by David Field
‘And we can expect the usual level of co-operation from the residents, I take it?’
‘Indeed. A tickertape welcome of refuse from the upper floors, a supporting chorus of “pigs”, “mother-fuckers”, “wankers” and “white trash” from the balconies, and the all-pervading smell of cannabis and cat piss. Plus slashed tyres, ripped out radio antennae, and knife marks down the paintwork.’
‘Thank God they’re not hostile,’ Mike joked. ‘OK, lead on, MacDuff.’
Chapter Four
‘You can see why they resented being moved out to here from the last of the terraces in Unswell Green,’ Dave commented as they gazed up through the windscreen of the pool car at the uniform glass panels and pre-formed concrete cladding that composed the three towers of the Carswell Estate. ‘These are basically just human filing cabinets. Throw them in here, tick the box, and on to the next self-congratulatory press release.’
‘What number is it, again?’ Mike asked as they climbed the external stairs to the first level.
‘107,’ Dave told him, after consulting his notebook. ‘They gave his old man a first floor flat because of his disability. Officially he lives with Kevin, so that they get the carer’s pension allowance, but you’ll be lucky to find Kevin here in daylight.’
‘Let’s give it a try anyway,’ Mike suggested as he rang the doorbell. There was a muffled shout of acknowledgment from somewhere inside, and the sound of wheels running across sticky linoleum. Then the noise of keys turning in an internal lock, and the door swung inwards to reveal a middle-aged man in a wheelchair, at least two days’ growth of grey stubble on his chin, and what appeared to be a half-eaten piece of toast resting on the blanket that covered his lower torso.
‘Mr Doughty?’ Dave enquired, waving his warrant card.
‘What’s the little bastard done this time?’ the man enquired. Then he pushed his wheelchair backwards to create enough space for them in the narrow kitchen entrance.
‘You’d best come in – you will anyway.’
‘You want a cuppa?’ he enquired over his shoulder, as he led them into the lounge area. ‘It’s just boiled, an’ I can make it just as fast as an ordinary bloke.’
‘No thanks,’ Mike replied, without even conferring with Dave. ‘I take it that Kevin’s not here?’
‘Never is, useless shitbag. Supposed to be looking after his old Dad, but the shifty bugger’s always out somewhere or other, with that Nancy mate of his, Troy something or other. Anyway, what’s he done this time? Breaking and entering, shoplifting or what?’
‘That’s something we’ll discuss with him, when we finally locate him,’ Mike replied gently, his sympathy aroused by the familiar sight of a once proud man reduced to invalid status. ‘How do you come to be in that wheelchair?’
‘I were a miner, once,’ the man replied. ‘Bonnington Colliery, twenty odd years a back-ripper, then a face come in on top of me. Took my left leg clean off, and they had to cut the right one off before it went gangerous. But they looks after you pretty good, does the Coal Board, or “British Coal”, as they calls it now.’
‘I know that pretty well for myself,’ Mike assured him. ‘My old man was a miner himself – Braddall, in his case. He got pneumoconiosis in the end, but the “Coal Board”, as it was then, looked after him pretty well in the years before he died.’
‘Did your Mam stay on and look after him?’
‘Of course.’
‘There’s no “of course” about it,’ the man grumbled. ‘Kevin’s Mam took off as soon as I come out of hospital. Kevin were only ten in them days, and I did my best to bring him up proper, but he took it bad, not having a mother around the place, and he got in with the wrong lot. Now he’s supposed to look after me, but I’m lucky if I sees him twice a week. I has to lie to the social work people, of course, so that he still gets the carer’s allowance, but there you go. It’s the least I can do for him, in the circumstances. You sure you don’t want a cuppa?’
‘No thanks, honestly,’ Dave replied gently. ‘I know what it’s like to have a wife walk out on you, and I wouldn’t want to put you to any unnecessary trouble.’
Just then came the distant sound of jingling keys, and the front door was pushed open to reveal a late teenager wearing the street uniform of a baseball cap worn backwards, greasy denims and a Brampton Rovers bomber jacket. He looked directly at the two officers, and was about to run back out of the flat when his father called him back.
