Call & Response

by J. J. Salkeld

  ‘Welcome to Cumbria.’

  ‘Aye. And he could have done a lot worse, like.’

  ‘Scotland?’

  ‘Aye, exactly.’

  Pepper Wilson looked at her watch, again. It was almost half eleven, and she’d told Adam that she’d be home by now. But it was a fifteen minute walk, and The Working Poor showed no signs of leaving the stage. Well, not so much a stage, more the corner of the bar, with ten or a dozen people watching, and clapping briefly at the end of each tune. She wondered how many of them weren’t connected to the band by bonds that were stronger than a shared love of the songs of protest. There were four more of them in the band, all younger than Justin, and Pepper guessed that the Working Poor’s actual fanbase was probably not more than half a dozen. It was a shame, because they were good, as far as Pepper could tell. She wondered, briefly, if she could go, but Justin kept catching her eye as he played, and the look of concentration had always given way to a smile when he did. She’d just have to stick it out.

  As soon as they’d finished, and the last ripple of applause had died away, Pepper got up and walked over to Justin, who was already coiling his guitar lead between his elbow and hand.

  ‘That was great, love. Excellent. But I have to go. Adam needs to get off.’

  ‘Come on, Pepper. Just a quick drink. I’m parched.’

  ‘All right, just a quick one, then. What would you like?’

  When she came back from the bar Justin said something to the drummer, busy dismantling his kit, and the long-haired lad glanced up at her. She wasn’t quite old enough to be his mum, perhaps, but she could easily be his oldest auntie.

  ‘It’s a young man’s game, is this’ she said, passing Justin his drink.

  ‘Leonard Cohen is touring again, and he’s a bloody good age.’

  ‘Aye, but wasn’t he originally famous when he was, you know..’

  ‘A lot younger than me? I dare say he was, but I’m only just finding my voice now, Pepper. This is our time, love. I can feel it in the air.’

  She didn’t think it would be helpful to observe that his voice sounded much the same as it had when she’d first met him, fifteen years before. Possibly in this very pub, or in one just like it.

  ‘Anyway, I enjoyed the new material’ she said. ‘And the band does sound good.’

  She could tell from his expression that she’d said the right thing.

  ‘They do, don’t they? You see what I mean, love. Good songs and the best band I’ve ever had. It’s going somewhere this time, I’m certain.’

  ‘That’s great. No, honestly love, I mean it.’

  But the look on his face told her that he didn’t believe her. Not for one second.

  ‘I know you hear people saying that ‘it’ll be different this time’ and all that other shit, every day, in your job,’ he said. ‘But I really mean it. I know you’ll never understand, but I do need to do this, Pepper.’

  ‘Need what exactly? You’re a good photographer, Justin, everyone says so.’

  ‘It’s not the same. All I do is take pictures of people looking too bloody pleased with themselves, whether it’s weddings or stuff for the local papers. It’s all bollocks, honestly, love. Like I say, I need this.’

  ‘I know you do. That’s why I’m here. I just don’t want you to be disappointed. You know, if it doesn’t quite happen for you.’

  He laughed. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time, would it? Look, I know you think I’m selfish and irresponsible….’

  Pepper had glanced at her watch again. She just couldn’t help herself. ‘I’m sorry, love, but I really do have to go.’

  ‘Aye, you go then. Don’t want to keep Adam waiting, do we? I expect he’s still got his socks to iron when he gets home.’

  Pepper laughed.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised. Look, I’m sorry I can’t stay any longer, I really am. And you were great. Really. Let’s hope that The Working Poor puts you straight on the path to stardom, love. Fame at last, eh?’

  Pepper was pretty certain that she’d said the wrong thing this time. But it was too late, and she was too tired, to try to sort it out now. So she hugged Justin, waved a vague goodbye to the rest of the band, and made for the door. If she was lucky a patrol car would spot her and give her a lift home. And, sure enough, when she reached English Street a marked car pulled up just ahead of her.

  ‘All right, lads?’ she asked, as she got in. ‘Nice quiet evening, I hope?’

