Force Of Habit v5

by Robert Bartlett

  ‘Mason and James hold the fort and wind up beaten and cuffed five miles away with no perps in sight. Somehow Rawlins’ guardian angel gets away - the chopper playing it too cagey, lack of immediate ground resource because it was just one of several potential sites we were trying to cover - and Rawlins manages to remain nearby, undetected despite a full search of the area by the chopper and its box of tricks. He has it on his toes, managing to cause a car crash with a near fatality in the process.

  ‘I now believe that Rawlins didn’t run from the maisonette because he believed we would be after him for it. I think he knew what Lumsden was up to with the drugs and he thought that it had got her killed. He contacted someone, they came get him and they were good enough to overpower Mason and James and escape. From what I’ve learned of him that doesn't sound like the kind of mates Rawlins would usually have. It does sound like the kind of people who could run a drug operation large enough for someone like Denise Lumsden to get a twenty grand cut.

  ‘He ran to them and then ended up running on his own. Nothing they did last night indicates a group of people likely to suddenly cut Rawlins loose after all the trouble they went to. I can’t see them having it on their toes when the helicopter spooked them and leaving Rawlins behind – not alive and able to talk, I can’t. No, it seems likely that something spooked Rawlins and he ran from them. We probably saved his arse, the chopper showing up when it did. Rawlins didn’t kill Denise Lumsden but he’s the key to finding out who did.’

  North was dismissed so they could conflab.

  Egan hadn’t said a word. He was probably keeping schtum until the Chief had fully vented. When North turned away a smirking face greeted him from the other side of the glass wall.

  Scanlan.

  He couldn’t contain himself having seen the Chief going apeshit at North. The Chief was an even worse manager than he’d given him credit for if he was handing Scanlan the case.

  ‘What were you doing there last night?’

  ‘Looking for low life scum. Why wasn’t I surprised to find you in there?’

  ‘But you’re on juvy.’

  ‘Yeah, like being underage stops them going in pubs and the Licensing Act stops pubs like that serving them.’

  Scanlan was called into the Chief’s office. He backed into the door so they couldn’t see him put a hand to his forehead and made an ‘L’ at North. North headed back downstairs.

  ELEVEN

  North flushed another four painkillers with another two cans of red bull while another coffee cooled. Hangovers were lasting longer these days and they made him feel old.

  He fired up a computer and continued trawling for information on Terry Rawlins and Denise Lumsden. He'd spent the best part of two months deskbound and figured he could probably do it as quick as anybody - not that anyone else was in the admin office yet. He hadn't been sleeping lately, no matter how much he drank, so getting in at four to type up a report before his meeting had been no problem. And he was determined to hang on to the case. Dark circles surrounded the eyes searching the screen.

  He typed notes into a small window he had open next to the database screen. A couple of people stuck their heads in and congratulated him on his award the evening before but he was still alone when he had finished scanning all the available info. He plugged in his phone and synced the app he had been using. Before he closed the machine down he logged into the personnel system.

  ‘Find anything interesting?’

  ‘Just James!’ He felt like a guilty schoolboy. He had her details on screen.

  Rage sent a lightning bolt through her head and the room span. North caught her as she fell. He helped her into the chair and picked up the phone. Started dialling for help. She held out a palm to stop him. Started to shake her head but stopped as another bolt hammered home. He replaced the receiver and gave her another minute.

  When the dizziness and nausea passed she remained silent, taken aback. She hardly recognised him. He had ditched the odious jeans and hoody from yesterday. Maybe they'd taken off all by themselves. He'd shaved. His hair had body and life. He'd washed it. Blue eyes shone. Life had returned to them. He was actually quite an attractive man - for his age. Maybe you could polish a turd but there was still plenty of room for improvement.

