THE NUMBERS GAME: a gripping crime thriller

by JOHN STANLEY

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Says me,’ and Chambers seemed irritated by the question. ‘Surely you know that I am chairman of S.O.S.’

  ‘We had heard,’ murmured Perlow, adding sardonically. ‘Have you sent up a flare and should we be manning the lifeboats?’

  ‘Save our Street,’ said Chambers through gritted teeth, ‘has been fighting to save Alma Street, as you well know.’

  ‘But I thought the group trying to do that was led by Marjorie Pretty and her friends?’

  ‘Pha!’ snorted Chambers, ‘what good has she done? What good have any of them done? Windbags, the lot of them. Talk, talk, talk!’

  ‘And your style is?’ asked the constable.

  ‘I prefer more direct action.’

  ‘Like murdering people perhaps?’

  ‘Don’t be preposterous, man! We use other methods.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘That’s for you to find out,’ said Chambers.

  ‘Who are ‘we’ exactly?’ asked Miles. ‘How many members does your group actually have?’

  He hesitated.

  ‘Mr Chambers?’ repeated Miles.

  ‘How many we have is hardly relevant,’ he said dismissively. ‘What matters is the…’

  ‘It’s just you, isn’t it?’ said Miles, trying to stifle a smile.

  ‘What if it is?’ he said angrily. ‘I lived in this street, I have every right to campaign to save it, especially when no one else seems to care and that includes, might I add, your own police force. It’s not about signatures on petitions, it’s about…’

  His voice tailed off.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Perlow, ‘back to your direct action, Mr Chambers. Now what I would like to know is…’

  ‘Hey!’ shouted a voice. ‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’

  They turned to see one of the developer’s security guards striding towards them. A lean man in his thirties, his close-cropped hair and athletic build suggested ex-Army to the detectives as he walked with his arms swinging purposefully.

  Perlow tried not laugh. The constable glanced round at the grinning Miles then noticed that Brian Chambers had vanished.

  ‘Where is he?’ he asked quickly.

  ‘Dunno,’ shrugged Miles, turning quickly and surveying the street. ‘Do you want me to look for him?’

  ‘Yeah. Our Mr Chambers has some questions to answer.’

  As the constable set off up the street, Perlow turned back and prepared to deal with the security guard.

  ‘You’d better have a damned good reason for being in this street!’ said the man, glowering at him, ‘because I ain’t at home to Mister Bullshit.’

  ‘And good evening to you, my good man,’ said the constable calmly.

  ‘Don’t give me any of your smart-arse lip. Can’t you read the sign? Ain’t no one allowed up here.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Says me. I am the law in this street and you would do well to remember that.’

  Perlow, suddenly struck by how much more menacing Brian Chambers’ restrained fury had been compared with the mindless ranting of the guard, took a couple of steps back and looked the man up and down slowly.

  ‘Are you some sort of traffic warden or something?’ he asked.

  ‘I,’ said the guard icily, ‘am Raymond Gerrard.’

  ‘Is that supposed to mean something?’

  ‘I am from Panther Watch,’ said Gerrard coldly, pointing to the shiny yellow badge on the chest of his brown uniform, in the middle of which was a large black cat’s head, its mouth open as if in a roar.

  ‘You don’t see many panthers around here.’

  ‘Now look here…’

  ‘No, you look here,’ said the constable, voice suddenly hard-edged. ‘I am DC Perlow from City CID and actually I am the law around here.’

  The guard hesitated for a moment.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ he said, calming down a little, ‘my orders are to make sure no one comes in here because your lot have been useless.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Well, you ain’t solved them murders, have you?’ The tone of voice was taunting. ‘And your Mr Radford didn’t exactly help. From what I hear, he had a go at our Mr Jeavons. Mr Jeavons, he comes to me personally after that and says to make sure no one got into the street. Says he don’t want no more winos getting killed before we bulldoze it and that I am the man to make sure they don’t.’

  ‘Well,’ said Perlow, returning his attention to the front door the detectives had been examining, ‘I am delighted that you are being so efficient.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ said Gerrard gruffly, slightly mollified by the comment, ‘you got to be sharp in this business.’

