Force Of Habit v5

by Robert Bartlett

  ‘Come on!’

  ‘I'm convalescing. This could set me back weeks.’

  He prepared to go at the door but Deacon pushed him out of the way. She tutted and charged into the door, close to the jam. It held and she went back at it. Pain filled her shoulder, but she felt the door give slightly. She stepped back and slammed the sole of her boot into the lock. One more kick and it flew inward, smashing into the hall wall.

  North went in.

  PC Alan Winter was sitting in the middle of the sofa, his back to them. It looked like he could have fallen asleep in front of the telly, only the telly wasn't on. North went round the front. Al was in full uniform but his trousers had been pushed down and were bunched around his boots. A needle dangled from his left, inner thigh, just below a band of rubber tied around his leg. North checked for a pulse. He was stone cold to the touch.

  ‘He's dead.’

  North’s eyes went from the body to the coffee table in front of it. Two small, white cellophane sausages sat on it. Deacon looked on, still processing what she was seeing.

  ‘He never had the flu at all,’ said North, ‘he had withdrawal symptoms and I fell for it like a mug.’

  ‘All heart, as ever,’ Deacon found her voice. ‘He was obviously far sicker than just having a cold, and we're cops not doctors, none of us noticed. I've partnered him on and off for months and never had a Scooby.’

  Deacon pulled out her radio and started to call it in.

  ‘We can't just call this in,’ said North. ‘We have to let the Chief know first. Look at him, the press will have a field day if this gets out, a copper sat in full uniform, trousers round his ankles, drugs from a murder scene he was at the night before on the table in front of him, needle still sticking out of his dead, overdosed cop leg. There's half a dozen stories for them in there. If we call it in Chinese whispers will have this all over the station before we even get back there.’

  She made an excuse and ended the transmission.

  North licked his pinky and dabbed at the speckles of powder. Tasted it. Looked around for somewhere to spit. Deacon passed him a tissue.

  ‘Same gear as at Lumsden’s. White heroin. Pure. No one will have seen stuff like this on the street. Not ever. It would be cut with at least as much volume again before it found its way to even the most discerning customer. He didn't stand a chance, the idiot.’

  ‘Did it hurt?’

  North wanted to tell her that he fucking well hoped so but managed to hold back. ‘Not as much as it's going to hurt the force. Even if it goes out as an OD without all the trimmings, the press, the politicians, the public, they'll have a field day with this. You better run through everything in your mind from the time you arrived on the scene yesterday until I got there. They'll be asking you a lot of questions back at the station.’

  ‘Has anyone ever been kicked back into uniform the same morning they first got out of it?’

  ‘That won’t happen.’ He wasn’t so sure, though.

  ‘But you reckon that he lifted it from the crime scene?’

  ‘He must have. I hope so.’

  ‘You hope so?’

  ‘Think about it. If he didn’t that means he got it somewhere else, the very same stuff and plenty of it, which means he is most probably a part of this or he knows who is.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘The fact that he’s sitting there dead kind of implies that he didn’t fully know what he had and jacked up as usual.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Think about when you got to Lumsden’s. You went in, you saw the body, I guarantee you were transfixed. It was some sight. It would only have taken him a few seconds to pocket it if he had clocked it. An addict would have been on it and sneaking it away regardless of the nightmare scenario it was found in.’

  ‘Is this how it was being delivered to Lumsden and she was prepping it for market?’

  North shrugged. When would the questions stop piling up and the answers start rolling in?

  ‘Each of those must be what, fifty grams?’ Deacon came in for a closer look. ‘That’s like five hundred wraps from each at a tenner a go. Add this to what we found at Lumsden’s and there must be fifteen to twenty grand worth. Do you think this could be a monthly shipment? That would be a quarter million a year. That money found at Lumsden’s could be her cumulative cut. But why wasn’t it delivered to Lumsden in a single packet? Are you sure he took this from Lumsden’s?’