  ‘Aye, nothing happening at all, love. Quiet as the grave, tonight. That’s just the way I like it, mind.’

  ‘I know it is, John. I know it is.’

  Wednesday, 3rd September

  10.05am, Detective Inspector’s office, Carlisle Divisional HQ.

  ‘Put wood in hole, Henry’ said Pepper, and DC Armstrong closed the door behind him. ‘I wanted us to have a quick chat, while we have the chance.’

  ‘Is it about Amanda Brown, boss?’

  ‘Partly, but we’ll come back to that in a bit. First, I wanted to let you know that we’ve got a new DC joining today. Up from London, would you believe. He’s got a couple more years in than you, and an excellent arrest record. So I’m sure he’ll be really useful to you.’

  ‘Great, boss.’

  ‘Don’t look like that. It’s not a demotion, or a vote of no confidence. We’re chronically under-strength, what with the DI being off and everything. And he’ll learn a lot from you too, Henry. You’re Cumbrian born and bred, aren’t you?’

  ‘Aye. We’ve been in Keswick for four generations at least. And all doctors too, except me.’

  ‘There we are then. And my family have been begging and dossing around Carlisle since the Romans put up Hadrian’s Wall. It’s true. I’ve heard it said that it was a Wilson who made his money by nicking the stone from one bit of the Hadrian’s Wall and flogging it back to the Romans when they got to that tricky part up on the Whin Sill.’

  ‘So that’s why you joined the job then, is it, Sarge? To give back something that your ancestors had nicked, like?’

  ‘Very funny. But in a way, aye. To prove I’m different from all of them, I suppose. But I don’t think about it much, to tell the truth. The past can bloody look after itself, can’t it? And how about you, Henry? Why did you join us lot? You were at uni in Durham, weren’t you?’

  ‘Anthropology, aye. But I joined up as a Special while I was there, and then found a job as a PCSO back here. Then I managed to get taken on properly, like.’

  ‘How did you like uniform?’

  ‘Not much, to tell the truth. I passed out at a couple of RTAs early doors, one of them had a little kid in it, and I was going to chuck the job in because of it. But my dad arranged a bit of help with dealing with the blood and that, which has made it easier. A bit, anyway.’

  ‘We did nowt to help you, I suppose?’

  ‘Christ, no. I kept my mouth shut here, boss. I’m only telling you in confidence, like.’

  ‘You’ll go far, Henry. You’d have had the piss taken for the rest of your career by the lads, and the bosses would have done sod all to help. But if you’ve got any problems in future you come straight to me, you hear? I’ll never grass you up to the bosses, or anything like that. Some of us develop coping mechanisms, or whatever they’re called, and some of us don’t. But you’ve got the makings of a good detective, Henry.’

  ‘Cheers. Thanks, boss.’

  He smiled like a boy, she thought. ‘And you got on to the CID fast-track transition scheme because you made life difficult for Gary Flynn, when you were based out at Shadygrove, the cop-shop that time forgot?’

  ‘Aye, that’s right.’

  ‘Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke. He’s an absolute piece of shit, is Gary. He was nicking the boilers from those new housing association houses in Morton, wasn’t he? My nan fancies one of those, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘They look nice. But aye, that’s right. I had a tip-off from an old girl who lives right next door to the sit
e, but no-one wanted to follow up on it. My Inspector told me that the witness was likely to be unreliable, given her age and everything.’

  ‘But you didn’t agree?’

  ‘No, I suppose I didn’t. She’s as straight as a die, is Elizabeth, and her eyesight is better than mine. So I waited until I knew that the boilers had been replaced, then I watched one night when I was off duty. Sure enough Flynn turned up and had another go. So I nicked him in the act, like.’

  ‘Nice one. What did he draw? I haven’t seen him around the city in a while, so I assume he went away again?’

  ‘No, he bloody did not. I nicked him on the premises, actually at it, and he coughed to it right away. But when he was down the nick and his brief was with him he said that he’d been passing the site, seen an intruder, and just followed him in. He said that this imaginary other bloke had got away, while I was nicking him, like.’

