‘We know he didn’t kill his girlfriend is all we know, not that he wasn’t involved in anything her death might relate to,’ said North.
‘Conceded,’ said Mason. ‘How about you go and do your bit for the team – and for yourself - and I stay here until you get back?’
North looked doubtful. James had left her car back at Lumsden’s which meant they weren’t for staying. They had just come to check up on him and make it clear to him just who was in charge, even if Mason was being nice about it.
‘Come on, man, I’m in. You’re right, he’s all we have. James here will cover for Deacon.’
James looked like she wanted to protest but simply pulled on the cords attached to her hood and started off up the street. It was quite a walk around the terraced block. Out back she relieved a drenched PCW Deacon who thanked her.
‘I’m sorry you’ve been put through this,’ said James.
‘It’s our job. And I can use the overtime.’
‘We can all use the overtime,’ James continued to be matey.
Deacon thought that James sounded like she didn’t need to do a days work her whole life if she didn’t want to.
James took Deacon’s place between a skip and a big commercial bin and continued to get soaked. DI North had smelled like a brewery outside that pub, from ten paces in the pouring rain. Not only had he been drinking whilst on duty but he seemed oblivious to the fact that he was obviously being pushed out to pasture, the washed up, wooden headed popinjay. His recent injuries received in the line of duty had taken their toll and he wasn’t being managed correctly. It could result in serious consequences. The brass needed a re-boot and she was just the one to do it.
Imogen Rhodes-James had applied right out of Cambridge University with First Class Honours and was snapped up by Her Majesty’s finest. Ambitious with the innate self-belief of privileged offspring she had dropped the hyphenated name while still training at Hendon. It attracted the wrong sort of attention. She was being fast-tracked through the ranks up to management and despite what they once have her believe James was no longer under any illusions - she had entered a white, male dominated institution. But weren't they all?
She was seen as a token figure employed primarily to promote their public image but they all had another think coming. She knew she was good. She knew she'd get better. One day she would be in a position to put things right. Things like DI North.
FIVE
‘Ah, Bee, that - is - so – good.’
Fingers expertly worked his neck and shoulders. His eyes opened to the sight of crayon drawings labelled ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’ stuck on the fridge door above a jumble of magnetic letters. All except four that spelled ‘fart’. He raised a glass to his lips and sipped at tequila.
‘The kids are at your sisters again?’
He cried out as the fingers dug in deep.
‘It’s her turn, I had her girls last Thursday. And you’re not here often enough to know to make smart remarks.’ The hands withdrew and she came around in front of him. ‘In fact there’s a lot you have to make up for.’
She relieved him of the tequila and pulled on his arms raising him to his feet. He felt her hands brushing against his skin as his clothing fell away, slowly, piece by piece, until he was naked.
‘But not until you’ve had a shower, you stink worse than one of Amy’s diapers. You’ve got to start taking more care of yourself,’ she threw his stuff in the washer-dryer. ‘I am not your skivvy.’
Beneath the hot jet of water all the aches and strains began to fade out of him. Soft hands returned to his head and neck with just the right degree of firmness and every now and then she leant in close so he could feel the weight of her breasts on his back.
Then they were lying together.
He was so relaxed he felt as though he could sink into the soft sheets and just keep on going. He was covered in her soft, smooth skin and her warm breath was in his ear. The whispered words tickled. So did the hair pressing against his arse.
She straddled him and her fingers began working again, kneading his shoulders. His back. Every now and then she covered him again and whispered some more. Each time she resumed massaging him the fingers went lower until his feet were being exorcised of their pain. He felt like he was floating. His breathing was easy and regular. His heart light. His head clear.
As he turned onto his back he reached for the glass at the bedside and drained the contents. She took it from him and her gaze never left his eyes as she sucked the ice from it. Then she used it on him.
‘Let me get you a refill,’ she said when she was done.
She was back in a flash, grinning like an undertaker.
‘Now its your turn to service me’, she said, a hand appearing, offering another glass of tequila. He took it, looking at her other arm where the hand was still out of sight.
‘I don’t know when we’ll get another chance, so we might as well make the most of it,’ she said, the grin widening as her arm brought the hand into view. North stared at it. It looked like she’d gone and filled a condom with water and stuck it in the freezer. She reclined on the bed next to him and held out the frozen cock. North took a large swig on the tequila.
‘Come on before it melts,’ she said.
He could recall vividly their first time together. Her hands had shook as she touched him and her thighs had trembled as he moved between them. Now he was the one trembling. He drained the tequila.
‘Talk dirty to me,’ she said.
‘Oh, fuck...’
SIX
It was already well under way but still hadn’t advanced far enough for North. He still had to wait. He stood at the function room door in an ill fitting tux. The suit was too loose and the tie too tight. He ran his fingers behind the bow, trying to get a bit of slack. Bee had fixed it for him.