  ‘They told me you were kept in the hospital,’ he said, then realised it sounded like the reason he felt safe to go snooping in her file. ‘Okay,’ he put his hands up. ‘I'm busted. You're quite within your rights to lodge a grievance. I'm abusing my privileges. And trust me, right now any complaint will probably get me thrown out on my arse.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The Chief’s holding me responsible for all his ills.’

  ‘No, why are you sneaking around in my file?’

  He shrugged. ‘I just wanted to know who I was working with. I felt kind of guilty for getting you in the shit last night. I wanted to know more about you.’ He shrugged again. He'd felt more comfortable in the Chief’s office.

  ‘You didn't think to just ask?’

  He didn't remind her that people usually only told you the stuff that they wanted you to know. They held back on the stuff you wanted to know. He didn't need her getting the arse any more than she had already.

  ‘I saw you last night when they brought you out of the warehouse and it scared me. I didn't think you'd be talking for a while.’

  ‘It must have looked much worse than it is. I'm fine.’

  She wasn’t.

  She had a pair of black eyes and a swollen nose and lips. She'd had a bunch of stitches in her bonce and was obviously carrying a concussion. The hospital wouldn't have been happy that she'd walked.

  ‘You remember how I looked to you yesterday?’ he said. ‘Well you’ve got that beat and then some. There is no way the hospital discharged you.’

  ‘I’m not going down as the idiot who went sick her first day as well as the idiot who got turned over her first day. And it wasn’t your fault.’ It had started to occur to her that she may have underestimated DI North. ‘I was angry and believed I was on a wild goose chase. I wasn’t giving a hundred percent and I let Rawlins get by me.’

  Taking ownership. North was impressed. And most in her position would have taken full advantage of a healthy run on sick leave but she was new, proud and clearly aiming to go places. She wasn't about to let anything, or anyone, get in her way. He offered her the rest of the painkillers and his coffee.

  ‘What happened out there?’

  ‘Two people came running out the back of the pub and took off down the alley. I was close enough to ID Terry Rawlins. They got a start on me and I called DCI Mason as I ran. He picked me up at the end of the alley. The two men had already gotten into a vehicle and made off. DCI Mason decided to pursue them, to see where they went rather than catch up with them. He wanted to see who they might meet.’

  North nodded. It’s what he would have done.

  ‘We followed them to that derelict site. I remember us getting out of the car and walking towards the buildings. The next thing I remember is waking up in hospital. They gave me two CT scans, ultra sound and an x-ray. They wanted to keep me there at least another twenty-four hours for observations but I couldn’t stay there. I had to be doing something.’

  ‘Well, you can either fill in that grievance, or put it off until later and come help me search for some files.’

  Twelve hours ago, in the pouring rain behind that shithole of a pub she would gladly have filled out form after form, in triplicate, but now she wasn't as sure about this dishevelled, broken man, who still carried the faint smell of brewery about him. He had either gotten lucky last night, or he had good instinct. She’d been accused of being lucky throughout her own life and of one thing she was certain: she had made her own ‘luck’. Had he?

  ‘You're determined to hang on to this one.’

  ‘Chief’s already told me I’m confined to HQ. With Mason in the hospital it looks like Scanlan will be heading it up. I’m just doing what I can for
now. Nobody else is in the picture as yet. There will be a briefing in half an hour or so.’

  James remembered the smug little ferret from the pub. He gave her the pip. What kind of place had they sent her in to? It was no wonder there had been a vacancy.

  She focussed. The death was horrific enough to set the case apart, but with the subsequent serious assault on herself and DCI Mason, the case was growing in importance. She wanted to be a part of it. Success would erase last night from everyone’s memory. Getting a head start on everyone else would help.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  North filled her in on the rest of the nights events.

  TWELVE

  ‘North!’

  On their way to the archives a voice bellowed after them. Dave the Desk, a uniformed sergeant North had gotten to know while rattling around the station, came up.

  ‘What’s this about you curb crawling?’

  Everyone was on his case.

