Young, Gifted and Deadly

by William Stafford

  The PCSOs gaped.

  Wheeler chuckled. She took a slurp of her coffee. “More penis-pulling, lads. I suppose having you two bruisers in here means they don’t have trouble with fuckwits.”

  The PCSOs nodded rapidly. “It’s a kind of partnership, you might say.”

  “Like an outreach whatsit type of thing.”

  Wheeler’s expression soured. “Oh, no. Don’t you start spouting that bollocks. I might as well go and talk to Superintendent Ball.”

  The PCSOs relaxed - a little - pleased to hear this indiscreet remark.

  “And have you had much cause to use it? Your fucking tablet, I mean. Many enquiries from the public?”

  “Not a one.”

  “Nobody knows we’m here.”

  They did their best to look downcast.

  “Hmm,” said Wheeler, making a mental note. “Names? What are your names? I can’t go on calling you Prick One and Prick Two.”

  “Um,” said the first. “My name’s Hobley. Robert Hobley.”

  “Robert Hobley...” Wheeler repeated, fixing the name and the face in her memory.

  “But you can call me Bobby.”

  Wheeler baulked. “The fuck I will. Bobby Hobley the hobby bobby! It’s got to be a fucking joke.”

  “It ain’t!”

  “Now who’s pulling whose penis?”

  “I-”

  Bobby Hobley put his hands on the table in full view. Wheeler turned to the other officer who looked decidedly sweatier than a moment ago. “Don’t tell me; you’m called something saft as well. Like, I don’t know, fucking Pat Rolcar, or something.”

  “Er - no.”

  “I’m fucking tickled to hear it. Well?”

  “I am, thank you.”

  “Jesus wept. Your name, sunshine?”

  “Um...”

  “Come on. Let’s be fucking having it.”

  “It’s - er - it’s...” the poor man couldn’t meet the chief inspector’s gaze - but then, few can. “It’s Wren.”

  “Wren. Good.”

  “Simon Wren.”

  “Good.”

  “Si for short.”

  Simon Wren cringed, waiting for the penny to drop. Wheeler’s eyes bored into him. She blinked.

  “Fuck off,” she said.

  At that point, store security guard Charlie West approached. “Um...”

  Wheeler smiled sweetly. “Yes, chicken?”

  “If we could have a bit of help? Only there’s some trouble. Some kids running around.”

  Wheeler got to her feet. “This is more fucking like it. Lay on, Macduff.”

  “No, it’s West. Charlie West.”

  “Whatever. Come on, Prick One, Prick Two. Off your arseholes. Time to burn off that fucking biscotti.”

  5.

  Brough and Miller separated for lunch. She dropped him at his flat where he changed into an expensive tracksuit and top-of-the-range trainers. A spot of physical exertion will perk me right up, he thought, carrying out a few stretches to warm up. Handing out fucking crime prevention leaflets was beneath him, he felt. The sooner someone murdered someone in this town the better.

  The intercom buzzed. Brough pressed a button.

  “It’s me,” said the voice of Darren Bennett.

  “I’ll be right down.”

  Enjoy your lonely cheese and onion roll, Miller, Brough smirked as he jogged down the stairs. I’m going to feast my eyes on your boyfriend’s buns.

  Well, sneaking the occasional glance wouldn’t hurt, would it?

  “How do,” said Darren. His eyes travelled up and down Brough’s attire. “Nice threads.”

  Brough looked at Darren’s own threadbare and misshapen jogging bottoms and wished he could return the compliment. “It’s what’s inside that counts,” he said. He blushed.

  “Come on then,” Darren was already loping off down the street. “I’m going to work you so hard.”

  “Ha!” Brough ran leisurely behind, enjoying the view. It was like two basketballs in a sack. “Don’t let Mel hear you say things like that.”

  ***

  “Well, we can’t keep waiting forever.” Dennis Lord strode around the rather beige conference room on the ground floor of the Apex Hotel, near Junction 2 of the M5. A featureless place, surrounded by industrial parks and drive-through burger bars. “You can’t make a fortune waiting around for other people to show up. And, as you may be aware, this ain’t my only project. I do have other irons in the pie.”