  Perlow was about to reply when he noticed Miles approaching from the end of the street.

  ‘Anything?’ he asked.

  ‘No, he’s disappeared.’

  ‘Who’s disappeared?’ asked Gerrard.

  ‘Brian Chambers,’ said the constable. ‘The man we were talking to before you barged in.’

  ‘That loony! Reckons he’s some sort of security guard or something. I told him ‘leave it to the professionals,’ I said. We know what we are doing.’

  ‘Wise words,’ said Perlow, glancing back at the front door. ‘I guess you do have to be really sharp in your job.’

  ‘Sure have. That’s why they take on ex-Army men, you know. We’re trained to spot things.’

  ‘Of course you are so I assume it goes without saying that you noticed that this front door has been forced?’

  He gave the door a gentle push and it swung open with a slight squeaking of the hinges.

  ‘Or perhaps not, eh?’ said Perlow.

  ‘Bloody Hell,’ exclaimed the guard. ‘How did the bleeders get past me?’

  ‘Cunning these panthers,’ said Perlow, then tensed as he heard a sound from the upstairs of the house.

  The three of them stood and listened then heard it again.

  ‘Must have been there all the time,’ hissed Perlow, nodding at Miles. ‘You go round the back. And be careful, remember what happened to Gainesy.’

  ‘On my way,’ said the constable, starting to run towards the end of the street.

  Perlow looked at the security guard. ‘Go with her,’ he said.

  ‘Right, she’ll need someone to look after her.’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ chuckled Perlow as he recalled those times when Miles had wrestled burly villains to the ground. ‘I’m sure she will.’

  The guard picked up the mockery in his voice but decided to let it go, instead running off after the sprinting constable. Perlow watched them vanish round the boarded-up pub on the corner, then waited until he thought they would be in position. Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the hallway.

  ‘Police!” he shouted.

  There was a crash from upstairs then a splintering sound and a cry. Hearing a dull thud and a scream of pain from the back of the house, the constable hurled himself into the darkness of the kitchen and kicked his way through the back door. Bursting out into the night air, he was confronted by the sight of the security guard sprawled on the floor of the yard and writhing in pain while Miles stood nearby, breathing lightly and watching him dispassionately, having twisted a young man’s arms behind his back and snapped on the handcuffs.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Perlow, ruefully rubbing his knee where he had banged it plunging through the back door.

  ‘This character,’ and Miles turned her prisoner round, ‘decided he could fly. Jumped from the window.’

  Perlow glanced up and, in the beam of his torchlight, saw that the boarding over the rear bedroom window was hanging off. A couple of jagged pieces of timber lay on the ground.

  ‘And Captain Pussycat?’ he asked, nodding at the prostrate security guard, ‘what happened to him?’

  ‘He kindly broke our friend’s fall.’

  ‘Thanks for looking after her, mate,’ chuckled Perlow.

  ‘I want that bastard charged,’ said
the injured man, sitting up and clutching his ankle.

  Perlow returned his gaze to their quarry, a teenager who had now given up his attempts to free himself from Miles’s grip and was glaring balefully at her. A gaunt freckled youth with thinning sandy brown hair, sunken cheekbones and dark hollowed out eyes, he did not present an inspiring sight. A painfully thin individual who did not look as if he had eaten for a week, he was wearing a faded green Parka with several gashes in it and his tattered jeans were stained with mud.

  ‘Hello, Ginch,’ said Perlow affably.

  ‘You know him?’ asked Miles.

  ‘Yeah, me and Ginch go back a long way, don’t we, son?’ and Perlow patted the prisoner lightly on his bony right cheek. ‘In fact, I first nicked you for possession when you were fourteen, didn’t I? Heroin as I recall. That must be five or six years ago now.’

  ‘I ain’t done nuffink, Mr Perlow,’ wailed Ginch. ‘Honest.’

  ‘Nothing! He deliberately jumped at me!’ said the security guard, struggling to his feet.