  ‘And the CPS believed that? Christ, what a load of utter bollocks. My Ben’s only six, and he could do better than that.’

  ‘They didn’t believe him. At least I don’t think they did. But they said that I was a young off-duty officer, that my evidence was uncorroborated, and that Flynn’s brief was claiming that I had some kind of vendetta against their client. So they decided not to proceed. Not in the public interest, apparently. My Inspector did sod all about it, in fact he pretty much told me that I’d made a bit of an arse of myself, so I decided to try to get on to CID. And here I am, like.’

  ‘And here you are. So what lessons did you learn from trying to nick Gary Flynn?’

  Armstrong thought about the question. ‘I don’t know, really. Never rely on the bosses, maybe?’

  Pepper smiled. ‘Apart from that. It’s taken as read, is that one.’

  ‘Never try to do it on your own then, without back up.’

  ‘Exactly. You remember that, young Henry. I don’t care about you missing out on a conviction, because Gary Flynn is always a collar in waiting, but I do care about my officers taking risks with their own safety. I won’t have it, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Good. But before you go, we do need to talk about your Ms. Brown.’

  ‘You were right, about her benefits.’

  ‘I know, but that’s not it, Henry. Look, I understand that you’re concerned about her, and her poor bloody kids, but we just don’t have the time for all that. People like her, you get them in, charge them, and get them straight out. She’ll be back again soon enough, anyway. There are more bloody budget cuts coming, Henry, so get used to telling people who’ve been burgled to go and buy there own bloody print dusting kits, because their chance of ever seeing a SOCO is about the same as me meeting George Clooney in the Costa in town on a Saturday morning.’

  ‘Understood. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. But we honestly don’t have time to actually help anyone any more. Those days are gone. Christ, I heard on the radio the other day that some forces have got victims going out and collecting their own CCTV footage, before they’ll even look at starting an investigation. I wish I was bloody making that up, but I’m not.’

  ‘I get you, boss. Every minute I spend on Amanda Brown is a minute that I’m not giving to a victim of crime.’

  ‘Exactly. That’s the real priority, whatever the bosses say. Although even the bloody cons make out they’re victims these days, the sly bastards. They even believe it, some of them. And one other thing about Amanda, just for information. And I worked this out on the way in to work this morning, actually. Because I reckon that after I’ve paid for my childcare, my mortgage and my Council Tax, I’ve got less money in my pocket every week than Amanda Brown has. And I’m not going out and nicking stuff, either. So you think on that one too, Henry.’

  ‘I will, aye.’

  ‘Right, you get on with it. And just think yourself lucky that you’re not in DC Copeland’s expensive looking shoes.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because he’s currently enduring that awful bloody health and safety induction. At this very moment that stupid prat Matheson will be walking him slowly round the building, pointing out where the bloody fire extinguishers are. And this is a copper who spent six months undercover last year, infiltrating a pretty serious drugs gang in north London. So something tells me that he and Jim Matheson will just have developed a slightly different perception of what constitutes an actual risk.’

  But DC Copeland wasn’t on the health and safety tour, because he’d told Jim Matheson that he had special dispensation to do it at a future date, due to ‘pressing operational factors’. He repeated the phrase twice, because in Copeland’s experience it made the pen-pushers feel like they were somehow assisting in the never-ending fight against the forces of evil. Or something like that, anyway.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Matheson had said. ‘I understand completely. Give ‘em hell, DC Copeland.’

  ‘I’ll do my best’ said Copeland firmly, and set off to find the coffee machine.

  Five minutes later he was sitting opposite Pepper Wilson. She was aware that she was taller than him, but Copeland hadn’t noticed because most adults, both male and female, were.

  ‘How did you know I have it black, with no sugar?’ she said.

  ‘I asked that tall lad outside. The one with the fringe and the Lady Di expression.’

  ‘Oh, Henry. Look, Rex, let’s have a proper introductory session later, but are you able to pitch right in for me, today I mean? I wouldn’t ask, but I’ve got to be in court in half an hour and we’ve just had a walk-in, a young girl who says she’s the victim of a revenge porn attack.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Seventeen.’