  North was searching Winters clothing.

  Nothing.

  He picked up a mobile lying next to the drugs and started pressing keys.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Her brain was tripping over itself trying to keep up with events.

  ‘Seeing if his phone has anything in common with Lumsden’s.’

  ‘He's not involved in this.’

  North ignored her.

  ‘He can't be.’

  ‘Did you know he was an addict?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She realised his angle. ‘But being directly involved? That's a whole different issue – and like you said, he couldn’t have fully known what he had because it killed him.’

  ‘He called the station after I got there,’ he showed the screen displaying time and number. ‘He was whinging to me about being relieved. I bet he called in the full SP which lead to James and Mason getting called in. He kept it off the radio, the sneaky, whiney little bitch.

  ‘It was only a matter of time before that happened and you know it. And you're still on the case, aren't you? Did you find anything else?’

  North shook his head. ‘He must have been busting to get back here and steam into his ill-gotten goodies.’ North took another look at him. ‘The fucker. It had to be opportunist. He was probably an addict who was used to buying street heroin, or maybe he was even being supplied to look the other way, or to provide information. Whatever it was, managing to hold down the job couldn't have been easy on that shit.’

  ‘I can't believe I didn't know. How can I not have known.’

  ‘Like I said, I was giving him sympathy for having flu. There was no way of knowing otherwise.’

  ‘But I was with him for so much time.’

  ‘Addicts are secretive, lying and conniving. He'd obviously managed to fit his habit into his routine. Probably thought he was in control of it but they never are. A shift runs over and his hit wears off and he's still on the streets way after it was time for a top-up. All the time he's got a big fat Brucey bonus pushed down his pants that's driving him crazy. By the time he finally gets to tear into it he decides to give it some large and its lights out, permanent.’

  North examined the body. He'd been dead for some hours.

  He called the Super first. He was with the Chief and he relayed the good news.

  ‘Could he be our man?’ asked the Super.

  ‘I don't think so. It looks like he just had a nasty habit, was used to consuming end product and the thought to check the purity mustn't have even occurred to him. He was probably hurting and twitching big time by the time he got back here with his goody bags. Looks like he ripped right in, his mind solely on taking the cure.’

  ‘A junkie cop’, North heard the Chief say in the background. He sounded like someone had just taken a dump in his coffee.

  ‘He must have been on it, on duty. This is going to be some shitstorm,’ said the Super. ‘There's no telling what he might have been up to, or what he had left himself open to from his dealer.’

  It didn't bear thinking about. Suppliers blackmailing him to do God only knew what. They all agreed that Deacon would hold the fort, keep all prying eyes at bay until the Super sent in the cavalry while he and the Chief prepared an official release for the media. North would go in search of Rawlins.

  ‘He couldn’t have been murdered, could he?’ the Super clutched at straws.

  ‘Highly unlikely,’ said North.

  They hung up.

  ‘Still think I’m your lucky charm?’

  ‘Without you
we wouldn’t have found him and the gear for a while a longer.’

  North was an enigma to her. He could be a right miserable git, yet his glass was always half full, never half empty.

  ‘I’ll appease any neighbours concerned about the racket you made getting in here and see you at the autopsy later,’ he said.

  SIXTEEN

  ‘I waited up.’

  Not what you usually hear when you knock at a door and announce that you're the police. Rarer at eleven a.m.. Maybe he was senile and had got his a.m. all mixed up with his p.m.. He had paisley pyjamas on. They'd been ironed. He looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  ‘Don't worry,’ he responded to the quizzical look. ‘I haven't gone mad, though that boy tested us to the limits and will probably be the death of the both of us still. I work nights. Usually I'd be asleep by now but I always pick up the paper on the way home. I thought you might come.’

  North made some sympathetic noises, out of politeness.

  ‘I wouldn't have slept anyway. Please,’ he gestured to him, ‘come in. You'll be wanting to look around. I'll put the kettle on.’

