The Badge & the Pen Thrillers

by Roger A Price

  ‘I’m fine Harry, but Watson’s dead. What the hell just happened?’

  But Harry didn’t answer; he was already on the radio, asking for help.

  *

  It took Christine until lunchtime just to clear her inbox of spam. That left about 30 emails requiring varying degrees of attention. Some would be a quick reply, some had work attached. One was a newsfeed from one of the regional ITV’s court reporters, about a criminal trial that had concluded whilst she was away. It was a modern slavery case. Two British Pakistanis had been convicted of using two Romanian women as skivvies. The defendants had both been sentenced to four years and the two women were now being looked after by social services. As interesting as this whole modern slavery thing was, it had clearly been comprehensively reported throughout the trial and ITV was planning a post-trial special programme to highlight the issue.

  As unsavoury and as unbelievable as the concept of modern slavery was, it was the nationality of the two women that caught Christine’s eye. The reporter was John Debroski, who had obviously spent some time in court. The victims were not named in the piece. Christine knew Debroski; not well, but they had been on the same journalism course at college, way back. He was worth talking to.

  Twenty minutes later she had tracked Debroski down and with the lure of a free lunch — which was the usual currency when one reporter needed a favour from another— she put her desk phone down and reached for her handbag. She’d arranged to meet Debroski in a small bistro near to Piccadilly Gardens in the heart of Manchester, close to Minshull Street’s crown court.

  Chapter Thirteen

  An hour later, Vinnie and Harry were cleared to leave the scene. By now a full cordon was in place with a number of gazebo-style portable tents over and around Vinnie’s Volvo and the point from where the motorbike gunman had struck. Watson’s body was still in situ and would be for some time. A mobile police station had just arrived and Vinnie and Harry removed their outer clothing and bagged and tagged it all up, ready for the exhibits officer. Most detectives carried a holdall with some overnight kit in, and Vinnie’s was in the boot of his car, so he was able to put on a sweater, jeans and a pair of trainers. Harry’s overnight bag was back in the office at Preston, so he had to make do with a white paper suit for now.

  ‘Not a word,’ Harry said, as he zipped his suit up. Vinnie had to swallow the desire to speak aloud one of several remarks that were flying around inside his head. He just smiled, instead. They both sat down to reflect. Before Vinnie had changed, he’d had to wait until a CSI was available to swab both sides of his face. He could still smell the metallic aroma from his left cheek, and no end of wet wipes had been unable to remove it. That smell would be trapped in his nasal memory for some time to come.

  Harry broke his train of thought by speaking first. ‘I reckon from the time the first door went in, until the attack, was no more than twenty minutes.’

  ‘If that,’ Vinnie replied.

  ‘Not much time to organise and mount an attack.’

  ‘She said he wasn’t far away.’

  ‘Even so.’

  ‘And in any event, once tipped off that a raid was going down, if that’s what happened, you’d have thought he’d have got as far away as possible. Not the opposite,’ Vinnie said.

  ‘The problem, of course, is that the attack was targeted at Watson, no one else. Who knew we were taking her?’ Harry said.

  ‘Apart from the DS, any number of officers and some of the women will have seen us two walk Watson out of there.’

  ‘Can’t imagine any of the women tipping Babik off, can you?’ Harry said.

  Vinnie couldn’t, but knew that if they discounted the women it only left one possible consideration, and it wasn’t one he wanted to admit. Then a thought hit him. ‘You do realise, Harry, that if we had arrested Watson she would probably still be alive? It wouldn’t have been you and me escorting her, she’d have been transported in a secure police van designed specifically for prisoner transport.’

  A moment’s pause was followed by both of them shouting, ‘Susan!’ Vinnie could hear Harry on the radio trying to raise DS Grady as thoughts and associations started to take root. She had persuaded them to treat Watson as a witness — even if the rationale was valid. She had been the one to say that it would take ages to arrange a plain CID car to come and collect the ‘witness’. And they all knew that prisoner vans were for transporting prisoners only. But even if the unthinkable was true, how the hell had Babik organised the attack so quickly? They hadn’t even left the estate. Then, Vinnie thought about the five or so minutes Susan had kept them, asking about how deeply she should search the office. It had struck Vinnie at the time as basic questioning. Questions he wouldn’t have expected from a DS. He’d just written them off as over-efficiency. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

  They’d find out soon enough, well, as soon as they could ask Susan to hand over her phone. He turned to face Harry, ‘She still searching the office?’