  ‘I would have thought,’ mused Perlow, motioning for Miles to take Ginch to the car, ‘that a man of your calibre would have noticed eight and a half stone of junkie plunging through the air.’

  The security guard glowered and hobbled towards the constable, his features screwed up with pain.

  ‘I want to press charges for assault,’ he said angrily, looking down at his ripped trouser leg. ‘I could have busted my ankle, for all I know.’

  ‘In which case,’ said Perlow, following Miles and her prisoner through the house. ‘I suggest you call an ambulance.’

  Perlow looked round to make sure the guard was out of earshot.

  ‘Muppet,’ he said.

  Even Ginch laughed at that one.

  Chapter thirteen

  Danny Radford was in sombre mood that evening as he sat in a small pub on the edge of the city, cradling a tomato juice and looking gloomily across the table at Gaines. It was the first time they had gone out for a drink. Both were aware that, if the disciplinary hearing went the wrong way the following morning, it could be the last.

  ‘I’ve blown it,’ said Radford gloomily. ‘The chief has got it in for me.’

  ‘Well, you’re certainly not his favourite person, guv.’

  ‘Thanks for the encouragement.’

  ‘What can I say?’ and Gaines looked at him sharply. ‘I mean, what on earth can I say? You broke half the rules in the book. It can hardly be a shock that the chief wants to throw it at you.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to have a go at you.’

  Honest, I am sorry. You didn’t deserve that.

  ‘Listen,’ said Gaines. ‘Just because you broke the rules, does not mean you were wrong. Everyone at the factory reckons that you did the…’

  But he got no further because his eyes widened as he noticed a figure come in through the door of the pub and walk briskly over to their table.

  ‘What do you think he wants?’ asked the sergeant.

  ‘Whatever it is, it can’t be good,’ said Radford sourly, looking up at the new arrival. ‘Have you come to see the condemned man before he is shot at dawn?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Peter England, ‘I have come to haul your ass out of the firing line. Good evening, Michael. Somehow I didn’t have you two down as drinking buddies.’

  ‘Good evening, sir.’

  ‘Is anyone going to buy me a pint?’ asked the CID chief.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Gaines, taking the hint.

  ‘You’d better fucking pull through on this,’ said Radford urgently when the sergeant had gone to the bar.

  ‘Is that really the way to talk to a DCI?’ said England then nodded as he saw Radford’s worried expression. ‘And don’t worry. It’s all under control. Change of plan, that’s all. Just means we don’t need to engineer anything. Stroke of luck, really.’

  ‘It had better be good.’

  I’m out on a fucking limb, here.

  ‘Too good,’ said England grimly.

  Neither man said anything else until Gaines returned.

  ‘Sit down,’ said England, taking the pint and noticing the sergeant’s uncertainty, ‘you need to hear this as well. I can’t approve of the way your governor has gone about things but something did need to be said. This city is awash with drugs and scrapping Heron is a disgrace.’

  ‘I am glad that someone agrees with him at HQ,’ said Gaines.

  ‘Just about everyone agrees with him, apart from a few stuffed shirts and it’s the numbers game to them. Besides, things have changed a lot in the past few hours.’

  ‘In what way?’ asked Radford.

  ‘Well,’ said England, ‘you should be in no doubt that the press office had been instructed to announce your dismissal straight after your disciplinary tomorrow.’

  ‘So much for a fair hearing,’ said Radford sourly.

  ‘The chief couldn’t have let a breach of discipline like this go, Danny. You know that. But now the press office is redrafting the release to say that certain events have led to a re-think of the decision to close Heron.’

  ‘What certain events?’ asked Radford.

  ‘Last night, a young drug user was taken into the hospital suffering from a heroin overdose. Sixteen years old he was. Collapsed an hour or so after taking the stuff. His mate dialled 999 from an unoccupied house in I’anson Street.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Radford, ‘that’s just over the wasteland from Alma Street.’

  ‘Indeed it is. Uniform said his mate seemed really frightened but let slip that a new gang has moved into the city. Maybe from the Midlands, there’s a suggestion of Nottingham. Looks like they are selling bad gear. That’s what this kid took.’