  It was like this was routine for him. North made a beeline for the back door in case the old fella had been stalling. The small garden was well tended, even at this time of year. North couldn’t see any trail across the wet lawn or footprints in the earth where someone could have lobbed a fence. The drainer held the washed-up dishes from the last meal. Dishes for one. The place smelled of pledge and the carpets bore the tracks of the recently hoovered. Had he been trying to hide something? The old boy had even lowered the loft ladder for him. Was he trying to throw him by being over helpful?

  The only evidence that Rawlins junior had ever been there was in the smaller of the two bedrooms. There wasn't much. A few yellowing posters of eighties icons. A child's scrapbook. Photos from family holidays. Spartan as it was it had the feeling of a shrine about it.

  Rawlins senior was sat in the front room with a pot of tea and two cups. He did the honours and passed the biscuits. What was it with old people and tea?

  ‘Still he brings us shame,’ he looked towards a photograph on top of a fake teak Ferguson TV.

  ‘You and your wife?’ said North.

  He nodded. ‘She died ten years ago. She was never the same woman I met after seeing her boy go the way he did. Her only child. Thank Our Lord for the small mercy that she was spared this.’

  North heard a familiar tale of drugs and disintegration. A loving family broken. Hearts ripped apart. He'd sold his own stuff first, which explained the spartan room upstairs. North was reminded of Lumsden and Rawlins maisonette. Then he sold family items and stole their money, denying any knowledge. Lying constantly. When love failed they cracked down, trying the ‘cruel to be kind’ approach. Police visits became the norm as Terry Rawlins took to burgling their neighbours to get stuff to sell in order to feed his habit. He came and went, returning less and less, and always as a last resort. Always for money. Preying on his mothers love.

  ‘The last time he was here he gave us a load of cock and bull about a program he'd joined. He was getting clean and going to make a new start. All the time he was sweating and shaking. Every time a car went passed or a door slammed he nearly jumped out of his skin and he kept looking out the window every five seconds. His mother could only see what she wanted. What she'd hoped for. I turned him in. It turned them both against me, but I know I did the right thing. This is the last place he would come. He knows I would do the same again.’

  ‘Do you know where he might have gone? Anyone he could turn to?’

  He shook his head. ‘They were all just like him. He lived in squats, took up with a prostitute twice his age. Last time he was here he'd been dealing to support his habit and someone had died. He'd been using anything at hand to cut the stuff so he could take more for himself. They found rat poison in the dead girls system. My only child was a murderer. My wife never believed it until the day she died, but he killed her too, just as if he had stuck a knife in her. A knife would have been kinder.’

  North's immediate reaction was to ask if he was sure about the dead girl, but knew how ridiculous that would sound, and offensive, considering the effect Rawlins had had on the family. But there had been no mention of this in the records he had seen. Maybe it was the belief of a paranoid junkie. Maybe it was true and he’d got away with it. North would look into it once he had everything else cleared up but it was obvious to him that there was nothing here that could help him with that. North was satisfied that Rawlins was running scared. Alone. He’d show up before long. Somewhere. North brought things to a close.

  Terry Rawlins was half way down the terraced street when North came out on to it. He was in such a state that it took him another twenty yards before he realised the bloke talking to him was his dad. He braked. Froze. He sat in the middle of the road in the stolen car and fear kept him there. North glanced up and down the street. If it wasn’t for the gas van he would be looking right at Rawlins. He saw nothing and said his goodbyes, turned towards his own car. Rawlins realised that the man would have to walk out into the road to get behind the wheel. He managed to creep into the kerb and nudge up to the gas van without crunching the gears or revving the engine. Thirty yards away North opened his car door and took another glance up the road. Rawlins kept his head down even though he had the van between them.

