Force Of Habit v5

by Robert Bartlett

  James smiled.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘I never would have imagined that you could be so knowledgeable about handbags.’

  ‘You have to know these sorts of things when you are a detective, Just James,’ he winked. His wife just loved handbags.

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘Let’s go see who is banking all this money.’

  North drove down to the village. A red light held them this side of a single track bridge across a river. Ducks, boats, fishing, a little row of cottages - everyone’s idea of an idyllic life in the country. The road fed into a market square that was all square and no market. A large supermarket had put paid to that and took up most of one side, as if to dare anyone to come set-up stall and try compete against it.

  They parked up and took a stroll around. It didn’t take long.

  ‘It’s like that movie, ‘Twenty-Eight Days Later’,’ said North.

  The bookies name was Tony Brooks. It was the Pond House of retail turf accountancy. Dirt covered the name above the window making it hard to make out. The glass was grubby. The paint had a well advanced case of alopecia. It made Ladbrokes look like the Ritz - not that there was a Ladbrokes round here. It was Tony Brooks or the internet and judging by the tumbleweed the punters had chosen the latter. North called Deacon and brought her up to date. He wanted to know how much this empty bookmakers pulled in annually and where Tony Brooks, or whatever the owner was really called, lived so he could go and have a chat about it.

  He stepped inside.

  A single forty watt bulb wasn’t even trying to illuminate the place. North couldn't make out what colour the lino might have once been. An old, portable CRT TV sat at the end of the single shelf on which punters scribbled out their stakes. The TV was off. The place didn't look like it could pay out on a tenner wager at even money. It made him think about the recent state of his own appearance and the impression it had given out. He wished that he'd kept it a couple of days longer. He felt over dressed.

  The glass wall that separated punters from the cashier wasn't much more than a hole in the wall. A single booth. It was empty too. North picked a betting slip from a pile on the counter. There were no dispensers. He took out his wallet and unfolded a piece of paper. It matched the slip exactly. He’d taken it from the pile at Denise Lumsden’s.

  They were making headway at last.

  He went over to the booth. North was peering into it when a woman appeared and nearly jumped out of her skin.

  ‘I'm sorry,’ said North. ‘I couldn't see anyone.’

  North wondered if she had reason to become easily frightened in here.

  ‘Just popped out for a tab’, she said, touching at her greying hair. Her face had smokers wrinkles. He noticed a security camera was pointed at him from inside the booth.

  ‘On your own?’

  She looked a bit worried again.

  ‘It's terrible,’ North tried to put her at ease, ‘the staff cuts these days. Is there a pen I can borrow, please?’ he flashed what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

  ‘They're out,’ she pointed at the floor. North followed the finger and found one of those stubby jobs tucked into a corner. He used it to scrawl the necessary on his slip and took it back to the window with forty quid.

  ‘Do you take credit cards.’

  ‘The machine’s on the blink.’

  Permanently, I’ll bet.

  He pushed two notes through the slot with the slip..

  She didn't bat an eye as she took it all, gave it the once over then she squirreled it all away. Nothing came back.

  ‘Is that it?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  No receipts. Tony Brooks’ word was obviously his bond. North figured that if punters inside didn't get their gear they just didn't go back. It would work. The slips would be sent on someplace else where someone would fill out a new slip, putting his forty quid on some donkey's nose, or backing a losing favourite - after the race had been run. It looked like Denise Lumsden had been filling out her fair share. They could write out winning slips every once in a while and plough the proceeds back into the business. It was all win-win for Tony the Pony.

  Back outside they moved the car off the High Street. The only signed car park was behind the supermarket but they couldn’t see anything from it. They carried on along the lane, past another row of cottages, and found a strip of hardcore at the far end. North pulled up behind the only other car on it. Might as well use what cover there was. They were parked opposite an alley leading onto the square, the back of the shops running off to either side. The back of Tony Brooks was a few shops along on the right. North thumbed the CD and Morrissey declared that there might be something wrong with him because all he saw was the bad in people.

  They waited.

  North just didn’t get rural. He’d go spaz in a place like this. A couple of cars pulled up and made a racket spewing out a bunch of kids and the associated paraphernalia. Four women shepherded them inside the old post office, now a gastro pub.

  ‘We could be here all week,’ said James.

  ‘Every day must seem like a week in this place, but I’m hoping that we won’t have to come back after today.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Lumsden had to deliver the heroin and someone had to collect the cash. She had no car so getting here and then on to Stanegate in the same day would be a total bitch by public transport, if it is even possible. They would have wanted to make sure everything ran to plan. I think there is a good chance that the bagman gave Lumsden a ride and collected the cash while she was doing her bit.’

  ‘Which means he could still be on to collect today.’

