if to warm fingers numb with cold.
“Ben. What happened? Just try to tell me calmly.”
Ben sucked in a deep, if shaky, breath. “Well, see, I’ve been taking him home after our shift. Like I said, he’s supposed to stay in his quarters at the station, but I thought it was nicer for him in the flat, and then he’s company, you know, and it seemed okay, I mean I got a litter box for him and everything, and he seemed happy with it.”
“Yes, right, so you took him home, and something happened? What happened, Ben?”
“It was when we got home this morning. We’d been on the usual stakeout, you know how it goes, he’s supposed to -”
“Yes, yes, I know all that. What happened?”
“He just went completely weird. I mean, it was like he was trying to attack something that wasn’t there, and when I spoke to him he didn’t seem to know me, and he was dribbling, great strings of drool coming out of his mouth, and panting, and when I picked him up his heart was going like a thousand miles an hour, and he bit me, Tammy, he bit me.”
Tammy didn’t know what to say. “Do you have any idea what caused it?”
Ben shook his head hopelessly. “None at all. I mean, I’d called him back, and he came, and I put him in his basket and drove home. I gave him some brekkie and he had
that, and he settled down to wash himself, like he does, and then when I came out of the shower he was just in this state.”
“Could it have been the food, something wrong with the food?”
“I don’t see how, it’s just the same Whiskettes as every day. I only give him the dry in the morning because I’m going to sleep, see, and if I give him anything wet and he doesn’t eat it all it gets flyblown.”
Ben’s phone rang, shockingly loud in the small kitchen. Ben jumped and almost knocked over his tea. The phone rang again.
“Oh, shit, that’ll be the vet.”
“Well go on, answer it.”
For a second Ben’s tortured gaze met her own. “What if he’s....”
The phone rang a third time, and he snapped out of his panic and reached into his pocket. “Ben Jackson.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“No, he was fine, he was washing himself....”
“I see. Yes, right.”
“Right.”
“Right.” A deep sigh, with visible relaxing of posture.
“So he’s going to be okay, you’re sure....”
“Right. Yeah, of course. Thanks so much, Doctor.”
He disconnected and sat staring into space. Tammy tried to wait patiently, but after a few seconds could not refrain from shaking him.
“So what is it? Is he going to be alright?”
Ben sighed. “Looks like it. They said he’s stabilised and stopped carrying on, and they want to keep an eye on him till five o’clock and then if he doesn’t get worse again he can go home.”
“Did they say what caused it?”
“Not really, but Doctor Wright thinks he might have stepped in something, some chemical, and then got a dose when he washed his feet. A stimulant reaction, he called it. They gave him something to make him sick, to empty everything out of his stomach, but Wright reckoned it might have been just traces of something.”
“What, like weed killer or something like that?”
“Yeah, I guess.” He laughed. “Funny, really.”
“What’s funny?”
“Well, the way he was, when I think about it, that’s how people get when they O.D. with meth. The aggression, seeing things, all that.”
“You don’t think-”
“What, that he found the factory and got himself a dose of product?” Ben considered this for a moment. “Nah. Stuff like that doesn’t happen in real life.”
But Tammy wasn’t so sure. A memory flitted at the edges of her mind. A memory of seeing Tom, his fur glinting in the last of the daylight, picking his way along the top of Vanessa’s fence, and streaking into her open garage as Tammy revved her engine to get over the broken kerb.
“Listen, Ben, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about....”
***
Two hours and many cups of tea later, Tammy sat back, satisfied. She’d finally got it into Ben’s thick head. Really, she thought, she was the one who should have been a cop.
Ben, however, although convinced by Tammy’s arguments, was not enthusiastic about the prospect of bringing Vanessa to book.
“I just don’t think I’ve got enough to get a warrant,” he repeated, his expression mulish.
“Why not? You’ve got a reasonable suspicion.”
Ben sighed. “It’s not the court that’s the problem, Tam. It’s the sergeant. See, only a sergeant or higher can apply for a search warrant. Normally, you go to the sarge, and he does the application to the court, he gets the warrant and off you go. Or someone else, whatever. I can’t apply for a warrant because I’m not a sergeant. And I reckon I’ve got about two chances of convincing old Briginshaw to go for a warrant against Mrs Carlson. That would be Buckley’s and None.”
“Why?”
“It’s not her particularly. It’s me. Remember why I’m in this squad in the first place? My name is mud. I’d never get him to listen. There’s no actual evidence, after all, there’s just this theory of yours. And remember, if it all goes pear-shaped, he’s the one in the firing line. I mean, suppose we raid her and there’s nothing, we’re wrong. How does that look, especially after the Daily Constellation gets hold of it? Local Woman Raided, Claims Harassment. You know what they’re like. I just don’t need any more grief.”
“But what if you get this major drug ring, bust it up all by yourself and get a conviction? Then you’d be a hero. Local Cop Saves Our Kids.”