  Beatrice Mooney blushed beneath her foundation, detecting a reference to her own tardiness. She had arrived, immaculate but flustered, only twenty minutes after she was expected, certain she had incurred at least two speeding fines along the way, only to be told by the CEO of CostBusters that it was a lady’s prerogative and she wasn’t to worry her pretty little head about it.

  And now the sexist pig was bemoaning the no-show of the fourth member of the quartet. “Have you phoned him, Barry?”

  Barry Norwood, deputy leader of Dedley Council, waved his mobile in the air. His ear was hot from holding the device to it for the past half hour. “I’ve phoned him, Dennis. I’ve phoned him repeatedly. It’s just ringing out.”

  “Perhaps that means he’s on his way,” Beatrice offered. “You know the traffic is bad. Perhaps he can’t answer while he’s driving.”

  Dennis Lord’s lip curled in a surly manner. “He should get a fucking long tooth.”

  “Bluetooth,” offered Barry.

  “A fucking headset. I’ll send him one over from my customer care centre. You can answer the phone anywhere with one of them. Hands free. It don’t matter what you’m doing. I told them, down the call centre, I told them there’s no more need for toilet breaks, they can still field calls when they’m on the shitter.”

  He laughed. “It was only a joke. At the time, like. But now I’m thinking...” he shook his head. “Have you left him a message, Barry?”

  “I’ve left him a message, Dennis. I’ve left him no end of messages.”

  “Well, like I said, we can’t go on waiting here forever. I say we make a start. The sooner we finish the sooner we can fuck off. I’ve got nine holes waiting for me, if you know what I mean.”

  “Golf?” said Beatrice Mooney.

  “No. Triplets.”

  “Right, then!” Barry Norwood clapped his hands together. “In Paul’s absence, I can say, and I don’t think he’d be averse to me saying it, that he’s not willing to increase his stake. Not without some substantial and significant changes being made. Or assurances thereof.”

  “Changes?” Dennis Lord behaved as if he’d never heard the word. “What bloody changes is he on about?”

  “Well - and don’t shoot the messenger here, Dennis - principally the name.”

  “He can fuck off,” Dennis sat back and crossed his arms. “If he was here, I’d tell him to his face he can fuck off again.”

  “I’m only saying what he emailed me.”

  “Bah! What’s wrong with the name any road?”

  “Do you mean,” Beatrice arched a perfect eyebrow, “CostBusters Academy?”

  “Good name is that.”

  “It is a bit on the nose,” Beatrice continued. “And I thought it had been agreed - that we’d all agreed - the name is to be truncated to C. B. Academy. Although, I am a bit concerned about two thousand children with badges on their blazers saying C.B.A. It hardly gives the right impression.”

  “Balls,” said Dennis Lord. “I see what he’s doing. Bloody Paul. He knows he can’t get his way with the name. So he’s chucked his babby out the pram.”

  “Dummy, surely?” queried Beatrice.

  “What?”

  “He’s thrown his dummy from his pram. Not hi
s baby.”

  “Same difference, love.”

  “Now,” Barry Norwood interjected. “Let’s not get caught up in semantics.”

  “Ha!” Dennis laughed. “I fully intend to. Later on. After this. With the triplets. Get caught up in some antics! Do you get it?”

  Beatrice Mooney smiled thinly. Odious man! What am I doing, letting him within coo-ee of my school?

  Oh, yes.

  She remembered the generous augmentation of her savings account.

  “Look, Dennis; the point is Paul’s not in your league. None of our other sponsors is. But unless they feel they hold some sway, they’ll pull out - and please don’t twist my words to another unseemly reference to your afternoon’s entertainment.”

  “How’d you mean?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Listen, sugar. This is how it is. I’m stumping up the most moolah so I get to say what’s what regarding the fabric of the building. Paul Barker and the rest of them can stamp their bloody logos on the other stuff. The exercise books, for example - do kids still use them? - even the fabric of the fucking curtains, I don’t give a flying shit. I’ll leave it to your capable hands to sort out the finer details. On with business. Cop a load of this.”

