The Rule

by David Jackson

  ‘Can I come? I like the garage.’

  ‘No. You stay and have your breakfast. I’m not doing any work today. Later, we could go out for a pub lunch, if you fancy it.’

  Scott realised he was over-compensating, but he couldn’t help himself. The prospect of a Sunday carvery always made Daniel jump for joy.

  Not today, though. Daniel’s voice remained flat as he said, ‘Yes, that would be nice.’

  Scott left quickly. The return to normality he had hoped for hadn’t yet materialised.

  I’m expecting too much, he thought. Give it time. When I get this final bit done I’ll be able to relax. And when I’m relaxed, they’ll calm down too. We’re in the home straight now. Just one more little job.

  When he exited from the rear of the building, he checked to make sure nobody was watching, then marched straight to the Toyota, climbed in and started the engine. He was breathing rapidly again, terrified of something scuppering his plans at this late stage.

  He flipped down both sun visors on the car to make it more difficult for cameras to pick up his face, then drove out of the car park and headed south, away from town. Ten minutes later he saw the sign for the council refuse site. He took the turning onto the winding lane, and then into the site itself.

  Being a Sunday, it was busy. Mostly men with trailers and large estate cars stuffed with junk. He had to wait for a parking spot to become free next to one of the massive containers for non-recyclable rubbish. He wanted the walk with his cargo to be as brief as possible.

  He got out of the car, opened up the boot, stared at the array of black bin liners sitting there waiting patiently. He grabbed a couple and heaved them out, then made his way over to the container. He waited while a man threw in some stuff that included a toaster, even though there was a separate container for appliances, and he thought to himself, What if they spot it after I’ve thrown my stuff in? What if they see that there’s a toaster in there and they stop the machine and they climb in to look for other things that might have been dumped by mistake? What then?

  Don’t be stupid. They’re not going to do that. The people who work here don’t give a shit. Besides, they’re hardly going to start ripping open bin liners.

  Toaster man smiled as he made way for Scott, and Scott simply nodded. Starting an argument was the last thing he needed right now.

  He chose not to toss the bags in for fear of them bursting open, but instead reached out as far as he could and gently lowered them into the morass below.

  Two down.

  He repeated the process. Two bags at a time, spread across several containers. Calmly and carefully. Just another bored husband carrying out his weekend chores. Nothing to see here, folks.

  And then it was done. The car boot was empty. He closed it and clambered in behind the wheel again. Despite the queue of cars jostling for spaces, he remained where he was. Waited for the council refuse worker to move from container to container, pressing the big red buttons that woke up the dormant monsters and caused them to compact the garbage into their metallic stomachs.

  Only then did Scott drive away.

  He took the Toyota back to the garage, where he cleaned it up and removed the insulating tape. Then he got back into his own car and went home.

  It was over. Scott and his family could move on with their lives.

  Nobody would ever know.

  11

  She wanted an update, and she wanted it in person.

  Ronan wanted simply to be allowed to get on with the job. He felt he was making some progress, but he still had plenty of other people he could talk to, and being dragged back to the farmhouse was an unnecessary hindrance.

  But Myra Cobb always got her way.

  There was a time when Ronan would not have been asked to comb the streets like this. But that was back when his dad was alive. Patrick Cobb wouldn’t have allowed one of his sons to perform such a menial task. If something needed doing, he would have clicked his fingers and it would have been carried out immediately by a squadron of his goons.

  But all the soldiers had gone. With Patrick out of the way, the challengers crept out from under the rocks. They took bites out of the Cobb empire like hyenas nipping at the limbs of prey. Anyone with any sense traded in their membership cards.

  So now it was just the twins and their mother. They survived on their reputation more than anything, but even that was dwindling.

  In the kitchen, Ronan saw that there was a newly opened bottle of gin on the table, and his mother had that glassy look that told him she had entered a state of unpredictability. Next to the bottle were her phone and credit card. He wondered what wondrous trinkets she had purchased since this morning.

  ‘Found him yet?’ she demanded.

