by J M Gregson
A successful day, all in all. He allowed himself a small spliff of cannabis to celebrate. Pot didn’t seem to have the effect it once had, but he would ride on his success and make it do. The de Vries woman was going to dish up, and the drugs transaction had been as easy as they came.
He almost wished he hadn’t tackled that Karen Lynch the previous day now. A small part of his brain which he did not wish to hear told him that she was a cripple, that she had come up the hard way and was making a go of it. Another, more heeded, part told him that five hundred quid was hardly worth the effort she was going to cost him. But she shouldn’t have ideas above her station, should she? So what if it was difficult for her? The jumped-up bitch deserved to have it difficult.
There was still light in the west at nine thirty when he rode his bike to the pub by the docks, but the sun had set and the cars had their headlights on. It was past the longest day now, and the nights would be drawing in. By the end of August, it would be dark at eight o’clock and his natural element would be returning. ‘Darkness visible.’ He liked that. He remembered that it was Milton now. He could have gone to university if he’d wanted to, as Karen Lynch had said. He might start dealing more vigorously again in the winter. Or he might continue to expand his other interest. It seemed easier and safer to get money this way, and he had a natural talent for acquiring information which people did not want him to have.
He sipped his lager and listened to the gossip in the pub. It was surprising what you picked up in pubs. You saw things and heard things which you could follow up, document more fully at your leisure. No smoke without fire, they said; and if he sniffed the smoke, Darren Chivers could usually find the fire.
He chatted to two girls who were on the game. Women like this found him an odd creature, but unthreatening. Most of them thought he was queer; that was why they found him so unthreatening and easy to chat to. Chivers was not in fact homosexual so much as asexual. He had liked girls at school, but never had much success with them. Rather than be repeatedly rebuffed, he had chosen to go his own way, enjoying the occasional romp when it was offered, usually by women seeking the next fix, but otherwise keeping his own counsel and avoiding sexual entanglements.
He recognized a drug squad detective, no doubt angling for bigger fish than him. Darren was delighted to go up and speak to him, happy that his pockets held nothing illicit; he enjoyed posing as a reformed character to this taciturn agent of the law. He bought himself another half, telling a barman who was not interested that he could not risk being charged with being drunk in charge of a bicycle.
It was quite dark as he left the pub and went through the car park at the back to the alley where he had left his bike. The two men were plainly bent on violence, but he saw them too late.
It was the darkness he thought of as his friend which concealed them. They came at him with what he thought were baseball bats, but which might have been iron bars. Darren did not waste time shouting or pleading, but dropped his bike and ran for it.
Even as he fell, he knew that it was hopeless. They were stronger and quicker than he was. Within ten yards they had him, within twelve he was down. The first blow caught his shoulder, bringing a yelp of pain from him as he fell. Then they set about his body, as he pulled up his knees and clasped his arms over his head in a hopeless, foetal crouch. There was only one blow to his head, but so many to his ribs and his back that he thought they were going to kill him.
The pain was in his trunk, in his heart, in his brain, pulsing faster with every blow. But he was still conscious when they told him this was just a warning, that blackmailers deserved much worse, and would get much worse, if they didn’t see sense and give up. Then the blood ran into his mouth. His last thought as he lost consciousness was that it would soon be over.
Ten
Chief Superintendent Lambert was restless. There wasn’t enough serious crime on his patch at present. That was a cause for public celebration and congratulations to the police service. But Lambert needed things which would demand his concentration and stretch his mind. He hated being behind a desk all day, and the rest of his team became uneasy if he was confined within the CID section.
DI Rushton reported to him on the events of the night of Wednesday June 25th. ‘Bit of the fracas in the city centre just before midnight. Too much booze consumed as usual. Drunken young men showing off in front of drunken young women.’
‘Usual yobs and tarts trouble.’