  He unrolled a huge sheet of paper, an architect’s drawing of the proposed new academy.

  “One or two tweaks - as the bishop said to the topless actress - and something new. See if you can spot it.”

  Barry and Beatrice pored over the drawing as though it was a treasure map. Beatrice saw it first.

  “Oh, no,” she paled.

  “Oh, yes!”

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “I don’t know; I’m not a bastard mind-reader, am I, love?”

  “What are we looking at?” blinked Barry.

  “I’m not having it!” Beatrice cried.

  “Then buy a vibrator,” said Dennis.

  “I won’t allow it! A supermarket on site!”

  “Calm your tits, Bea. It’s a mini-mart, that’s all. That’s the thing I miss most about school. The tuck shop. So here’s one writ big. To be manned - well, boyed and girled - by the kids themselves. It’s a learning opportunity, ain’t it?”

  “It says twenty-four hour opening.”

  “Nothing wrong with your eyesight.”

  “Mr Lord, are you suggesting the students open the shop around the clock? You are! You’re - you’re going to allow the public in, aren’t you? Onto school grounds!”

  Dennis Lord’s smile dropped. “I’ve got overheads. Place like this won’t pay for itself if we only open at playtime. I don’t expect you to appreciate the retail sector, love.”

  “Because I’m a woman?”

  “Don’t do yourself down, love. I mean because you’re an academic. An educator. And, as an educator, you must see what a marvellous opportunity it is for your customers - I mean the kids - to prepare them for the world of work.”

  “Working for you, you mean.”

  “Way of the world, flower. Tell you what: I’ll up the ante. Another ten per cent. Another personal ten per cent.” He winked and tapped the side of his nose.

  “All right,” Beatrice Mooney relented. “You can have your little shop.”

  “Excellent!” said Barry Norwood. “Those lucky children!”

  “That’s my girl,” grinned Dennis Lord. “Now be a darling and pour me another coffee.”

  ***

  “The pricks!”

  “Yes, ma’m!” PCSOs Hobley and Wren stood to attention.

  “Not you two,” Wheeler rolled her eyes. “This lot.” She jerked her thumb at the bank of CCTV monitors. They were watching playback of the rampage of the gang of four hooded youths. The louts worked with co-ordination, pushing each other in shopping trolleys into displays, hurling cartons of milk like Molotov cocktails to keep all who might approach and challenge them at bay, duelling with French loaves and cucumbers, and generally wreaking havoc and leaving devastation in their wake.

  Charlie West could barely bring himself to watch. He clapped a hand to his face and took tentative peeks through his fingers, wincing as every item hit the floor.

  “That’s you, look, Charlie!” Si Wren chuckled. “Oops, mind you don’t slip on those eggs. Oh! Down he goes.”

  “Wahey!” Bobby Hobley joined in.

  “Pricks,” muttered Wheeler.

  “Ain’t they just,” Si Wren agreed.

  “Not them; you two. Give me strength.”

  On a monitor, the PCSOs bumbled into frame, getting in each other’s way and slapping each other.

  “It’s like the fucking Keystone Kops after budget cuts,” Wheeler growled.

  The PCSOs moved to another screen, shown from a different angle, slipping and sliding through spilled milk and burst packets of flour and crisps. At the end of the aisle, one of the youths was standing, his back to them. The hobby bobbies nudged each other. They each selected a packet of flour from the shelves and launched them at the vandal. Who ducked down at the last second. The bags of flour hit Chief Inspector Wheeler in the face, knocking her on her arse. The screen filled with flour like a self-raising mushroom cloud.

  “Oops,” muttered Bobby Hobley, chewing his thumb in order to suppress his giggles.

  Just as Charlie West was about to make a citizen’s arrest by grabbing one of the hoods, the PCSOs, in their flight from Wheeler, skidded into him, bringing him down on top of themselves. Three pairs of feet and legs sprang up along the bottom of the screen while, on another monitor, the four hoodlums exchanged congratulatory high-fives and skedaddled from the building.

