Persons of Interest

by Peter Grainger

  Murray said, ‘You remember Wilson and his team came across a big stash from a lead they got when they did that party bust a year ago? That involved local people, faces that we knew. I’d say it’s changed a bit since then.’

  ‘Serena, what’s happening in Longmarsh?’

  For a moment she looked surprised at being asked.

  ‘For the past couple of months I don’t know, obviously, but before that it was the same old, same old – the usual people in the usual places. Nothing like on the same scale as Kings Lake, of course, but I was not aware of any major changes.’

  ‘Oh, right. I just wondered whether there might have been a national reorganization. So – is this something or nothing?’

  Waters said, ‘You would think that the lighter penalties for possession of hash would mean they’d be less cautious now.’

  ‘Yes, but we’re still clouting the dealers when we catch them. The thing is, we always have, so that’s not changed, and as a local force, we’ve not had a push on it for a while. So if there has been some development, a major change in personnel as John said, that’s down to something else. Or it might be nothing at all. Have you spoken to anyone, John?’

  Murray knew what he meant – the other two might not have understood immediately.

  ‘No. I thought I might tonight.’

  He was looking directly back at Smith. If he had informants that might throw some light on the scene in Lake, he would prefer to go in search of them alone, even though Serena Butler had become a trusted member of the team. Those relationships are difficult, delicate and as slow-growing as orchids – he would not risk them by introducing a new face and then expecting the informant to talk. The same thought had already occurred to Smith, and there was an obvious solution.

  ‘Right, as I said before, we need to be flexible on this. Chris, can you take Serena on a tour of the bars in our district tonight? You’re just going in, sitting down and keeping your eyes open. You stay together. And you both need to go home and slip into something more comfortabe – dive denims, not lounge bar casual. I don’t charge for fashion advice, by the way. Now Chris, I’ve already had this experience with DC Butler. It can be somewhat alarming but you just have to keep your nerve. Serena, we’re talking public bars, alright, no private members’ clubs?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Murray smiled at Smith, as if he found the sight of chickens coming home to roost amusing.

  ‘Just so you both know, John and I are going to look up a few old contacts, and that’s better done on our own. If, God forbid, either of you have the misfortune to stay on in this fine town, you too will acquire a similar circle of professional friends.’

  Everyone looked ready.

  ‘Right, then. Gird your loins – we’re heading for the lion’s den.

  He paused, frowned, and then said, ‘I did get that the right way round, didn’t I?’

  A few minutes later, Smith managed to find Waters before he left the building, and he asked him for Nigel Hinton’s mobile number. It was an odd time, six thirty, and after thinking it over, he sent a text – Lucky had a warning a few days before – call if you want the details, Smith. Then he set about tidying his desk in preparation for the information that they would be accumulating over the coming fortnight – but within five minutes his phone was ringing, and it was Hinton. Were they putting in overtime as well on the Everett case, or was Hinton one of those sad individuals who never stopped thinking about the job?

  ‘Thanks for the heads-up, sir. What exactly was the warning?’

  ‘I think we can drop the ‘sir’, at least until I get the knighthood.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Good. You might already have this but a little bird told me that Everett had a bucket of you-know-what tipped under his door days before he was done in. In prison speak, apparently, that’s a polite way of saying, if you don’t stop what you’re doing, something considerably worse is on its way. One could make a guess that either Everett didn’t understand the message or he didn’t stop what he was doing. The former is unlikely as he’d been inside before.’

  There was a short pause – Hinton was thinking, or writing or both.

  ‘That’s useful, we’re struggling with a motive otherwise. He might have stepped on somebody’s toes...’

  ‘Christ! I hope he at least jumped up and down on their painful bits to deserve what he got in the end. But to me, from what little I know, he didn’t seem the sort to be involved in the heavy stuff.’

  ‘No, I agree – I’ve been thinking the same. If you don’t mind me asking, did that come from an inmate or a member of staff?’

  They hadn’t heard about it, then.

  ‘An inmate. It’s possible that the staff didn’t get to hear about it; it’s also possible that they didn’t like to mention it. They can be touchy about revealing what life inside is like. It’s a bit like the army and the navy – we’re on the same side but hardly ever on the same wavelength. As far as Everett is concerned, for what it’s worth I’d say that the two events are unlikely to be unconnected. I’m starting to sound like my superintendent there – whoever tipped the bucket wielded the knife, I’d say. It would be worth going back with it to any inmates you’ve befriended, and asking the question.’

  Hinton had agreed again, and for a couple of minutes they discussed other routine details of the investigation down in Littlemoor, just as two lorry drivers can never meet without talking about roads. The Huntingdonshire man was engaged with it, not simply putting in the allotted hours, and Smith thought he recognized a decent detective who had been under-managed and over-worked for too many years.

  At the end of the conversation, Hinton said, ‘So you haven’t found anything to link Everett to your patch, then?’

  A nice guess that Smith would have been unable to resist having a look.

  ‘No. It remains a mystery unless my number is circulating on some sort of list for when inmates have reached the end of the line - a sort of Samaritans service for the terminally criminal. Sorry – shouldn’t be making tasteless jokes. The man has a family somewhere.’