  ‘I’m making good progress,’ he said.

  ‘What the fuck does that mean? You’ve either found him or you haven’t. And if you haven’t, you need to get a bloody move on, you lazy bastard.’

  ‘Mam, it’s not that easy. Joey doesn’t always tell me what he does or where he goes. I’m doing all my own detective work here.’

  ‘Detective? Pah! You couldn’t detect your own arse with both hands. He’s your twin brother, for Christ’s sake. You’re supposed to know what the other one is thinking.’

  ‘We’re not telepathic, Mam.’

  ‘You certainly aren’t. Tele-pathetic, more like. So what have you managed to deduce so far, Sherlock?’

  Ronan ran through the list of people he’d spoken to, and what he’d learnt about their last contact with Joey.

  ‘Is that it?’ his mother asked.

  ‘I thought it was quite a lot.’

  ‘Well, you thought wrong. You’ve talked to a set of druggies and pond life who’d tell you anything you want to hear if it keeps them out of trouble or in with a chance of getting high. I wouldn’t trust any of those maggots as far as I could throw them.’

  ‘Give us a chance, Mam. I’ve only just started.’

  ‘How hard can it be? I could do better myself.’

  Yeah, Ronan thought. Maybe you could if you weren’t pissed all the time.

  ‘Any other earth-shattering news to report?’ she asked, her question dripping with sarcasm.

  ‘There’s this,’ he said, reaching into his pocket and handing over a piece of paper.

  Myra squinted at the squiggles. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Joey had a second phone. A burner. That’s the number.’

  ‘And have you tried ringing it?’

  ‘Course I have. No answer.’

  ‘So this is also useless.’

  Ronan wanted to scream his frustration. ‘Give it back here, then. I’ll keep trying.’

  She pulled the paper out of his reach. ‘No, I’ll try it. You’ve obviously got more important things to do, like prancing around town pretending you care about your missing brother.’

  ‘I’ll see you later, Mam,’ he said, and stormed out before he throttled her.

  Reggie Billings felt under-appreciated.

  He had gone on a blind date last night. The first since his wife had died. He thought it had gone well until she asked him what he did for a living.

  ‘So, you dig holes,’ she’d said. ‘And then you put rubbish in them. And then you cover them over?’

  And that, in a nutshell, was the problem he always faced. This massively over-simplistic view of what went on at a landfill site.

  They just don’t realise the expertise involved, he thought. The science of it. The care for the environment.

  They don’t know that you can’t just dig any old hole in the middle of nowhere. The geography has to be right. The right sort of clay to make a base, for one thing. You have to build in a drainage network to remove the leachate. You have to install pipes to siphon off the methane. But you can’t just release gases like that into the atmosphere, oh no. You burn it in a generator to produce electricity. Megawatts of precious power being pumped into the National Grid.

  And then there are the scheme
s to minimise the impact on the surroundings. A system of nets to catch stray litter. Gas guns and even birds of prey to frighten the seagulls and other scavengers away. Baiting and traps for rats and other vermin.

  And then there’s the monitoring. The constant testing of the groundwater. The cleaning of it to remove iron and other pollutants before it’s allowed to go off-site.

  No, they don’t understand. They don’t appreciate what we do here.

  Reggie sighed and ate the last mouthful of his sandwich, then fired up the van assigned to him as foreman. He navigated slowly around the site, inspecting, checking, approving, noting.

  Ahead, he saw one of the compactor drivers next to his colossus of a machine, enjoying a cigarette break before crushing the next layer of detritus into oblivion.

  Reggie pulled his van in next to the man and got out. ‘Denzil.’

  ‘Reggie.’

  Reggie found a cigarette of his own. Denzil snapped his lighter on and held it out for Reggie. A small but significant gesture of comradeship. They stared out across the sea of rotting garbage as though it concealed sunken treasures. Which perhaps it did.

  ‘Go out last night?’ Reggie asked.

  ‘Natch,’ Denzil said. ‘Saturday night, weren’t it? Can’t let the lads down on a Saturday night.’