The room was wall to wall with those generally recognised to be the regions great and good. North saw only the bad and ugly. You didn’t get to where they were in business and politics without stamping on a fair few pairs of bollocks. Beauty clung to elderly arms, the well formed, often surgically enhanced, young frames of those who had chosen to pursue fame and fortune through the bedrooms of their consorts, opening doors with knowing smiles and opening their legs to stay on the right side of them. Good luck to them. They came from the same kind of estates that Denise Lumsden had lived on. So did the staff serving here tonight and it would take each of them a month to earn the cost of the meal alone, never mind the champagne and cocktail accompaniments. Who knew what was right? You did what you could.
Some kid in a wheelchair was pushed from the stage and the whole place stood and smashed their palms together with no sign of letting up, the sanctimonious fuckers. When they finally sat back down and the rolls of fat had settled North readied himself as a familiar story unfolded over the PA system. When his name was called he walked between the tables to applause as ‘Local Hero’ gushed from speakers. He caught the Chief Constable raising an eyebrow that could have been for one of any number of reasons that it wasn’t worth him deliberating over. A pretty young thing next to a fat guy in Armani gave him the come on without anyone else in the room being aware. His improving mood continued.
On stage he was presented with a bravery award and the host, a local comic who was currently enjoying some national success, courtesy of celebrity panel TV, made a crack at North’s expense that had the audience creasing with laughter. It wasn’t that funny but this lot were already so very pleased with themselves that it didn’t take much to get them going. North smiled wide while looking out at the audience, laughing with them while clutching the comics shoulder. His fingers moved as expertly as Bee’s had recently done and found the ridge of muscle connecting the neck and pressed hard into a pressure point. The comic winced in pain and contorted his shoulders, pulling away. The audience laughed harder as they watched what they thought was all part of the comics routine, the local hero’s grip too much for him to bear. North replaced him at th
e microphone and waited for them all to calm down.
‘The only reason I’m standing here tonight is because of a police constable named Kerry Deacon. She saved my life that night and is the real hero, but instead of standing up here in my place she is out there soaked through to the bone, twelve hours into an eight hour shift.’
The audience broke into applause, cheering this humble recipient, while actually believing that he was full of shit. They all played the same game. It’s what got them to where they were today. You have to be seen to do the right thing, after all.
‘I guess I’m here instead of her because getting stabbed makes sexier headlines than stopping someone from bleeding to death. She’s out there tonight not just because its her job, but because she cares.’
More applause. North cut in on it.
‘We all have a duty of care to this community but very few of you deliver. You think it isn’t your problem, that that’s what the police are for. That it's all our problem not yours.’
They started looking at one another. Words were exchanged. This wasn’t on. He was having a dig at them. Who the hell did he think he was having a go at them? Without them there would be no decent community. They were contributing a substantial amount of cash here tonight out of the goodness of their hearts.
‘Makes you look good tax deductible cash donations are all very well but we all need to be contributing day to day on a moral basis. Some of you can start by growing up,’ he wagged a finger at some errant footballers.
‘Some of you people have very real impacts on the community. People want to look like you; they want to act like you. When you are in court every other week you send out a message that you can do whatever the hell you like. And you judges confirm that its okay when you let them walk.
‘This morning a man was released by the courts after a year on remand,’ he stared down at Judge Beech, ‘and by tea time the woman who had put him there had been found dead, violently assaulted and murdered. You are all doing just fine and dandy, oblivious to the shit you kick up and leave in your wakes. Try and think about the consequences of your actions for a change. Try and think about more than just yourselves.’
He walked off to a deafening silence. Superintendent Ron Egan was waiting in the wings.
‘Is it your life’s goal to piss-off absolutely everybody on the planet?’
North grinned.
‘And you finally found the soap then? Its amazing the lengths some people will go to for a medal, and I have to say that you do scrub up well. Now you only look half dead.’
‘You’re just jealous of my rugged good looks.’
‘Your face is grey.’
‘I’ll get some St Tropez.’
‘You’ve been gallivanting about in that weather when you know that the doctor says you need another month.’
‘Another month of light duties and I wont be fit for shit. How do people spend their days under artificial light with the air pumped in? It’s not natural. And its not helping any of us me pushing paper around a desk day-in, day-out. There’s only so much I can achieve backstage. How did you know, anyway?’
He ignored the question. ‘And you’re no use to any of us if you have to be pensioned off. Rawlins was in prison when the woman was killed, wasn’t she?’
North’s brow furrowed.
‘Don’t come the innocent. You believe Rawlins couldn’t have killed Denise Lumsden and yet you just as good as told the whole city that he did.’
‘I never said any such thing and I can’t help what they infer from what I did, now, can I?’ he smiled. ‘Who told you? James?’
‘DS Scanlan. He thought maybe you needed...’ North saw that he was deciding how to put a more diplomatic take on what Arnie had said, ‘some R and R.’
‘I can imagine. What else?’
‘He said that you looked like hell and smelled like the Bigg Market at chucking-up time. How did you get here by the way?’
‘Cab.’
‘You better not be driving under the influence. There’s those just waiting for an excuse, North. Any excuse will do.’