‘Come back in here, you useless pillock, else I’ll tell the Social to cut your allowance off!’
The youth hesitated, and the two officers sat motionless, making no attempt to apprehend him. Then he walked into the living room area, threw his cap into a vacant armchair, and stood uncertainly by his father’s wheelchair.
‘Nice shoes,’ Mike commented, with a meaningful look at the shiny brown footwear on Kevin’s feet. ‘Don’t try and tell us that you got them off a dead bloke, because we know for a fact that you did.’
The father gasped, and Mike hastened to reassure him.
‘Don’t worry, Mr Doughty, he hasn’t graduated as a murderer – yet. But he might like to explain why he’s wearing top of the range Gucci leather slip-ons, and – for that matter – why he sold a bank card belonging to the same corpse to Darryl Mooney.’
‘Bastard!,’ was Kevin’s initial response.
‘There’s nothing worse, in my book, than stealing from the dead,’ Dave said, ‘so start talking, Kevin.’
‘You’re right that he were already dead,’ Kevin mumbled, as he sat down heavily in the remaining armchair, squashing his baseball cap into the upholstery in the process. ‘We never killed him, honest we didn’t!’
‘Did you see who did?’ Mike asked.
‘Only a couple of shadows. It were dark, you see, and we was up the back. Troy and me. They flogged the shit out of him, then hung him up to dry, after they’d carved a piece off him. Horrible to watch, it were, but we wasn’t about to show our faces.’
‘Two of them, you said?’ Dave asked.
‘Yeah, two blokes,’ Kevin confirmed. ‘Big ’uns. One of them looked like a darkie, but like I said it were dark in there, and we was both hiding in a corner.’
‘So you stripped the body of anything valuable, and then called the police, that right?’ Mike enquired.
‘Got it in one,’ Kevin agreed, obviously relieved that he appeared not to be a murder suspect.
‘Who took what?’ Dave enquired. Just then his mobile phone rang, and he offered a muttered apology as he stepped out onto the front balcony to answer it.
‘Geoff Keating here, sir,’ Dave was told as he acknowledged the call. ‘A couple of things. First of all, Troy Lesley was found face down in the river this morning. Been there a few days, according to the police surgeon. Also, the computer I pulled out of Giles’s flat had its hard drive wiped, according to the IT blokes.’
‘OK, we’ll do it the hard way,’ Dave sighed. ‘Tell IT to reconstruct the hard drive, and treat it as a priority. And thanks for the gen on Troy Lesley – that’s going to come in very hand right now.’
He disconnected the call, and was about to re-enter the Doughty flat when a workman’s boot sailed past his ear and bounced noisily off the front door. He whipped around, and standing at the far end of the balcony was a large West Indian wearing a Rastafarian skull cap and an evil grimace. Dave made another quick call on his mobile, then gave the man ‘the finger’ and walked back into the flat, where Kevin was giving Mike all but his inside leg measurement.
‘Kevin here assures me that Giles was carrying no paper other than the hundred odd quid that Troy converted to his own use,’ Mike told him by way of an update. ‘He also assures me that all he got was the credit card and an expensive watch that’s already with the pawnbroker’s in East Terrace. Plus the shoes, of course.’
‘So what did Troy get?’ Dave enquired, disbelievingly.
‘The cash, like I said,’ Kevin replied, ‘and one of them st
upid memory wotsits what goes in computers. It were in one of his shoes.’
‘A USB?’ Mike enquired.
‘Is that what you call ’em?’ Kevin enquired. ‘Troy said as how he could get it sold down at the university. Reckoned it could be worth a bob or two, in the right hands.’
‘And in the wrong hands – such as his,’ Dave replied steadily and quietly, for special effect, ‘it can be fatal. Your mate Troy was fished out of the river earlier today, very dead, and I’d take a guess that whoever held him down while he drowned was after what was on that “stupid memory wotsit”, as you call it. You sure you’ve got nothing else left that you took from the dead bloke?’
Kevin had gone pale beneath the street grime, and he stood up uncertainly, replied ‘Just hang on a tick,’ and disappeared into what was presumably one of the two bedrooms, reappearing a few seconds later with a hand-held tape recorder.