  ‘Could be. People will still have been paying up unaware that the delivery girl was no more. They are probably organizing a replacement for Lumsden to keep the supply chain running, maybe even using one of the bent screws as a temporary measure. And we didn’t find any prison visiting order’s at Lumsden’s flat and these people wouldn’t leave anything to chance. They probably held them for her in case she chucked them out with a chip poke when she was pissed. Her ride would bring them when he picked her up.’

  North was hoping that Lumsden’s ride had made a later start not having her appointment times to keep to. If not they had missed their chance and would have to wait until Stafford got a new visitor request..

  ‘Maybe we should head to Stanegate and the nearest Tony Brooks in case they’ve been already,’ said James.

  ‘Maybe. Lets try our luck seeing as we are here. Who doesn’t like to take the opportunity of a lie in?’

  A rumble moved overhead and North stuck his head out the window. One of those giant helicopters with rotors front and back was flying low and getting lower. It was landing at a nearby base, RAF Barstow. North had seen enough of the local colour.

  ‘You stay here, I’ll go watch the front.’ He checked the battery on his phone and started the camera app. ‘It's not the Hubble telescope but it takes nice clear pics, has a half decent digital zoom and does a bit of video. You could check out the train and bus times online if you get bored, see if Lumsden could get around on her own. Maybe she did chuck the orders out with a chip poke.’ He got out and made a beeline for the pub across the square. James came over all déjà vue.

  North nursed a coke by the window. Public transport brought a steady trade to Tony Brooks. The occasional car pulled up. None of them came out clutching their half of a bona-fide betting slip or counting a fistful of winnings. An hour and a half went by and North was beginning to think that he’d fucked up when his phone rang. It was James. Someone had just gone in the back of the bookies. North was back in the car thirty seconds later.

  ‘A forty something male went in,’ she said, eyeing North suspiciously. Breathing him in surreptitiously. She barely concealed her surprise that he didn’t appear to have been drinking.

  North moved the car onto the lane and parked at the edge of the waste ground. A few minutes later the man reapp
eared. Smart casual. Well kempt. A tad too orange. There was something vaguely familiar about him. North took some shots as he walked and then climbed into a white Luton van with a charity logo plastered up the side: A Tonic For The Troops. A well supported charitable enterprise for the armed forces. No one would give it a second glance.

  ‘A philanthropic bookie giving proceeds to charity?’ said North. ‘I don't think so. That’s our bagman.’

  North drove off. He ignored a red light and the angry horns and gestures of those on the other side of the bridge, stuck at green. He crossed the roundabout, disappeared round the bend and did a u-turn.

  ‘You drive,’ he said getting out and jogging round the other side.

  James drove back towards the roundabout. The Luton was coming out of the lane and North figured that there was no way the driver would think that they were following him, coming at him from the other side of the road.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Getting the plates checked.’ North relayed the number, exchanged words, closed the call. ‘Plates are registered to a white Luton with that charity.’

  ‘What do you want to do now?’

  ‘Keep following. This guy looks familiar,’ he said, looking at the LCD screen on the camera.

  ‘I thought you were new here too?’

  ‘With an accent like this?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I've been away for some years. You're right, he probably just has one of those faces.’

  North fiddled with the camera and his phone.

  ‘The van rings a bell too.’

  ‘It's a common van. I used one just like it to move here.’

  They let it have a loose leash as they crossed the hills, having a good view ahead at the peak of each brow. The target was sticking to the speed limit and sticking to this road. He didn’t seem to be taking any precautions against being followed. This wasn’t the guy with the master phone, he wasn’t anywhere near careful enough. He was fallible. North really felt like they were finally getting somewhere.

  North’s phone announced incoming. He pressed buttons. Exchanged text.

  ‘It's Awayday Harris.’ He brought up the clearest picture. ‘I can see it now but I'd never have put the name to the face.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘A friend.’

  North called Mason and gave him the SP.

  As expected they bypassed the city and headed south towards Stanegate. Harris made another pick-up from another branch of the same bookmaker, near Stanegate jail.

  ‘Bingo,’ said North.

  Mason called back.

  ‘Jed Harris is a bona fide employee of the charity A Tonic for the Troops.’

  ‘Okay, so he is moonlighting and using the day job as cover. Have we got his address?’

  ‘Nope, he has nothing on record. He has juvy and that's it. Nothing as an adult. The street he lived in as a kid is long gone.’

  ‘And the charity won't give?’

  ‘Nope, but they offered to give him our details and ask him to contact us. I was then in the awkward position of having to try and make a polite decline without having them think we were after him and risk the possibility of someone tipping him off. I told them he was an extremely peripheral witness and that we may be back in touch, if still required, and not to mention it as it might lead him to seek information on the case through the media and it might prejudice his judgement.’

  North laughed, thanked him and disconnected.

  On the road back North looked up at the Angel as they approached the outskirts of Gateshead. It was the first time he had seen it in daylight since he’d come home. Was it welcoming him back with open arms or warning him off by attempting to bar the way? Too late if it was.