  Reggie felt a stab of irritation. Most of his own Saturday nights now consisted of sitting in front of the television with a microwave meal.

  Go on, he thought. Ask me. Ask me what I did last night.

  ‘What about you?’ Denzil said.

  Reggie puffed himself up. ‘Had a date, didn’t I?’

  Denzil turned his head slightly. Reggie was convinced he detected a tiny smile of admiration.

  ‘Oh yeah? You’ve been keeping that quiet. Who is she?’

  ‘Her name’s Julie. It was a blind date.’

  ‘Lucky for you, that.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘That she’s blind.’

  Reggie studied the man for signs that he was teasing. Saw nothing. But then Denzil cracked a broad smile.

  ‘Only joking, man. How did that come about, then?’

  Reggie didn’t feel like telling him now. He felt instead like reporting him to management for being an idle bastard who took too many smoking breaks.

  ‘My sister set it up. Someone she works with.’

  ‘Gotcha. How did it go? Did you get your leg over?’

  Reggie suddenly wished he hadn’t begun this tale. Not only had he not managed to get his leg over, he hadn’t even reached first base. In fact, to continue the baseball analogy, he’d been stuck on the bus on the way to the stadium.

  ‘She’s not a girl for rushing into things,’ Reggie said. Then, when he noticed the knowing look on Denzil’s face, he quickly added, ‘To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I want to see her again.’

  ‘Yeah? Why’s that, then?’

  ‘She was dissing the job we do. To be honest, I don’t think she really got it.’

  Denzil shrugged. ‘What’s to get? We dig a hole, we put rubbish in it, we cover it over again. It’s not rocket science.’

  And now Reggie wanted to throw Denzil in front of one of his compactor’s massive spiked wheels and drive it over him.

  His homicidal thoughts were interrupted by a muffled blast of music.

  ‘Is that you?’ he asked.

  ‘Not me,’ Denzil said. ‘Maybe it’s Julie.’

  Reggie realised the noise was coming from one of the bags lying in front of them. Realised too that this was an opportunity to exact a tiny revenge.

  ‘It’s coming from there. In you go.’

  The speed at which the smile evaporated from Denzil’s face was satisfying.

  ‘Who, me?’

  ‘Hurry up. This might be your opportunity to return some poor old lady’s lost phone.’

  Denzil sighed and waded in. Reggie smiled inwardly at the comical sight of Denzil pulling out bags and listening to them.

  ‘It’s this one,’ Denzil announced, just as the ringtone ended.

  ‘Open it up, then.’

  He waited with glee for Denzil to start pawing through mouldy vegetables or used nappies. But all that fell out as Denzil ripped open the bag was a balled-up item of clothing. A jacket, by the looks of it.

  Reggie took a drag on his cigarette. ‘Search the pockets,’ he said.

  Denzil reached down and opened up the jacket, and it was as if the act released a shockwave that sent him back-pedalling with a yelp.

  Reggie sniggered as Denzil fell backwards into a layer of crap, but a voice in his head warned him that the man might be up to something.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

  Denzil clambered to his feet, pointing and jabbering. ‘L-look! C-come and see!’

  Reggie tossed his cigarette aside and began to climb the mound in front of him. He thought, If this is a practical joke . . .

  And then he saw the new face staring back at him, a face without a body, and he realised this was no laughing matter.

  12

  It occasionally entered the mind of Detective Chief Inspector Ray Devereux that his wife might be having an affair.

  The notion always dissipated as swiftly as it arrived, though. The real reason she was always pushing him out of the house was ambition. Hers, rather than his. She wanted him to rise up through the ranks like a moon rocket. The very fact that he had reached the level of DCI was largely down to her, constantly pushing him and bolstering his ego and telling him how he needed to ‘fulfil his potential’. She was like a motivational speaker on steroids.

  Yes, that’s the real reason I’m here, he told himself. Not an affair. No one else would have her.