  Dave the Desk smiled. ‘I’m just fucking with you, I put her straight. The good news is that the helicopter has just found the car Rawlins jacked on the A1 last night. We’ve got people on it but we are now looking for a different car. We have a positive that Rawlins robbed a woman in Asda and then took hers.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘About four a.m..’

  ‘And we've just cottoned on now?’

  ‘All we got was a call from Asda,’ Dave got defensive, ‘another purse snatched. All hell was breaking loose all last night and we were down on manpower. There were other priorities, remember?’

  North nodded. He didn't mean to take his frustrations out on the guy. ‘I'm sorry, Dave. What else have we got?’

  The Sergeant beckoned him to follow. North asked James to continue to the archives and meet him at the mornings briefing.

  ‘Here,’ he delved into a pocket, ‘take this.’ North handed over his phone and pointed to a couple of apps. ‘My notes are in there and there are some numbers I took from Denise Lumsden's phone. See what you can dig up.’

  He went after the Sergeant.

  ‘We got another call about an hour ago when the security guard got off and saw the morning paper.’ The useful side of the media. ‘We sent another uniform and he brought back a copy of the CCTV. It's definitely him. The woman who lost her purse only noticed it was gone when she saw it lying in the crisp aisle. By then Rawlins was gone. Security asked her to check her bag and that's when she discovered her keys were gone. She was taken to hospital suffering from shock so I had someone check out her place just in case he got her address from any ID she was carrying and was daft enough to go there, but no such luck.

  They entered a room that had a large plasma screen and the gubbins to feed it. Dave hit play.

  ‘She and Rawlins are the only people in the store and she lets him nick her purse?’ North said, watching Rawlins just stroll by the woman’s trolley, lifting the purse and keys from an open bag sitting on the kiddy seat. She was blissfully ignorant, struggling to get her sausage fingers around a multipack of two litre pop at the back of a shelf. ‘If you chopped her head off she’d probably keep on shuffling about until she died of starvation.’

  North watched Rawlins buy booze and pies with the stolen money, go outside and wander through the car park pressing the key fob until a set of lights responded. It didn’t take long for him to get a hit. There was only her car and those of the staff on nights. He got in and drove away in Mrs Megamind’s car. She probably hadn’t even reached the crisp aisle.

  North rewound the DVD and pressed pause.

  ‘Where did they find the first car he took?’

  ‘Out near Garesfield Golf Club.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘About seven miles south west of here.’

  ‘It looks like he walked back - look at his feet.’ His shoes and the bottoms of his trousers were caked in mud.

  ‘From out there you could probably follow the fairways and then keep to fields all the way to Axwell Park. Then he could cross the bypass and be in the Metrocentre car park and on into Asda.’

  ‘He would be potless and in need of some wheels. Maybe he waited until he saw a likely target go in. Have you got her car details?’

  Dave jotted them down. ‘It’s already gone out on the radio.’

  ‘Cheers, Dave. Keep me posted.’

  On his way to the briefing the Super called North aside and lead him into the first vacant room.

  It was all go.

  ‘The Chief isn’t so far removed from the day to day as we thought. Once he calmed down he agreed for you to assist Mason for the next couple of days while he recovers. They’ve discharged him but he’s in no condition to be running all over town.’

  North was relieved it wasn’t Scanlan in charge.

  And Mason would be laid up leaving himself free to roam.

  Things were starting to look up again.

  ‘No matter how pissed the Chief is at what you did at the ceremony last night, even he can see that you’re on to something when chasing an innocent man ends up as it has. By the way, James is being kept in hospital at least another day.’

  ‘James seems to have had other ideas about that.’

  ‘You’ve spoken to her?’

  North nodded. ‘She’s here.’

  ‘She okay?’

  ‘Keen and mean, that one. Out to prove something,’ he avoided a direct answer.

  ‘Right now, you’ve got to prove something too. You have to find our man.’ He handed over a document. The warrant for the pub. ‘Bit late now, but do you need anything else from me?’