  ‘I’m just waiting to find out. She’s not answering her radio, which could mean several things, so I’ve asked the uniform sergeant supervising at the mill to go and grab her.’

  Vinnie picked up his crumpled copy of the operational order and turned to the staff list. He soon found DS Susan Grady’s details and keyed her mobile phone number into his own.

  ‘That’s strange,’ Harry said.

  ‘What is?’ Vinnie said, as waited for his call to be connected.

  ‘The sergeant has come back saying that she is not in the office, and no one has seen her.’

  ‘And her phone has just rung out to voicemail,’ Vinnie said, as he pulled his phone from his ear and killed the call.

  Vinnie watched as Harry’s complexion reddened and he took an office chair. This was followed by a brief spell of overarm head-rubbing. Harry was as stressed as Vinnie felt.

  ‘Before we do anything else, I’d better ring the Lancs chief, Brian Darlington. Then we’ll need a lift back to Preston nick.’

  Vinnie didn’t envy his boss the next five minutes. He left the mobile police station to give him some privacy and to try and blag a lift from one of the uniforms.

  Five minutes later Vinnie was joined by Harry, huffing and puffing as he climbed down the metal steps from the mobile station’s front door.

  ‘How did Darlington take it?’

  ‘Damn,’ Harry answered, as he slipped off the last step. Vinnie caught his arm to steady him. ‘These bastard disposable slip-on shoes,’ Harry said, by way of explanation. He steadied himself and then caught his breath. Vinnie couldn’t help himself as a half laugh sneaked out.

  ‘I told you not to,’ Harry said.

  ‘Sorry, but—’

  ‘No buts.’

  ‘OK, OK but what about Darlington?’

  ‘He’s one seriously pissed off chief constable. He’s on his way to Preston nick, so we need to grab a lift, sharpish. I’m not meeting him dressed like the ghost of Ronald McDonald.’

  *

  By the time Christine arrived at the smart-seeming bistro overlooking Piccadilly Gardens, she could see John Debroski sitting at a table in the window. He’s keen, she thought. She hadn’t known him too well when they were at college, but she’d always wondered if he fancied her. She wasn’t being full of herself, but the unspoken had always made her wonder. He was a good-looking man in his late thirties, proportionate in height and build. In fact, proportionate seemed to sum him up, if she recalled correctly; he was always pleasant but always in the middle. Never a leader, nor a follower; always somewhere in between.

  Salutations and a quick catch up over, she’d seen nothing to change her view. Especially when he asked her if she was married, even though it was obvious from the lack of jewellery that she was not. She ignored the question, flagging the waiter over. ‘Just a BLT for me please. John, have you chosen?’ John replied by ordering a fillet steak sandwich; he was going to milk it.

  ‘OK, Christine, how can I help?’

  ‘Th
at trial you covered around the corner, the slavery one, I’m interested in the two aggrieved.’

  ‘No can do,’ Debroski started. Which Christine had expected.

  ‘Look, I’m not after nicking any exclusive you are doing—’

  ‘Trying to do,’ Debroski clarified, then added, ‘I’m trying my best to get them to let me do a feature, but they are naturally scared.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘Social services have them until they can decide what best to do; I reckon they’ll choose to go back to Romania, so time’s short.’ Debroski asked what Christine’s interest was. She didn’t want to give too much away, she sensed that Debroski would jump on it, so she merely said she was interested in how life had been for them in Romania before they left, and what they had expected the UK to be like. Debroski didn’t answer straight away, and then the food arrived. Halfway through the meal he suddenly spoke.