  He was in the plush surroundings of the Blackstone Private Members’ Club. All oak panelling and leather chesterfields and shelves of musty unread books. He wouldn’t mind the eye-watering membership fees if he loved coming here, but the truth was that enclaves like this made him feel uncomfortable. He experienced the same lack of enthusiasm about golf – knocking a small ball into a hole with a stick while walking in the rain for miles held little appeal – but it was something else he had taken up recently.

  ‘It’s where the real business is done,’ his wife had told him. ‘Not at the station. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Mix with them. Do what they do. Show them you’re one of the gang. That’s how it works. That’s how everything in life works.’

  He had no idea where Fiona had picked up these shiny nuggets of wisdom, but he was willing to play along. To an extent.

  He glimpsed Peter Fletcher sitting in an armchair in front of the roaring fire, his head buried in The Times. Ray could almost feel Fiona at his elbow, nudging him to go and speak to the man.

  Although younger than Ray, Fletcher was already a chief superintendent. Rumour had it that he was lined up to be the next assistant chief constable. He was clearly a go-getter, a man who knew better than most how to exploit the system. Probably the sort of man with whom Fiona would love to have an affair.

  Ray sidled up to him. Coughed discreetly.

  ‘Ray!’ Fletcher said, putting out his hand.

  Ray shook it. ‘Evening, Peter.’ He gestured at the newspaper. ‘Catching up on all the misery in the world?’

  ‘I get enough misery at home. Why do you think I come here? Cheers!’ He raised his glass of red wine, and Ray clinked his own glass against it.

  ‘Have a seat,’ Fletcher said. ‘Tell me what brings you to this neck of the woods on a Sunday evening.’

  You, mainly, Ray thought. You and all the other top brass getting pissed prior to breaking the law driving home drunk.

  ‘I needed to wind down,’ Ray said.

  ‘Tough day in the trenches?’

  ‘You could say that. Not the day of rest a Sunday is supposed to be.’

  ‘What’s on the books, then?’

  ‘Where do I start? Several stabbings. A couple of shootings. More drugs than you can shake
a stick at. An armed robbery at a jeweller’s. And this afternoon we’ve just topped it off with a juicy murder.’

  ‘Juicy?’

  ‘Yes. Chopped into bits and dumped. Workers came across his head at the landfill site. We’ve had to shut the place down while we search for the rest of him.’

  ‘Need a hand? Perhaps some additional leg work?’ Fletcher said, then laughed.

  Ray tried to make his own laugh sound convincing. ‘Now you mention it, staff shortages are a big problem at the moment.’

  ‘Aren’t they always?’ Fletcher said, curtailing what Ray was hoping might be a fruitful discussion about additional assistance. ‘Managed to identify the victim yet?’

  ‘We have. It’s Joey Cobb.’

  Fletcher raised an eyebrow. ‘Joey Cobb? Well, I’ll drink to that.’ He raised his glass again and took a good swallow. ‘Gangland execution, I assume?’

  ‘Probably. We still have to look into it, though.’

  ‘Well, my advice would be not to put too much effort into that one. He’s not worth it. In fact, if you find the guilty party, give them a pat on the back from me.’

  ‘We still have to put on a show, though. Cobb’s mother is already threatening to ring the tabloids and kick up a fuss.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. She’s worse than her evil twins. She’ll do anything for a fast buck. I wouldn’t be surprised if she murdered her own son because she found a way of making money out of it.’

  ‘True,’ Ray said. ‘But you see my problem?’

  ‘Hmm,’ Fletcher said, and for a moment Ray believed he might actually be considering ways of sending more staff his way. But then Fletcher added, ‘How’s Hannah Washington getting on now?’

  ‘Hannah? She’s . . . fine.’

  ‘I like her. Always struck me as someone heading through that glass ceiling. Promoting people like her sends out all the right signals.’

  Ray cringed a little at the suggestion. Fletcher would undoubtedly have said something similar if Hannah had belonged to an ethnic minority or been disabled.

  ‘Yes,’ Ray said.

  ‘Does she have her hands full at the moment?’

  ‘Well . . . not quite. I’ve kept her on light duties since . . .’