Ben grinned. “You’ve been watching too much telly. There’s no ‘all by yourself’ in the real police. There’s no heroics. It’s just a job, a dirty job.”
Tammy sighed. Men. They just gave up so easily. She was sure there’d be a way. After Ben had left for the vet’s, she got out her laptop.
***
It was right enough, she found, that only a sergeant or above could apply for a warrant; that was in the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act. Undaunted, she turned her mind around to circumvent the restriction. What about searching without a warrant? She seemed to recall that evidence obtained illegally wasn’t admissible in court, but then most of her knowledge of criminal law came from American television. Perhaps the law was different here? It certainly was in other ways.
Luckily for Tammy, the recently enacted Evidence Act was in plain English. She found, to her triumph, that the court had a discretion either to include or to exclude evidence obtained by improper means. Now, what could those means be? She didn’t see Ben cold-bloodedly breaking in and raiding Vanessa’s house without any authority at all. In fact, she knew him well enough to be quite sure he wouldn’t have a bar of it. To Tammy, the end justified the means when you were dealing with really bad people, but Ben had a stolid, by-the-book kind of mind, and he’d dig in his heels, she knew. And she’d get that patronising lecture about a policeman’s Duty to Society, and all that.
So, how could she get him in there on a search without a warrant? What about a fake warrant? No, he’d never have anything to do with that, and he’d be in a world of trouble when the forgery was discovered. Idly, she went back to the Drugs Act. Schedule Ten had the form of the warrant, she discovered. It was all in terrible archaic language, but the only identifying information that seemed to be in it was the nature of the stuff being searched for and the address to be searched. Nothing about the occupant’s name or anything.
Tammy leaned back and massaged her neck, stiff from hunching over the laptop. An idea was forming, best not to force it. Fred Steiner was at number sixteen. Vanessa was at number twelve. She stared at the ceiling. Number sixteen, number twelve... what if there were a mistake on the warrant? Easy to write the wrong number by accident. No one could ever really say for sure that it hadn’t been an accident. Then the raid happens, yes, and finds the evidence, the still or whatever was used to make the stuff, or traffickable quantities and so on, and then, then it goes to court... and yes, the court has a discretion to include the evidence, and Tammy hardly thought they’d be likely not to, not when it was a major drug operation placing the lives of so many children at risk... Ben would be a hero, he’d get his old job back, Vanessa would go off to join her husband in the slammer, everybody would be happy. All he’d have to do would be to convince the sergeant to get a warrant for Fred Steiner’s place, and surely that wouldn’t be difficult as that was the house he’d been doing the surveillance on all that time, and come to think of it, trying to get Tom in there, which, Tammy thought, might well fall under the heading of an illegal search.
It was time to go to work. Tammy closed her laptop thoughtfully. She’d sleep on it, and talk to Ben tomorrow afternoon.
***
“Look, Tammy, you’ve just been watching too much telly. Too many of those Yank cop shows. It’s not like that in real life. You can’t just play around and get phony warrants issued to the wrong address and go in with guns blazing. There’d be hell to pay. I’d probably get kicked out of the force. And rightly so, I might add. The public trusts us to act with integrity. There has to be confid
ence....”
It was the same lecture she’d heard several times before. High level of integrity blah blah blah ethical standards blah blah blah public confidence. Tammy tuned out.
***
Over the next few days, Tammy tried and rejected many ideas as she painted. First, she considered setting fire to Vanessa’s house, and then going in there on the basis that Vanessa might be in there overcome by smoke. But then suppose the fire got out of hand and destroyed all the evidence? Or got even more out of hand and spread to other houses in the street? Or suppose she got found out and prosecuted for arson; that was a real worry. She’d seen a documentary about arson investigations. They could find out amazing things, it was little short of witchcraft what they could do. No, arson was definitely out.
She considered breaking into Vanessa’s house herself, while Vanessa was off at work. But suppose someone saw her get in and called the police? She didn’t think Ben would be terribly impressed if his new girlfriend turned out to be a burglar. He’d break up with her for sure. No, burglary was right out.
All they needed was enough to convince the sergeant to get a warrant. It didn’t have to be the full shebang. Just one packet of drugs, Tammy supposed, would be enough.
***
It was a hot day, but Tammy shivered as she crouched in the overgrown lilac bushes just inside her front gate. Right, that looked like the car was full. Now was the moment. She pressed the button and let speed dial do the rest. Presently, the shrill of the landline could be faintly heard from inside Vanessa’s house. Vanessa, about to close the car door, hesitated, looked back, seemed to deliberate for a second and then hurried back inside.
Tammy didn’t lose a second, darting out from the bush and across the road without even looking both ways. Wrenching open the top of the nearest box, she snatched the first thing her groping hand encountered, secured the lid and belted back to the bush just in time to hear Vanessa answer the phone in her pretentious North Shore accent.
Operation Tomcat Page 5