‘You’d better take this, as well. It’s fucked anyway.’
‘The deceased was carrying this as well?’ Mike asked with a raised eyebrow.
‘It flew out of his jacket pocket while they was flogging him,’ Kevin explained. ‘They gave him the once-over before they hung him up to dry, like they was lookin’ for something, but they must have forgot this. I were going to pawn it, but like I said, it’s fucked. The “play” button’s jammed.’
‘I was told you’d both been searched by the officers you called to the scene,’ Mike said with a sidelong glance at Dave. Kevin gave him a sick smirk.
‘That were five minutes after we called them. We hid the stuff on the floor down below, then collected it on the way out.’
‘And you’re sure this is everything?’ Dave asked.
‘Yeah – all I got, anyway. You sure Troy’s dead? You weren’t just havin’ me on?’
‘Absolutely sure,’ Dave replied. ‘That’s what the phone message was all about. I suggest that you lay low for at least a week, Kevin. You may know that you don’t have what those goons were looking for, but they don’t.’
‘Couldn’t you give him police protection or something?’ Mr Doughty enquired nervously.
‘You’ve been watching too much of “The Bill”, mate,’ Dave replied, then looked enquiringly at Mike, who shook his head, then looked at Kevin.
‘Given the level of co-operation you’ve given us, we’ll take the little matter of what you stole no further. But if you breathe one word around this estate about this conversation, we’ll put it about that you’re a grass, and your miserable life won’t be worth living. Now stay out of trouble, and show your Dad a bit more respect.’
As they walked along the first floor balcony towards the staircase, Dave looked down at where they’d parked the pool car. It was already surrounded.
‘When we get back down there, play for time,’ Dave advised Mike.
‘Fuckin’ Gestapo!’ yelled a middle-aged woman with no obvious teeth as they sauntered towards their car.
‘Mornin’, Babylon,’ said the Rasta who’d lobbed the boot at Dave earlier. ‘You been harrassin’ that dude what ain’t got the legs to walk away? You wanna fight with a whole dude?’
Out of the corner of his eye, Mike noticed Dave slip something from inside his jacket. There was a click, and a telescopic police baton appeared in his right hand, which he held up in full view of the crowd of onlookers. The West Indian grinned appreciatively.
‘The tough honky’s got a big stick to beat the nigger with. But the nigger’s got a knife, ain’t it?’
The knife duly appeared from inside his waistband, held at waist height. The blade was at least four inches long, and it looked sharp. Dave grinned back.
‘Come on then, Rastus,’ he said invitingly.
Mike winced at the provocative language, then stared in disbelief as he saw the black man charge towards Dave, then collapse in agony as a zapping noise split the silence. Dave stepped forward quickly and brought the baton hard down on the man’s neck, while tasering another black youth who seemed anxious to join in the proceedings. The rest of the crowd scattered as a police patrol car screamed into the car-park and turned on its siren at the last moment.
‘Book these two for police assault,’ Dave instructed the two uniformed officers who raced over, ‘and nick anyone else who gets in your way.’
‘What the Hell was that?’ Mike enquired as he began breathing normally again.
‘White Man’s Magic,’ Dave explained with a grin. ‘There was a time we could hold them mesmerised with a handful of beads. He was concentrating on my right hand holding the baton, and didn’t notice the taser in my left.’
‘I take it you failed the “Ethnic Awareness” course?’ Mike enquired with a somewhat bemused smile.
‘On the contrary,’ Dave replied, ‘I was one of the instructors. I’ve been dealing with these gollies for years.’
‘And the back-up?’
‘I called for that from the front balcony before I came back into the flat. I could see that trouble was brewing, and I’m no hero, believe me.’
‘All the same,’ Mike replied, ‘I owe you one. Do you by any chance like lamb slouvaki?’
Chapter Five
‘What I think is most significant,’ Mike observed as they sat out on the back patio, enjoying their pre-dinner drinks in the last of the June sunset, ‘is that whoever killed him didn’t take even the cash or the watch, the most obvious items to your common or garden mugger. They were clearly after something else, and they just got careless and missed the USB in the shoe. It presumably contained whatever dark secret Giles was the guardian of.’