Rushton grinned. ‘I was phrasing it for the magistrates, sir. Don’t visit the locker room for an hour or so. PC Jones has been washing the puke off his uniform. I understand DC Pheasant has quite a lot of blood on hers, but fortunately it’s not her own blood. Three arrests for carrying offensive weapons - all of them knives. None of them used, thanks to prompt action by our lads and lasses, and none of the arrests have previous. They’ll get away with cautions.’
They sighed a little over the tedious repetitions of such petty disturbances, over the lack of imagination of modem youth. Then Chris Rushton said, ‘There was one rather more professional piece of violence last night. A drug dealer received a pretty severe beating behind the Wagon and Horses. A man called Darren Chivers. Bert Hook and I interviewed him last week. A slippery, experienced, small-time operator. We got nothing useful out of him, but that may have been because he had nothing to give us. The drug squad say he’s just a small-time dealer who may not even know the name of his supplier and certainly won’t know the identity of any of the big boys. Bert and I thought at least we’d scared him off, that he wouldn’t be doing much dealing in the immediate future because he knew he was going to be watched.’
‘How badly was he damaged?’
Rushton looked at his computer screen. ‘Possible broken ribs - he was being taken to X-ray an hour or so ago. The damage was done with our old friend the blunt instrument. Or instruments - we don’t know yet whether more than one person was involved in the attack. Multiple bruising. A single blow to the back of the head which has been stitched up. Probable concussion, but no serious cranial damage.’
‘Any idea who did it?’
‘No. And he wasn’t found until at least an hour after it happened. So we’re not likely to find out who attacked him, unless he has an idea himself and is prepared to volunteer it to us.’
‘Both of which are unlikely, from what we know of him. Unusual assault, for a small-time dealer, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I hadn’t really thought about it. But you’re right, John. If dealers aren’t selling the amount they should, they’re usually just dropped. If they know more than they should and are likely to reveal it, they’re quietly liquidated. This looks more like a warning off. Whoever did it had Chivers down and at their mercy. They could have finished him off, if they’d wanted to.’
‘I think we should get someone down to the hospital to see what Chivers himself thinks about it. Unless he has some idea who might have roughed him up, we’ve very little chance of finding them, as you say.’
‘Bert Hook’s seen him before. I can’t go myself. The CPS have me on standby for a court appearance. They feel the woman’s not going to plead guilty after all.’
‘I’ll go to the hospital with Bert. We’ll see whether a beating has made your slippery Mr Chivers any more talkative.’ Uambert tried not to look too pleased at the prospect of escape from his office.
Daniel Steele was exhausted. He was only 48, but night work took its toll. He had done plenty of night shifts during his early days in the police force, but he had been young then. Everything had been a new experience as a young, uniformed copper. Those days belonged to another and very different world.
But you never seemed to sleep as well during the day; even though this was now his regular rest pattern, his body never seemed to adjust to it. He felt very middle-aged nowadays after a night on security work at Graftons. Well, you are middle-aged and a little more, he told himself firmly. You’re a grandfather, for God’s sake, have been for a while now. Just accept
that and get on with enjoying the rest of your life.
It wasn’t that the work was taxing. It was routine stuff, much of it not very different from the old night watchman’s role. You still made patrols round the extensive perimeter of the factory and the warehouse, as you might have done half a century earlier. You kept an eye on the CCTV cameras, but that made the job safer, if anything. He had a direct line to the police station and the system required him to use it at the first sign of real trouble. Money for old rope, really. And he’d just been given a rise and put in charge of overall security at the works, on the grounds of his ‘experience and integrity’. Bit ironic, that, if they only knew. But they didn’t. Only he and bloody Darren Chivers knew.
He found himself nodding sleepily over his breakfast toast, then roused himself at his wife’s excited call and went into the living room to witness his granddaughter’s first faltering steps and his wife’s delighted encouragement of them. Her face was full of simple, innocent delight as she held the child against her and said over her head to her spouse, ‘She’s only here for the morning, Dan. I’ll take her to the park in a while, so that you can get to sleep.’