  Copeland made the sort of face that Pepper was used to seeing on the face of the mechanic who kept her old Toyota on the road.

  ‘It’ll be a waste of time then, Sarge. I know the law’s changing, but the way things stand we’ll get sod all out of this. Unless the bloke’s been at it for ages we won’t get him for harassment, worse luck, and if he’s written nothing to go with the pictures we can’t do him for malicious communications either. I had loads of these in my old job, two or three a month towards the end. It’s an epidemic, but we never got a bloody thing out of any of them. I’m not saying that the girls were asking for it, of course I’m not saying that, just that we never got a conviction out of any of the complaints. All it does is look bad on the stats.’

  ‘Sod the stats. I’ll worry about those. I know what you’re saying, but still have a word anyway, OK? The civilian on the front desk told me that the lass looked pretty distressed, and this is the woman who has to tell our PCs when the sandwich van has broken down again. So she does know what distressed looks like, I can promise you that.’

  DC Copeland laughed. Perhaps coming up here wouldn’t turn out to have been such a bad decision, after all. Even if the decision hadn’t been entirely his to make.

  ‘I thought it was going to be a lady detective’ said Ashley Weekes, before Rex Copeland had even sat down. The middle-aged WPC who was sitting with Ashley in the pastel-painted family suite looked surprised to see him too, although he doubted that it was only because he wasn’t a woman. The girl had been crying, and Copeland made a note to check that she really was seventeen. She certainly didn’t look it.

  ‘I’m sorry, but my colleague DS Samantha Wilson is in court this morning’ he said. ‘She can’t send anyone else in her place I’m afraid, Ashley. She has to be there. So she asked me to have an initial talk with you today.’

  ‘I can come back. Another time, I mean.’

  ‘No, don’t do that. Let’s just have a quick chat now, OK? I know how tough it must have been for you to come in to see us at all. We’re here to help you, if we can.’

  Ashley looked at the WPC, who smiled encouragingly. ‘That’s right, love,’ she said.

  ‘I only need to ask you a few questions at this stage’ said Copeland. ‘We’ll be done in five minutes. It
won’t hurt a bit.’ He smiled again, and Ashley smiled back, wanly and briefly.‘So let’s start with an easy one. How old are you, Ashley?’

  ‘Seventeen. It was my birthday last week.’

  ‘Congratulations. And it’s photos we’re talking about, yeah?’

  ‘Aye, photos off Mo’s phone, they are.’

  ‘Mo?’

  ‘Mo Afridi.’

  ‘And this Mo lives in Carlisle, does he?’

  ‘Aye. You want the address?’

  ‘Let’s come back to that, shall we? When did he take these pictures?’

  ‘Ages ago. Last year. I don’t remember exactly.’

  ‘And how old were you then?’

  Ashley paused. ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘You don’t sound sure. Don’t worry. Just tell us if you’re not sure about anything. You’ve done nothing wrong, remember. Nothing at all.’

  ‘I was sixteen.’

  ‘But might you have been fifteen?’

  ‘I might, I suppose.’

  ‘And how old is Mo?’

  ‘He’s 31.’

  ‘OK. So he’s posted these pictures online, is that right?’

  ‘Aye. You’ll want to see them, I expect.’

  ‘Not at the moment. We just need to know where to find them. And you’re sure that it was Mo who posted them, are you?’

  ‘Oh, aye. It was him.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘He told me. Told me where to find them too, the bastard.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘The day before yesterday. He came round to the house, like.’

  ‘And was anyone else there when he was telling you this? Your mum, maybe.’

  ‘No, I was on my own.’

  ‘OK. So why did he do this, Ashley?’

  ‘Because I split up with him, last week. He’s been scaring me. Always talking about the other girls he’s had as well. And he’s tried to introduce me to his mates, other cabbies, like. I can do better. That’s what my mum says. And not because he’s coloured, neither.’ Ashley’s eyes widened slightly. ‘No offence, mate’, she added, quickly.