Force Of Habit v5

by Robert Bartlett

  ‘It would be some marksmanship, military class, but I reckon so.’

  ‘From a military charity? This is all most peculiar.’

  North smiled at her vernacular.

  ‘Maybe someone just stuck up a sign with the charity name. I’ll get it checked out.’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘We find out where Harris lives and get a tap and surveillance running. See what that throws up.’

  ‘What about the bookies?’

  ‘Those poor sods working there probably know even less than Stafford. It will be the same old ‘pressed men’ story.’

  ‘So, do we think there is a drugs war in the offing and Lumsden was the first victim?’

  Everyone was hooked on a drugs war.

  ‘We have what we have, lets see where it goes. Anything else comes up in the meantime we follow that too.’

  North didn’t want to leap to any conclusions. The tentacles were reaching into all aspects of society on this one. It was a well known charity. It had been the main benefactor at the awards do the other night. A charity founded and funded by Mr Newcastle himself, Eddie George.

  ***

  ‘There was a car out front of the charity building and it is registered to Harris and we now have his address. Deacon came out to the charity place and relieved me.’ She had been happy to. She had survived her inquisition with the brass and she would do anything she was so glad to still be a part of the team.

  Mason nodded. ‘We need to keep on him. He’s our link up the chain.’ Finally something to tell the Chief – but not yet. The Chief would want to bring him in. If he didn’t talk they were back to square one.

  ‘There’s a garage on the main road where we can watch the entrance without attracting attention. There’s only the one way in and out by car. I’m going back to the church to get James.’

  ‘Your not going to stay on it?’ said Mason.

  ‘I don’t see the point as long as we stick on Harris.’

  ‘I don’t know, we are finally getting breaks, I think we should stick on that too – at least for a day or so. You never know,’ he shrugged. ‘I’ll take over from James.’

  ‘And it gets the Chief out of your hair for a bit,’ North smiled, ‘but he won't have it. Especially not with you in that state – and it’s freezing out there.’

  ‘No one is stopping me going back out there now there is some action to be had.’

  ‘A couple of days stuck in here and already you're regarding a stakeout as action?’

  ‘I don't know how you've coped being deskbound in here all those weeks. I'd have gone spare,’ Mason did some pantomime thinking. ‘Ah, I almost forgot, you did go spare.’

  North smiled. ‘You’re more than welcome to pull rank if they let you go.’

  ‘No need to tell them just yet, just in case. We can tell them in the morning. Use any of night’s successes as leverage for me to keep at it.’

  ‘You won't be fit for shit after a day in here and a night out there in your condition. You'll come in here looking like I used to.’

  ‘What do you mean, used to?’

  ‘Serious, you don't want them starting on you too.’

  ‘You're forgetting, it's just you the Chief Super hates.’

  ‘This is true. I'll come with you, to get James and look the place over, and then I’ll come back and take over from you about two or three so you can catch some zeds and freshen up.’

  ‘So you are aware of the concept?’

  ‘Maybe I'll make it six, or seven. I managed to get the OK for an unmarked car and a PC on the night shift to watch Harris’ gaff once Deacon thinks he’s gone home for the duration. Anything happens he calls in. I’ve put in for a warrant to tap Harris’ landline but it probably won’t get us jack. He has to do something with all that money he collected today so our best chance is to be there when he does.’

  ‘Maybe they bank it through the charity. It would be great cover, the piles of money are banked as casual, anonymous cash donations, and they don’t even have to pay any tax.’

  ‘But wouldn’t getting it out again prove tricky? And what was he doing at the church? Maybe that’s where he hands it over but his contact didn’t show or cancelled or something.’

  ‘Maybe he stashed it out there and the contact will be along later. I’m going to watch the place, at least tonight and then tomorrow we can give the place a decent look-see and then we can stick to Harris, get a few cars on the road so we can keep rotating and reduce the risk of our being clocked.’

  North nodded. ‘Okay, cool,’ it made sense. ‘I’ll be back in a sec, I just want to check out a few things while I’m here.’