  Who was that guy? Cop - or one of them? Did it make any difference? He didn't know anymore. He did know that he was fucked. Someone was here already. They were one step ahead of him. If it was the filth then the old man was probably helping them, just like he had before. Rawlins kept his head down in case they did a u-turn and came his way. At least he had had the good sense to change cars. The feds couldn’t be looking for this one yet, could they? He waited five minutes before coming up. The man had gone. Rawlins got out and knocked on his old man’s door.

  ‘What are you mixed up in now?

  It was always his fucking fault. Anger pushed its way back up through the fear.

  ‘I haven't done nothing!’

  ‘You never do.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ Rawlins pushed his dad, who staggered backwards into the wall, went off balance, tripped and fell onto the hall floor. Rawlins walked over him. By the time he was back on his feet his son had already dumped the contents of several shelves and drawers on the floor. Rawlins senior went upstairs. The place was ransacked when he got back down. He held out his hand until Terry saw the notes and stopped ripping the place apart.

  ‘It's all I've got.’

  ‘Where's your bank card?’

  He went back upstairs. Terry Rawlins followed. Took the card. Made his dad write the PIN down and threatened what would happen if it didn’t work. He then tore the bedrooms apart because he couldn’t believe his dad didn’t have a credit card. Everyone had a credit card. It didn't matter that he had never owned one. No bank had ever been that stupid even at their most reckless before going tits up - but everyone else had one. When he had torn into everything he could he went after his dad again. He was on the phone.

  ‘The police are coming,’ he held the phone towards him. ‘They are still on the line. They can hear you.’

  ‘What are you doing? They are going to kill me!’

  The drugs had obviously made him crazy.

  ‘They can help you.’

  His old man looked scared but he had no idea what scared was. Terry did. He decided to ditch the car. The old man would see him get in it and call it in.

  He ran.

  The wind cut into him. He was still damp after his night outside and it made him feel ice-cold again. He’d spent a few hours asleep in the car with the heater full blast, but it hadn’t totally dried him out. He should have got some clothes from Asda’s. He ran blind. Ran anywhere as long as it was away from his dad's. From the police. From them.

  A bus came by and stopped up ahead next to a line of people. They started getting on. He joined them. Dropped a
random bunch of shrapnel into the machine.

  ‘Toon.’

  The driver said nothing as the ticket slid out.

  Rawlins clambered upstairs. Felt the eyes of everyone on him all the way. He looked out the window and tried to forget them. Each time he looked around he saw people looking back at him an instant before their eyes moved away. He heard the driver's radio crackle and muffled communications with base. They were talking about him. He knew it. He took another glance around. They were all talking about him. He pressed the bell and went downstairs to the door. The bus kept going. It wasn't going to stop. The driver was taking him in!

  Then it slowed. A pneumatic burst and the doors flapped open. He pushed through the couple getting on. He was back on the street. He walked off. Tried not to run. Tried not to look back. Couldn't. He took off.

  After half a mile or so he was in pain. A stitch in his side. He slowed. Kept looking back. Kept expecting to see the feds any minute. To see them coming round the next corner, up ahead. Felt them sneaking up behind him. The people on the streets thinned the further he got from the main road but they were all still looking at him. Phones went to ears. Lips moved. Eyes watched. The net closed.

  He ducked into a corner shop, starting at the bell triggered by the door. Everyone looked round. He slipped into the nearest aisle. He tried to look back out into the street but there was too much shit in the way, piled high in front of the window. He looked at some of it. Tried to act normal. He had to act normal. He felt like he was on the bad acid trip from hell. He probably looked it. It was single digits outside and sweat was pouring from him. His veins were jumping like wires exposed in a storm. He could really use a drink.

  He ventured into the next aisle. Found beer but the real grog was behind the jump. He joined the queue. The queue gave him the once over and the woman in front squashed up, moving away from him. Newcomers left a gap behind. Most were picking up a morning paper and packet of tabs. When he was second in line he saw his own face staring back at him from the front of a paper. Massive letters screamed ‘Killer!’