  ‘Probably been cut with something,’ breathed Radford. ‘I remember when they had it over at Framley ten years ago. Four kids died. There was hell on.’

  Gaines nodded. He had been based at Framley at the time.

  ‘Well, there is hell on here as well,’ said England. ‘The teenager died late this afternoon. Unless we can get this new bunch under lock and key p.d.q., we could be looking at more deaths.’

  Radford sat back and digested his words. ‘So, what are you going to do about it?’ he asked.

  Go on, throw me a bone.

  ‘Well, the chief is, as you can imagine, somewhat alarmed by the impact when it hits the media - it’s difficult to get the Queen’s Police Medal when you are clambering over dead bodies. I told him that the only way he can win back public confidence is to reverse the decision to scrap Heron.’

  ‘Yeah,’ nodded Radford. ‘Our lot know all the stones to look under. Hang on a minute, though, there is no way the chief would agree to that, surely?’

  ‘Actually, he did,’ beamed England, taking a large swig of his beer. ‘Ooh, that’s a nice drop. It’s brewed in Yorkshire, you know. So often the landlords over here don’t store the barrels correctly but this is just right. Anyway, the chief has chosen the officer he wants to direct the investigation.’

  ‘I bet it’s one of the bloody stuffed shirts,’ said Radford sardonically.

  ‘Actually, it’s not.’

  ‘Not Eddie Murtagh?’ and Radford shook his head. ’I mean, he’s a good copper but he’s got no background in drugs.’

  ’No, he hasn’t,’ said England. ‘Actually, I suggested an ex-Drugs Squad officer who recently made DCI.’

  Radford looked puzzled. ‘Not Barry Rattigan?’ he asked after thinking for a few moments. ‘Please tell me it’s not Barry Rattigan. He thinks smack is something his wife gives him when he’s been out on the lash again.’

  ‘How ever does your governor ever solve any crimes?’ asked England, winking at the sergeant. ‘I guess I will have to spell it out. I suggested a chap called Radford. Needs to learn to keep his trap shut sometimes, I said, but the kind of copper who gets results.’

  ‘I appreciate the kind words, Peter,’ said Radford, ‘but there is no way the chief would go for that. Not after all the trouble I
caused him.’

  ‘He hated every minute of it, of course, but he agreed all the same. He knows you’re the best qualified DCI to handle this one. Ex-Drugs Squad and all that.’

  ‘You’re a bloody miracle worker!’ exclaimed Radford.

  Ok, I trust you.

  ‘I like to think so. Of course, some credit must go to some mad old chuff called Marjorie Pretty who rang the chief’s office fourteen thousand times and announced she was going to hold a public meeting calling for your reinstatement. I think she ground the chief down in the end. He lost the will to live.’

  ‘Well I never,’ said Radford then his face clouded over. ‘But what about Jason de Vere? We all know he had a hand in getting me suspended.’

  ‘De Vere hates the idea of you coming back but what he hates more is the thought of any more kids dying and wrecking the public image of his precious city.’

  ‘Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,’ murmured Gaines.

  ‘Exactly,’ said England, downing the last of his pint. ‘So here’s how it plays out, Danny. You return to work in the morning, clean the mess up and when you have done that, the chief will conduct a proper review of Heron instead of listening to some geek in short trousers clutching a calculator.’

  England stood up and wagged a finger at the chief inspector.

  ‘Just don’t cock it up,’ he said. ‘I’ve gone so far down the plank on this one, I can feel the sea lapping round my arse.’

  And with that, England walked out of the pub and into the night.

  Chapter fourteen

  ‘Now where was I before I was so rudely interrupted?’ said Danny Radford, pushing his way through the door.

  A ripple of applause ran round the incident room and for a few moments, the chief inspector was surrounded by officers who leapt from their seats and surged forward, wanting to shake his hand and pat him on the back. For a man who did not normally evoke such affection, indeed who was seen by many as remote and aloof, it was a strange feeling. Danny Radford had shown them a side that no one thought existed. Gone was the man who liked his meetings and his memos, and in his place was a detective who stood up for what he and his officers believed was right. And won.