  “What an utter fucking shambles!” Wheeler switched the monitors back to ‘live’. Staff cleaning up the fucking shambles bobbed in and out of view.

  “I almost had him,” Charlie West hit his forehead with the heel of his hand.

  “Did you see his face?” Wheeler urged. “Could you identify him if you saw him again?”

  Charlie West answered no to both questions. In doing so, Charlie West lied to the police.

  Twice.

  ***

  Brough took a hefty swig from his water bottle and wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “I have to say,” Darren Bennett panted between words, “I didn’t think you’d be able to keep it up.”

  “Why?” Brough bristled. “Because I’m so very old?”

  “Nah, what are you? Thirty-three, thirty-four.”

  “I like you,” grinned Brough, neglecting to correct him. “Then you think I’m fat? Out of shape?”

  “No, no! You’re pretty trim, you know. What I’ve seen.” Darren drank from his own water bottle and licked his lips. Brough forced himself to look away from the sweat-stained T-shirt that was clinging to Darren’s pectorals. The instructor had been an incorrigible flirt ever since Brough and Miller had first encountered him during the course of an earlier investigation and so Brough took Darren’s assertions that he was ‘pretty trim’ with an entire sackful of salt.

  “Right then, what next?”

  “Back to work for me,” said Brough. “After a shower, back at mine.”

  “Sounds good. The shower part, I mean, not the work.” The light of hope in Darren’s eyes did not go unnoticed.

  “What?” said Brough.

  “Could I...”

  “What?”

  “Could I come with you? Back to yours. Only my hot water’s packed in and-”

  “I suppose,” said Brough. “Can’t have you stinking like a galley slave for Mel, can we? I’ll race you. Once around the bandstand and then back up the road.”

  “You’re on!” Darren laughed and sprang away.

  “Bloody cheat!” laughed Brough, giving chase.

&
nbsp; But when they reached the bandstand, a hexagonal concrete platform with a dark brick perimeter, all thoughts of the race and showers and everything else vanished like a soap bubble pricked by a finger.

  There was a dead man lying on the rostrum, his arms and legs stretched and tied to follow a chalk design. A length of plastic-coated clothes line was tight around his neck. His eyes bulged from their sockets, staring blankly at the sky, and his tongue, blue and swollen, poked out of his mouth like a shy tortoise.

  “What the fuck?” Darren came to a standstill.

  “Stay back.” Brough held out an arm as a cordon. He took out his phone and speed-dialled Wheeler, without taking his eyes off the poor bastard staked out in front of him. Brough couldn’t help feeling a rush of guilt.

  This is what I wished for, he realised. And now this poor bastard’s paid the price.

  6.

  Wheeler summoned the Serious team in from their bullshit other duties at once. They convened in an upstairs room at Dedley nick which, like a childhood home, seemed smaller now they had returned to it. Wheeler’s uniform was still dusted with flour, stained with eggs and dripping with milk.

  “Is it Pancake Day?” laughed Stevens.

  “It is now the tosser’s arrived,” Wheeler retorted. “Right, let’s get you all apprised of what we know so far. David.”

  She ceded the floor to Brough who got to his feet, which were still in his trainers. He was also still wearing his tracksuit and his sweat-damp hair was ruffled from a quick rub with a towel.

  “Victim is a middle-aged male. Caucasian. Initial thoughts are the cause of death is asphyxiation - and no,” he looked pointedly at Stevens, “it probably wasn’t a strangle-wank.”

  Stevens looked disappointed.

  “What then?” Harry Henry was on the edge of his seat.

  “Garrotted. With a washing-line.”

  “Urgh.” Harry Henry shrank back. He ran a finger under his shirt collar.

  Brough continued. “We’ll know more when we get the lab results.”

  Pattimore interrupted. “What’s his name?”

  Brough reddened. After all this time, he still couldn’t look his ex in the eye. Pattimore had been attending anger management classes and a course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and all the rest of it, but it still hurt. Brough tamped down his personal issues and answered in a clipped, professional tone.