‘Cab.’
Egan didn’t look convinced.
‘So you had people out in the pouring rain staking out a boozer for a man with the perfect alibi, who you had no proof was even in there, nor any real reason to believe that he was in there.’
‘Had? You pulled them off?’
North’s high plummeted.
The Super held his palms up and shook his head. ‘Have. I told Mason and James to stay put and sent them DS Scanlan as support for being such a little bitch. DC James is another member of your growing fan club, by the way.’
‘I’m the best education she’ll ever have.’
‘She thinks you should be thrown out on your ear and she isn’t alone. The Chief is beginning to think the Met are taking the piss loaning you out to us. You know how proud he is. He doesn’t take kindly to being laughed at.’
‘Good, isn’t it? By now I’ll be underestimated by all. Getting stabbed my first week was the best thing that could have happened to me.’
‘You’re crazy. Well, as you’ve managed to wangle your way onto the case you can tag along on it for now, but you best make headway fast. A death like this will be all over the media and the Chief will want media friendly people in front of them,’ he paused and went all serious again. ‘And we have bigger fish to fry.’
North nodded.
‘Forensics are at the flat. So far they’ve found twenty-two grand, mainly in bundles of ten and twenty pound notes, rolled up in food bags and stuffed inside frozen chip bags. You think Rawlins is on his toes because he knows something?’
North nodded, his thoughts on the cash. More questions piled up.
‘He could have gone into shock,’ said the Super. ‘By all accounts the scene is enough to do it.’
North gave another nod.
‘Or he’s just scared because of his record. He isn’t to know she was dead before he got out.’
North shook his head.
‘He may well be in shock and shitting himself but its because he knows something. It might not be much but it could be enough to take us forward. There was adrenaline in that pub. Something was going down. Rawlins was waiting for someone, someone he had to have contacted. Who? Why? And if forensics don’t come up with anything other than that cash, its all we’ve got for now. This case has serious organised drugs all over it.’
‘Its good to see the light in you come back on.’
North beamed through blue-grey eyes. A tray of flutes filled with champagne floated by and North took one. The Super took it from him and downed it in one.
‘Cheers,’ he said, and strode off after the waitress. ‘Cut back,’ he said, exchanging his empty. ‘Way back.’ The girl with the tray smiled at North. Everyone loves a hero. She looked almost bashful when he winked in return. You didn’t see many bashful nineteen year olds these days. A student trying to keep her loan down. More used to books than boys. A dying breed.
On stage they were introducing the main event: Eddie George. North didn’t know what he was being honoured with, they must have invented a new one as he already had everything going. Steady Eddie, the northern rock, gentleman George, Sir Edward Charles George, Mister Newcastle. He was the richest this land had seen since the feudal system had reigned. He now used profits from his many companies to finance his own charities at home and abroad, including the purchase and regeneration of the city’s football club which was seen as the greatest charity of them all locally.
His taxes and business dealings dating back to his days peddling gear in the schoolyard were as clean as a whistle and now he was giving back to the community in spades. The national tabloids called him Saint George. He didn’t even have a blonde young enough to be his grand daughter in tow. It was true that he was married to a younger woman, and he enjoyed calling himself a cradle snatcher, but she was the wrong side of fifty, looked it and he adored her. There would be no trading in for a
newer model. George was strictly old school. He strode onto the stage, cracked a funny that was actually funny and took complete command of the place. There were many in the audience whose jealousy made them refer to him as Big ‘Ed. Eddie George had heard the name and laughed out loud. He couldn’t give a shit. He lapped it all up. Loved it. North smiled. You had to love him back.
‘Inspector North?’ A kid with an iphone appeared. ‘Dave Green from the Post. That was quite the speech.’
You are the worst of the bunch, thought North.
‘Could I have five minutes?’
‘Sure,’ North smiled.
They were actually in a position to rally and influence but they didn’t care what they printed just as long as it sold papers. Splash the headline that grabs the punters. They should be educating them not leading them on. North proceeded to lead him on about Denise Lumsden’s death. It would all be corrected the following day but by then it would be too late. Once people had read about the judge who let a killer go that’s what would stick, regardless of what came later. They made ridiculous decisions and you didn’t get many chances to stick it to them so you took them whenever you could. The kid typed up the story then and there and it was transmitted to his office before North had left the building.
He stepped outside. He felt good. Across the street, lights winked at the push of his key fob. He felt like he could whistle and his car would pull up to the kerb and pop the passenger door for him. It had even stopped raining.
SEVEN
A white Luton pulled out in front of him as he indicated left. The diesel trundled past and all was quiet as he approached the Pond House. He slowed. The pub lights were out. Mason’s car was gone. A woman came out the 7-11 tearing cellophane from a cigarette pack and the wind carried it away. A tab was in her mouth and the lighter poised when she saw him.
‘You pervert!’ she shouted at North. ‘I’m taking your number. People have to live round here, you know. We’ve got kids. Its not right.’
Force Of Habit v5 Page 4