  Harris took the next exit and they followed him up onto Saltwell Road South, passed the secondary school. Kids were out on the playing fields, a train hurtling by in the background, the main London-Edinburgh line forming the school boundary on the other side to the road. North had spent time there long ago. The school had changed. So had its name. They passed through Saltwell into Bensham and turned onto Prince Consort Road cutting through the terraced housing on either side. Harris turned into a side street. North had spent parts of his childhood in these streets. There had been barely a car back then, now you had to joust with oncoming traffic, parked cars filling up the kerbs. Harris turned again and when they caught up he had slipped into a tiny island of greenery. They caught a glimpse of the Luton disappearing into the trees as they continued past the entrance. North had James pull over at the first opportunity and they ran back.

  A ‘For Sale’ board had been planted in the verge. It had been tagged by the Choirboys.

  ‘Isn’t this a little off their turf?’ asked James.

  North nodded. It was at least a mile from gang central.

  They were expanding.

  North and James kept to the trees. The gravel drive widened into a parking area. The white Luton was the only thing on it. To the right was one of those churches they built in the sixties and early seventies, solid brick holding the odd sliver of glass propping up an elaborate, angular roof. This one had been stripped bare. It was easy to get close with all the brickwork. North took a peak through a small window. The insides had been stripped bare too. Harris was at the far end of the nave smoking, sitting on the step that would have formed the alter. He lit another cigarette from the stub. North took a look at their surroundings.

  It must have been a nice idea, back then, to build a church within the trees, a sanctuary from the urban surroundings, but most of the housing in this area had since been converted into businesses and the whole row directly opposite was now a training school. The church became isolated at night, hidden, the buildings around it empty. A prime target for metal thieves in a sellers market. North pulled his phone and got on the internet.

  ‘St Margaret Clitherow Church,’ he read out. ‘The Bishop and the Diocesan Trustees - whatever they are - permanently closed it after it was raided for copper on the roof nine times in two years and repair costs escalated to two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.’ North whistled. ‘That's worth getting out of bed and straying off your patch for.’

  ‘What can they be using the place for? They aren’t praying for forgiveness.’

  ‘They could have used the church as investment capital to upsize their operation. Selling the parts and using the cash to buy more drugs makes sound business sense. God only knows what they are using it for now. Look at the state of it.’

  The floor was covered in buckets where they had been protecting it from water dropping from above when they still felt they had a chance of saving the place. The walls had been ripped apart, the wiring and copper pipes ripped out. He’d seen tidier demolition sites.

  Harris’ phone went off and they watched him answer. He made a bit of a song and dance before heading for the door. North and James legged it.

  ‘You stay put just in case whoever he was waiting for shows up. I’m going to see what else he gets up to. He’s our only solid link and I want us to be on him like white on Lumsden’s heroin until something breaks.’

  The van came out and went back onto Prince Consort Road, away from North, allowing him to slip back in behind it with a little traffic in between for cover. North followed it through Gateshead centre and down towards the estate where all this had begun. Deep into Choirboys turf.

  The estate passed to their right. The left stretched away down to the river. They were heading for the International Stadium but turned off before they reached it. They weaved between large warehouses and waste ground, small industrial units and car lots, glass offices and grassy knolls. As they neared the river the buildings got smaller. They turned right onto South Shoe Road, moving away from the town centre, the bridges over the river behind them.

  The van took another right and once again it disappeared into a group of trees. North pulled out his phone and launched the GPS map. Switched to satellite view. There
was no street view option down there. The map showed this was the only way in and out, for a vehicle. He drove in.

  The trees soon broke on his left, replaced by a high wall of concrete that ran for about fifty metres before the trees reappeared. The rear boundary of a business out on the main road. He went under a canopy and down a single track lane. These trees were lot bigger, more densely populated and covered a much larger area than those around the church. Whatever Harris was doing he didn’t like to be seen doing it. Traffic out on the road covered North’s engine noise.

  He left the car in the cover of trees, before a bend, and walked the last hundred metres or so. When the Luton came into view Harris was getting out of the van carrying a couple of nice crisp brown burger bags, like he’d just bought lunch - only he hadn’t been anywhere that sold lunch. The bags had to be filled with that day’s takings. North watched him go inside. The building was older than a lot of the others he had passed. One of a few originals that hadn’t been felled by developers. It should have been, it was an ugly fucker. It had a big logo on it. Same logo that was on the van: ‘A Tonic For The Troops’. It was good cover for a drug operation.

  He called James. All was quiet her end. He described his.

  ‘And its some distance away but I reckon that you could probably get a decent view of the Tyne Bridge from the first floor without being seen. There are plenty of trees covering this place.’

  ‘You think Rawlins could have been shot from there?’