  ‘I need another warrant. For phone records from the pub. Rawlins called someone for help and I’m hoping it was from there. He didn’t take Lumsden’s phone and if he had one returned to him on his release from nick the battery would be as flat as your hat.’

  ‘That’s all you’ve got?’

  ‘Pretty much. Forensics are combing the flat and the industrial unit. We have the car Rawlins stole last night but now he’s taken another – we are already looking for it. The autopsy on Denise Lumsden is this afternoon. We have an address for Rawlins parents but it is pretty old. I’m going to check it out anyway,’ he shrugged, ‘you never know.’

  ‘There is something else I need from you,’ said Egan. ‘The Chief wants you on occupational therapy’, he held up a palm to head off North’s protest. ‘He’s pissed that you rejected it before, so now it isn’t an option. He thinks you have post-traumatic distress disorder or something and we both have to face the fact that he does have a point.’

  ‘And it helps in case of any fuck-ups or comebacks.’

  ‘Quite.’

  So that was why no one had said anything to him. They did feel sorry for him. Thought he was fragile. Even Bee. Fair play to Deacon and James, they were all right, they’d spoken up to his face. But it would take more than a twelve inch serrated edge severing a bit of bone and artery to send him to the funny farm.

  ‘Okay, sign me up.’

  Right now he just wanted to keep moving on the case. Time was pressing.

  ‘I already did. I let a little light into the Chiefs day with the news that I was starting paperwork on you with your full co-operation and he loosened up a little. Oh, and he wants you assessed.’

  ‘A psych test?’

  A nod.

  ‘It's being arranged. I'll let you know when and where. Don't miss it.’

  North's protestations were quickly silenced.

  ‘Count yourself lucky. He has a real thing for you. If you don’t get results soon the paperwork will be to send you back down south - or worse.’

  ‘There’s worse than being sent back down south?’ They shared a laugh to show that at least everything was still all right between them.

  ‘We have freed up some bodies from Operation Orange but we can’t risk canning it completely now the media will be watching us closely after last night.’

  ‘Can I at least have one person t
o help me?’

  Egan wasn’t looking sympathetic to the cause.

  ‘What with James and Mason being laid up?’

  ‘Okay, one person for a couple of days. Anyone particular in mind?’

  THIRTEEN

  North followed the Super into the briefing room. It was buzzing. Everyone but Scanlan acknowledged North with a smile and a nod, a handshake or clap on the back. They appreciated how he’d deflected any honours onto Deacon and stuck up for the rest of them. James had been trying to lie low, skulking at the back, head down, staring into a large cappuccino.

  ‘What's going on?’ It was out before she could help herself, on seeing the reaction to North’s entrance.

  ‘You haven't heard about his speech last night?’ he passed her a copy of the Journal. ‘Where have you been, tied up somewhere too?’ The copper turned to her.

  It wasn’t like she could hide it. Her mashed up face told it all.

  ‘It was you!’

  And so it was out.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘did you get tied up, or did you knot?’

  Laughter all round. Everyone began to take a turn having a Tommy Cooper moment at her expense. She knew how the crack worked. No matter how you felt inside you just had to grin and bear it. Take it like a man and all that macho bullshit. She nodded and smiled sheepishly, trying to focus on the newspaper while they had their fun but she couldn’t concentrate. Her introduction to the station was as a laughing stock.

  She had to face the fact that she had got herself overpowered and subdued so easily. Despite her initial reaction on meeting DI North, luck or not, he had set things in motion and he hadn’t disobeyed any orders. Not really. He had been the only officer on the scene and he had pursued the obvious course as he saw fit. He’d been drinking on duty but he had to in that pub or he would have drawn attention to himself. He had been trying to blend in. To mix. To get information. He had gotten in their way and it had caused them to act. She’d drawn the short straw getting posted outside in the pissing rain and then got rolled over. North had flushed them out and she had failed to catch them.