Dave looked apprehensively over his shoulder, through the kitchen window to where Joy was helping Alison prepare a salad, then looked back at Mike.
‘I hope she’s not feeling overawed in there. She really is very shy, you know.’
‘Stop worrying about Joy - Alison doesn’t bite. Well, only me, anyway. But how did they know that Troy had the USB?’
‘Who?’
‘For fuck’s sake concentrate,’ Mike hissed. ‘The people who did Giles in were obviously looking for some record of something or other. But they were so sloppy that they missed the USB. Then, somehow or other, they realised not only that it existed, but also who had it. How did that come about?’
‘Search me,’ Dave replied absent-mindedly as his eyes drifted back to the kitchen. ‘Anyway,’ he added, almost with a note of relief, ‘it looks as if they’re coming out.’
‘I hope you boys aren’t going to be talking shop all night,’ Alison warned them as she led Joy out onto the patio. ‘I was just telling Joy that we don’t very often get dinner guests, and it would be nice for the conversation to rise above dead bodies for a change.’
‘You obviously forgot that I invited a pathologist as well,’ Mike quipped back. ‘I’m looking forward to meeting her partner, if that’s not a politically incorrect word these days.’
‘She’ll soon remind you, if it is,’ Alison warned him. ‘Who is he, anyway?’
‘What makes you think it’s a “he”?’ Mike asked. ‘Her reputation is quite the opposite, although in conversations with her I’ve been given grounds for believing that the reputation doesn’t quite match the reality.’
‘You police officers always think you can winkle things out of people,’ Alison complained, ‘but you’ll find, Joy, that they’re very bad at playing host. Mike, I’m sure that Joy would like another glass of this delicious Chablis, and mine’s almost empty, while you’re at it.’
‘I’m only glad that I’m not the only new one around this evening,’ Joy almost whispered above the distant clinking of glasses from the dining room. ‘That’s usually my lot at dinner parties.’
The front door chimes sounded just as Mike finished handing round the refreshed glasses, and he headed across the lounge and pulled open the front door with a welcoming smile. There stood Maggie Gillies, looking more feminine in a gold evening dress than Mike had ever seen her in her laboratory greens. At her side, clutching
what was obviously a bottle of wine in a plastic bag, stood a tall man with short greying hair, and the sort of spectacles that belong on research physicists.
‘Evening, Mike,’ Maggie boomed, ‘meet Brandon Tait, an old friend of my brother’s, and hopefully of mine as well. May we come in, now that the neighbours have got a good look at us?’
‘Yes, sorry,’ Mike apologised, as he waved them through to the patio after taking their drinks order.
‘Where do we keep the Pernod?’ he shouted out to Alison.
‘We don’t,’ Alison yelled back, ‘but we have some excellent pastis that Shelia brought back from France, and it goes far better with lemonade than that pretentious commercial Pernod rubbish.’
Maggie grinned.
‘I’m happy to settle for a glass of Chambertin, if you have it. If not, anything that stains your dentures pink and isn’t too pretentious.’
‘Joy tells me that she’s the Senior Archivist at County Hall,’ Alison chirped during the pate course, to a suppressed groan from Dave. But Mike had heard it, and was on his case immediately.
‘Please do the entire Bramptonshire Constabulary a favour, Joy, and teach Dave the virtues of proper data storage and retrieval. If it were left to him, Magna Carta would still be lying in a meadow in Middlesex.’
‘Surrey,’ Alison corrected him. ‘Runnymede’s in Surrey.’
‘That’s me to the bottom of the class,’ Mike confessed.
‘Mike has a point,’ Maggie joined in. ‘If we didn’t keep immaculate records, the criminal justice system would be in chaos. There was a legendary case in – Ireland I think it was – when a pathologist in the case of a murdered male old age pensioner in a nursing home was forced to concede that the post-mortem report he’d handed up showed the deceased to be four months pregnant.’
‘What do you do for a crust, Brandon?’ Dave enquired, hoping to divert the conversation from his most vulnerable suit.