  ‘It’s alright. If we didn’t laugh, we’d bloody weep.’

  There was a silence before Hinton spoke again.

  ‘Have you got an email address?’

  ‘Yes, but I’ll have to look it up. Why?’

  ‘I could copy you in to anything that might – be useful. I know I shouldn’t, I just thought that-’

  ‘No, fine, do it.’

  Smith found and read out the address, and then the conversation was over.

  It was almost seven o’clock, but the sun was still shining over Lake when he went out into the corridor and looked from the second floor window. There was a haze that softened the more distant parts of the view, blurring it impressionistically. It was almost beautiful but it was only the day’s traffic fumes, hanging over the city like a thin, silvery pall. He studied it for a moment or two, thinking that he would eat in the canteen and go straight on from here, he didn’t need to dress down like Waters and Butler. He smiled ruefully and hoped that Waters would be alright – Serena Butler had hidden depths and Waters was, or should be, still practising in the shallow end. And then he thought about the weekend, and Jo Evison. He ought to phone her and apologise properly. She might even be worried about him.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘If you ask me, Mr Smith, it’s all to do with the EEC.’

  Ma Budge shifted her considerable bulk into a more comfortable position on the sofa, as if preparing for a lengthy political discussion; Smith took a first, cautious sip from the cup of tea – a proper cup with a matching saucer – found it to be quite acceptable, nodded as if he agreed and then said, ‘Really? What’s that, then, Ma?’

  The two small, dark eyes, two currants in an unbaked bun, widened a little at the detective’s apparent ignorance; since she had started paying the council tax, Mrs Budge now expected more from her public servants.

  ‘Well, it’s this... It’s t
he...’

  Smith paused, halfway to another sip, eyes looking over the rim of the cup.

  ‘The Eastern Economic Community, that’s what they call it now.’

  ‘Ah, that. All to do with Europe, is it?’

  ‘Yes, but the eastern bit of it now. I’m surprised they don’t expect you to keep more up to date with all this sort of thing. It’s all over the news, all the economical migrants and that. The health tourism industry, and sending all the benefits home to the communist countries. It’s why our own kids have to claim job-seekers’.’

  ‘I had no idea you took such an interest in politics, Ma.’

  She shrugged off the compliment but smiled indulgently at him.

  ‘So you reckon, Ma, that the reason you don’t have so many youngsters dealing weed in the stair-wells now is because of economical migrants from eastern Europe?’

  She looked closely at him as she considered her answer; he had come back to the subject of drugs twice now – had she made it clear enough that Jason, her Jason, was not involved? That despite his unfortunate predilection, now in the past, for stealing high-end motor cars, her Jason had never been allowed to get mixed up in that sort of business?

  ‘This is what I hear, Mr Smith. I have no personal experience of it, never have had, you know that, and neither has anyone closely related to me.’

  She paused, the final phrase given added emphasis by increasing the space between each word.

  ‘So how is Budgie? And I’m sorry, Ma – I mean Jason. How is Jason?’

  ‘He is working. He has been since last year when you was here and did not believe it. He has had three jobs now.’

  The number of jobs Budgie had had since last September seemed to be a source of particular pride.

  ‘And currently? What’s he doing at the moment?’

  ‘He is in a warehouse on the Western estate. They are training him in the forklift.’

  Smith tried to picture it, whatever sort of training one would do inside a forklift, but gave up; the main thing was that, as far as he was aware, no forklifts had 2.5 litre engines with fuel injection and turbo, so they might be alright. But, illuminating as the conversation had been so far, time was passing, and he decided to move things on.

  ‘Ma, give him my regards and congratulations. He’s off my radar and I hope he stays off it for good. I’m asking because you know what goes on and why. We’re taking a look at the local dealers – not just the weed, all of it, and we’re a bit puzzled because it’s different to the last time we looked at it. So I’ve come to you for some advice.’

  ‘Well, I can’t say much more, Mr Smith, than I’ve already said. It is the Albanians.’

  Smith sighed inwardly. He was getting nowhere here and there were other places to go, other people to see. He would have to forego a second cup of tea.

  Waters was beginning to understand why the partnership is so important. You have to be able to talk to each other, and for that to last more than a few minutes, you have to have something in common – once the pleasantries are out of the way, as they had been for several minutes now, the two of you have to have some other mutual connection or it could become a sort of hell. The times he had spent in a car with DC had never been boring, and Waters wondered for a moment what it was that they had in common – then he turned his attention back to Serena Butler.

  When they arrived at The Wrestlers, she had taken a seat with her back to the wall in one of the snug little alcoves that had a view of the bar. Waters had fetched them drinks – they had agreed beforehand on no alcohol – and then he sat down on a stool, facing her across the little table.

  She had said, ‘The only thing you can see from there is me’, patting the cushioned bench seat next to her, and he had understood and moved round. Sitting next to Smith or Murray like that would have looked and felt wrong, but because she was a woman, the dynamics were entirely different – and they were different because to the outside world they were probably a couple. That’s our cover, he thought, just a couple out for a drink, and so we have to keep chatting away like couples do, or we’ll look like a couple who’ve had a row – or a couple of police officers watching the denizens of one of Kings Lake’s dodgiest pubs.