  ‘OK, here’s the deal. I’m struggling to get them to meet me as they want to forget all about what’s happened to them. Understandable, I know, so if I try an approach from your agenda and they agree, I can hijack the interview at the end and get some quotes for my piece. At the very least I can use those asides to wrap a story around.’ Debroski then returned his attention to his meal.

  ‘No way, you’re just after exploiting them. The story at any cost. It’s shits like you that give the press a bad name,’ Christine said. Her blood was up now; it looked like she’d underestimated Mister Average. He spat a mouthful of food onto his plate, too demonstratively, in her opinion.

  ‘I thought you were a big shot TV reporter now?’ Debroski said.

  ‘Meaning what, exactly?’

  ‘Meaning I didn’t think you would bother about upsetting a couple of immigrants, if you got what you were after.’

  Now, Christine was really angry. She didn’t dignify his comments with an answer, but reached into her purse for a £10 note, which would cover her half-eaten sandwich but not Debroski’s extravagant one. ‘Deal’s off; buy your own lunch,’ she said, as she threw the tenner on to the table before getting to her feet. Immediately, the waiter was there.

  ‘Everything alright with your meal, madam?’

  ‘The meal’s fine, but the company has killed my appetite,’ she replied. The waiter took the hint and walked away. She looked down at Debroski, whose shocked expression was turning to something angrier.

  She bent forward and whispered in his ear. ‘I’m surprised you’ve not tried to buy a meeting by attempting to bribe the officers in the case; or have they told you to fuck off as well?’

  Christine didn’t wait for a reply, nor did she look back as she walked swiftly towards the door. She relaxed as she found her way into the gardens and her pace eased. She thought about her last remark, and then an idea hit her.

  Even if it didn’t work, she could at least make sure that the two Romanian women weren’t troubled by Debroski. She found a bench and pulled her phone from her handbag. Time to ask Vinnie a favour.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Vinnie arrived back in the SIO’s office at Preston with a tray of three coffees from the canteen. Harry had changed and was just putting the finishing touches to his tie’s Windsor knot. Vinnie placed the tray of drinks on his desk, and said, ‘I don’t know why you bother, I always find the Windsor knot too hard to do.’

  ‘It’s a half Windsor, and that’s why you’re a DI and I’m a superintendent,’ Harry replied and grinned. But his smile dropped as Vinnie heard the office door behind him open and slam shut.

  He turned to face Brian Darlington, the chief constable of Lancashire police. He was an imposing man in his late fifties, more than six feet tall with all the military bearing of the ex-guardsman he was.

  ‘What in the name of all that is holy and not covered in shite has just happened?’ Darlington said. It was only the second time Vinnie had heard the chief swear. And he was suddenly glad that he was not the one sporting the half-Windsor knot in his tie.

  Harry took a sip of his coffee and then quickly brought the chief more completely up to speed than his earlier phone call had allowed.

  ‘And any news of DS Grady?’ Darlington asked.

  Vinnie thought he’d help Harry out a little and answered. ‘I’ve left her a message on her answerphone, sir, but as of yet, no response. She’s not answering her radio and no one has seen her.’

  ‘Tell me again, Harry,’ Darlington said, and Harry explained once more their concerns.

  ‘Granted, it put Watson on offer, but how the hell were they able to mount an attack so quickly?’

  ‘We haven’t worked that one out yet, sir, but I can only image that they must have been there, watching the raid go down.’

  ‘And in comms with one of our detective sergeants, for God’s sake,’ Darlington said.

  ‘We won’t know that until we speak to Susan Grady,’ Harry said.

  ‘Initial plans?’ Darlington asked.

  ‘I’m going to get the incident room up and running and Vinnie is going to concentrate on finding Grady,’ Harry said. This was news to Vinnie, but he was more than happy with it.

  Darlington turned towards the door and asked to be briefed of all developments. ‘I’ve got to go and brief the police and crime commissioner now,’ he said to no one in particular as he strode purposefully out of the office.

  Vinnie was about to ask Harry whether Darlington’s tie had a full Windsor knot. But he thought better of it as his phone began to ring.