It was a good life, Steele told himself firmly. A life which could only be shattered if he lost his job. He wondered how much chance there was of that, how real Darren Chivers’s threat to his livelihood was. He waited until his wife departed with her charge to the park and then picked up the phone. ‘I’m just trying to trace an old colleague of mine. We were very friendly when we worked together, but I moved away when I left the police and we’ve lost touch.’
The young woman was suspicious until he gave his name and former rank. Then she relaxed and gave him the information he wanted. ‘Chief Inspector North retired ten years ago. I can give you his address.’ She rustled through paper. Not everything was computerized as efficiently as at Graftons, Dan thought with amusement. His informant sounded more hesitant when she came back to the phone. ‘I’m afraid Mr North isn’t - he hasn’t been very well. He’s at Westcott House now, not at home. I’ve spoken to his wife and apparently he has mild dementia. She thought a visit would be all right, if you’re an old colleague, but you should be prepared for the fact that he’ll be very vague. He might not even recognize you.’
‘Thank you. I’ll bear that in mind.’
Daniel Steele stared at the phone absently for a few seconds with a widening smile. The one man who might speak out about him was almost out of it. There was only Darren Chivers to deal with now.
‘We’re here to help you. But we need you to help us.’ Lambert delivered the routine formula to the battered man in the bed.
Darren Chivers weighed them up with the suspicion he always accorded the police. ‘Chief Superintendent, you said. Why’s the top brass concerning itself with the likes of me?’
‘We take violence seriously, whoever the victim is. We don’t want it on our streets.’
‘Going through the motions are you? Trying to pretend that thieves and toms matter just as much as teachers and doctors?’
‘They do when they’re victims. It doesn’t matter what your background is. If you’ve taken the kind of beating you took last night, we want to arrest the people who did it and put them behind bars.’
Chivers regarded the long, lined face balefully. ‘You’re a bit old for a copper, aren’t you, mate?’
DS Hook took over hastily. ‘Chief Superintendent Lambert has been given a Home Office extension on account of his very high success rate with serious crimes. The fact that he’s here talking to you is evidence of how seriously we’re taking last night’s assault on you.’
Chivers transferred his attention to DS Hook’s weatherbeaten features. ‘Don’t give me that. You were giving me the third degree last week. You and that Rushton bloke. Accusing me of dealing drugs.’
‘Hardly third degree, Darren. You came to the station voluntarily to assist us with our inquiries.’
Chivers sneered at him, his mouth twisting into a smile of contempt, his crooked teeth flashing yellow at them for a moment. When I feel no physical danger, I do sneering rather well, he thought. ‘And we all know what would have happened if I hadn’t come voluntarily, don’t we?’
Hook smiled, acknowledging the games which men like this man and himself had sometimes to play. ‘You’re a known drug dealer, Darren. You’ve had a conviction for it in the past. You’ve a record and you’re a possible source of information. You can’t blame us for trying to discover the identity of people higher up the chain than you.’
‘Except that I’m not dealing now, am I? I’ve taken the advice of pigs like you and decided to go straight. Fat lot of good it’s done me.’
Bert Hook regarded him steadily for a moment, then leant forward and pulled back the sheet which covered him. Chivers winced with the pain and started automatically away from the large hands of the DS. The visitors looked at the bandaged ribs, at the already livid bruises on the pathetically thin torso.
Chivers snatched back the sheet and covered himself. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, fuzz?’
Hook smiled at him. ‘Examining the damage, Darren. Confirming for ourselves that the photos in glorious techni- colour will make the right impression in court. Those bruises should be at their most vivid and colourful in a couple of days, wouldn’t you think, sir?’
Lambert smiled. ‘I would indeed, DS Hook. The medical staff here do excellent prints, but perhaps we should send one of our police photographers down to make the most of these wounds.’