  She said, ‘See anything, anyone? Any persons of interest? Do you know this place?’

  Butler had been at Lake for what, three months now? She had proved herself on the investigation into Jimmy Bell’s disappearance, and Waters knew that both Smith and Murray rated her – it was surprising, though, how little else he knew about her. That she had arrived under something of a cloud was understood, and that the cloud involved a relationship with a senior officer at Longmarsh was also well-known, though no-one had told Waters of it directly.

  ‘No, I don’t. It’s the first time I’ve been through the door – in fact, I didn’t know it existed until today.’

  It sounded like a weak answer, an impression reinforced by the way in which she raised her eyebrows as she took a sip of the lemonade and lime. Waters did not know her exact age but she wasn’t thirty – she might be just five or six years older than his own twenty two and yet he had the sense that she had seen much more of life than he had, much more than might seem to fit chronologically into the space between them. It reminded him of being at school, that moment when you realised that the girls in your year have somehow grown up and got away from you... And then he felt stupid again because he was thinking about school instead of the job that they were supposed to be doing.

  He said, ‘I’ve not been in Lake long myself. I’m not a native. My family live nearby now but I grew up near Norwich.’

  His explanation sounded lame – he was talking about growing up. She looked at him for a moment, nodded as if she had understood something about him and then looked away again, back at the bar. The place was slowly filling up.

  She said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t worry about any of this, if I were you. It’s a waste of time, really.’

  Did she mean the two of them being here together? Had she concluded that he was completely useless?

  ‘Why? It’s a part of the intelligence-gathering process.’

  She was almost laughing, and her expression was something between amusement and pity – Waters felt himself blushing.

  ‘OK, then. What can you gather, sitting here? Anyone in here likely to be users or, even better if you can manage it, dealers?’

  She leaned back into the seat, giving him the widest view of the bar in front of them. Waters could see about a dozen people, mostly youngish men but with them three girls. Jeans, trainers, one or two in denim jackets, other in various style of hoodie, but the warmth of the evening had encouraged some to take off the outer layers – he could see tattoos on some of the arms and one older man was heavily illustrated, even on his face. Taking a closer look because he could see that Butler was making some sort of point if not a head-on challenge, he noted the number of piercings as well on several of the people – one of the girls had a thin gold bar through the soft skin above the bridge of her nose.

  He said, ‘Most of these are at least occasional users – probably all of them.’

  ‘Based on?’

  To say, ‘The way they look’ would be crass but somehow she had manoeuvred him into that position far too easily. He was embarrassed but had to say something – she was still waiting.

  ‘The fact that they choose to drink here. Making this your local is making a sort of statement.’

  She considered it briefly.

  ‘At least you didn’t say ‘The way they look’. You and I don’t look that different to some of them in here – it just happens that all my tattoos are covered up and I don’t have my piercings in but you should see me on a typical Saturday night...’

  He couldn’t help looking then at her face for any suspicious-looking slits, and she saw him and laughed again.

  ‘But seriously? We don’t do guilt by association and we don’t do guilt by choice of local. For all we know, these guys all live nearby and
are being good citizens and not drink-driving. So far, then, you and I are getting nowhere, are we?’

  Waters had never heard her this assertive or opinionated in the station.

  He said, ‘So how do we start getting somewhere?’

  ‘Your first mistake was not picking me up when I asked how many are users. You should have said ‘Users of what?’ You went to uni, didn’t you?’

  He remembered reading the shiny brochures about graduate recruitment into the police force; they had given the impression that many new officers were graduates now and that in the future they all would be, but at Kings Lake, it seemed, the fact that he was one still singled him out; Butler couldn’t know much about him but she knew that. He nodded.

  ‘So while you were there, did you do any drugs – apart from caffeine and alcohol, obviously.’

  It was the second time that day that he had been asked the question. Serena had turned to look at him directly, no doubt to see how evasive he would be; he decided that he would not give her that satisfaction, at least.

  ‘I smoked cannabis.’

  ‘Regularly, or just the odd party?’

  ‘A few parties.’

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘I could see the point – but it wasn’t something I wanted to get into.’

  She looked away, thinking about what to say next. The older man with the tattoos was watching her – then his eyes met those of Waters for second or two before they went back to Serena. She had noticed the man now and stared back at him directly until the face turned away and said something to its nearest companion at the bar. Then he too turned, looked at her and made some comment of his own. Waters wondered whether they had been overheard but then dismissed the thought – that was not why the men were looking at her.

  She said, ‘Fair enough. Cannabis has become a middle class drug, like coke – the professionals who went to university still prefer it to the skunk that you find on the streets and estates. But you’d be surprised how many wealthy people use heroin as an occasional thing – it’s a myth that everyone who tries it gets addicted. You could go into the nearest golf club bar and find some ‘users’, never mind this place. Crystal meth hasn’t taken off yet but it might, and there is still crack, which I think does more damage more quickly than anything else. It’s complicated, and there is no such thing as a typical ‘user’ – so you can’t just walk into a bar and start putting people into boxes.’