  *

  ‘You didn’t have to kill her, for Christ’s sake!’ Susan Grady said, as she paced up and down the small room. Babik had known she would be pissed off, but he’d had no choice.

  ‘Look, what did you think I would do?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d managed to get her taken in as a witness so you could stop her before she blabbed.’

  ‘And what did you expect me to do, with five minutes’ notice?’ Babik asked.

  ‘I don’t know, I suppose just have an accident and ensure she got away. You could have picked her up later and talked to her, straightened her out, or something.’

  ‘We are lucky that we were approaching as the raid went down, and were able to hide quickly. If Bonehead here hadn’t been showing off his new bike, I’d have gone in the motor 20 minutes sooner and would have been well in it,’ Babik said.

  ‘I know, I know, but that’s why I talked them into taking her in as a witness; I had to think quickly. And where the hell did the gun come from?’

  Bonehead, who was sitting at the table, smiled and then said, ‘Used to be a boy scout.’

  ‘Maybe instead of asking questions of me, you should be answering them? And sit down, you are irritating me,’ Babik said. Susan stopped pacing and joined him, and Bonehead at the old Formica table in the corner of the flat.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, as she took a seat.

  ‘I mean, I thought it was your job to keep me alerted to any dangers?’ Babik said.

  ‘Look, it’s like I told you, we were only told the location of the raid minutes beforehand and I was unable to warn you until the last minute. I was as shocked as you were.’

  ‘I didn’t even know they were looking at me,’ Babik said.

  ‘You’re not the only one,’ Susan replied, before getting back to her feet and peering through the dirty nets that covered the grimy window overlooking the terraced street.

  ‘Does this mean we’ll have to abandon everything and set up again somewhere else?’ Bonehead asked.

  ‘Diddums,’ Susan said, adding, ‘is that as far as your rationale can reach?’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ Babik told her.

  ‘Look you two, an accident and an escape, I could have lived with. But murdering a witness that I ensured was on offer? They are detectives you know. They’ll soon work it out.’

  ‘What, you mean you’re blown?’ Babik asked

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘But I need you back in the pig station to tell u
s what’s going on.’

  ‘Not going to happen. They’ll already know,’ Susan said.

  ‘Well if you hadn’t panicked and legged it—’ Bonehead started to speak, but Susan cut across him.

  ‘Cornel, tell him will you?’ she said, and Babik gave Bonehead a look before he turned back to Susan and asked her, ‘Where’s your phone?’

  ‘Binned it.’

  ‘Your police radio?’

  ‘Binned that, too, I panicked, should have kept that.’

  ‘OK; look, at least we’re safe here. Bonehead’s dumped and burned the bike, we need to work this out,’ Babik said.

  ‘Where’s the gun?’ Susan asked him.

  ‘Left it behind, they can never link it to us if we don’t have it. And before you ask, I wore gloves,’ Babik said.

  ‘Where was the bike nicked from?’

  ‘Middle of Preston,’ Bonehead said.

  ‘Who loaded the gun?’

  ‘I put the mag in when we dashed back here for it,’ Babik answered.

  ‘I mean, who put the actual bullets in the magazine?’

  ‘I did, ages ago. Why?’ Bonehead asked.

  ‘And were you wearing gloves when you did that?’ she pushed him.

  ‘Shit!’ Bonehead answered.

  Babik spun around on his chair to face Bonehead. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. But as rage started to engulf him, a thought arose. He could see fear etched on Bonehead’s face as he pulled away from the table. But the idea calmed Babik, and his stony expression turned into a smile. That smile seemed to add to Bonehead’s terror and his eyes widened even further.

  But Babik’s smile was genuine. ‘Calm down, Bonehead, it’s OK, we can sort this,’ Babik said, with genuine warmth in his words.

  ‘Are you sure, boss?’ Bonehead said, his fearful look now veneered with a puzzled expression.

  ‘Oh yes, this’ll be fine,’ Babik said. If his idea worked, there would be no problems and Susan would be safe. Then, he would just have the other problem to sort out, and quickly.