‘You’re not having any pictures of me, coppers. Bloody perverts! ’ Darren shook his head and tried another sneer, which was less effective than his first effort.
Bert Hook hastened into explanation. ‘Very necessary for a Crown Court, Darren. That’s where a GBH case will go, you see. Juries are always impressed by photographs of the effects of violence. Be an excellent back-up for your evidence, photos will. Being as you’re a known criminal with a history of drug-dealing, we’ll need back-up, you see.’
‘I’m not bringing charges.’
Hook remained determinedly bright in the face of his victim’s sullen refusal. ‘We can look after the charges, Darren. You’ll just be a star witness in a big court. You’ll enjoy that.’ He leaned forward with concern, like one of the medics who had tended the injuries beneath the sheet. ‘Now, who was it that bashed you about in this shameful manner?’
‘I don’t bloody know, do I?’
‘You must have some idea.’
‘I bloody don’t. You said I was a dealer, so it could be some heavies connected with the drugs trade, 1 suppose. Not that I’m admitting to any dealing, mind.’
Just when he had got used to abusing Hook, John Lambert came quietly back into the exchanges. ‘Doesn’t look like a drugs beating to us, Mr Chivers. Looks like a warning-off to us.’
‘Well, you know more than 1 do then, copper.’
‘We do actually, Mr Chivers. We know that the big boys in the drugs industry are ruthless. But they rarely need this sort of violence. They either dispense with people’s services or see them off altogether, if they know too much. They don’t often do warning assaults. This looks to us like a warning from a different source altogether.’
‘It’s a fucking mystery, then, innit?’
Lambert regarded him for a moment with steady, unemotional distaste. ‘Give us the details of the attack.’
‘Not much I can tell you. The bastards came at me in the dark and—’
‘So there were more than one involved?’
‘Two big buggers. They had baseball bats. Least, that’s what I think they were hitting me with. I ’ad my ’ands over my ’ead pretty quick, I can tell you.’
Hook nodded slowly and said quietly, ‘Who were they, Darren?’
‘I don’t bloody know, do I?’
‘You may well have some ideas. People who suffer attacks like this usually have a shrewd notion where they come from.’
‘Well, you’re out of luck
today. I don’t have any bloody notion at all.’
‘Don’t you want them caught?’
Chivers paused for a moment. You had to be careful what you said to pigs. They’d turn it against you if they could. ‘Course I do. I’d like to have the bastards on the floor in front of me and give them a good kicking. But that’s not going to happen, is it? Dozy buggers like you won’t catch them.’
‘We might, if we get some cooperation from you. I know you had your hands over your head, and you curled yourself up on the ground, but isn’t there any detail of either of them you can recall?’
‘No. It was dark and I didn’t see them. All I can remember is these fucking baseball bats or bars hitting me.’
‘Did they speak?’
He thought of that last harsh warning to lay off the blackmail. He couldn’t tell them about that. ‘I can’t remember anything they said. One of them did shout something at me. I think he had a Brummie accent.’
‘And what did he say? Do you recall his words?’
‘No, I fucking don’t! I had my arms over my ears and my hands over my face. I thought the bastards were going to kill me!’
Hook nodded, looking thoughtfully at the thin, battered body beneath the sheet. ‘But they didn’t kill you, did they, Darren? They could easily have finished you off, but they didn’t. Why do you think that was?’
‘I don’t fucking know, do I? You tell me, copper.’
‘I think you do know, Darren. This has all the hallmarks of a warning beating. You think and I think that these were professional hit men, hired by someone to warn you off, to tell you that there was worse in store if you didn’t back off from something you were doing.’
‘Don’t tell me what I bloody think, copper. I’ve told you what I can. Just bloody leave me in peace, will you?’
The nursing sister’s face at the door of the room told them that they were going to have to do just that, any minute now.
Hook said, ‘A warning beating, Darren. What have you been up to? What were these nasty buggers warning you about, and who sent them after you?’