  North went back to his light duty desk in admin and skimmed the database for Dawn and Donna Ward. Neither had ever been arrested for dealing drugs but it was like seeing history repeating itself going from the mother’s record to her daughter’s. Both had multiple arrests for drug use and street prostitution. While Dawn had still been a young child she had been taken away from her mother and put into care on two occasions. The mother’s criminal record ended around the time her daughter had been sent down for murder.

  Dawn Ward had killed her flatmate, and probable girlfriend, while under the influence of a ferocious cocktail of alcohol, crack cocaine and heroin. It looked like that’s what it had taken for the mother to finally clean up her act. Donna Ward’s address had been a maisonette not far from Lumsden’s. He telephoned the council and found a friendly ear. She still lived there.

  ‘Guv?’ North acknowledged the PC from the Pond House that morning. ‘We have a couple of possibles on the arson.’

  ‘What you got?’

  ‘We were asking around places within a half mile or so that would have been open around midnight and a punter at a pub overheard us talking to the landlord. He bumped into a couple of kids last night and one was wearing clothes that matched our eyewitness description.’

  ‘He’s leaving a pub at midnight and took in such detail of a couple of passing kids?’

  ‘They were a couple of cheeky fuckers who stopped him for a light, took the piss and nicked his lighter. We checked further along the road, in the direction they were heading, and a quarter mile away there is a Chinese take-away. They had shut up shop and were cleaning up out back but they have CCTV on account of past trouble and they let it run to disc twenty-four seven. Our two kids swaggered by just gone midnight, smoking like chimneys.’

  He handed over a couple of pieces of A4 that had been through the printer. One of the kids was looking right in the shop window and was lit up clear as day.

  ‘The one furthest away is shielded by the other but this one is a Choirboy who goes by the moniker Blu. His real name is Darren Ward.’

  ‘Darren Ward?’ North didn’t believe what he was hearing.

  ‘Yeah, you know him?’

  North took the rap sheet and scanned his personal info. Looked for the name of his parents. He only had one listed. A mother. Her name was Donna Michelle Ward. His address matched the one he already had up on the screen. He arranged for the PC to go collect James. Mason was going to have to go to church by himself.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  See Dan run.

  Short stubby legs carrying a twelve-year-old body that had been obese since it was seven. Atop the twelve stone, five feet nothing figure, a close cropped, round purple head huffed and puffed, as the fear contained within drove him forward. His heart was pattering like a small animal and his lungs were fit to burst after years without physical exercise, skipping PE at school to avoid the bullies and name-callers and he had succeeded until today when Mr Fuck Face Bastard had gone and stuck his oar in. Mister Hepworth had been off sick and his stand-in had found a spare kit for him. It didn't matter that Mister Hepworth let him off, Mister Hepworth was too soft. And Danny didn't have a note.

  The kit was several sizes too small for him and clung to the folds in his flesh. They picked teams and he was the last boy standing. He joined his side by default.<
br />
  ‘Oh sir, it’s not fair, if they put him in goal there's no way we could get a ball past him.’

  ‘And he leaves footprints in concrete. He'll trash the hall floor.’

  And so it began.

  He loitered along the sideline, trying to be where the ball was not. Whenever the teacher wasn't looking he was likely to get blasted. He soon had bright red marks up and down his arms and legs. Eventually they blew for half time when they all took on water and aimed mouthfuls at him. He'd had enough. As the second half kicked off he edged along the wall. It was last period of the week and they would all be headed home for the weekend in twenty minutes. That gave him plenty time to get changed and do a runner before they all came in. Hitting the showers with that lot was unthinkable. Even the teacher would have forgotten he’d done a runner by Monday. Danny slipped out the door. He didn't get far before someone raised the alarm and old Fuck Face was out after him. The stand-in teacher shouted at the others to carry on before shouting at Danny to get back in there.

  Danny declined.

  The teacher marched towards him and started physically pulling him back. Danny let his weight fall and nearly took the bastard down with him. Danny stayed down. The stand-in was getting mad now. Some of the other boys were watching, laughing and Stand-In yelled at them. He started to haul Danny to his feet but he was a dead weight and ended up dragging the boy along the corridor. Danny freaked. He started yelling and kicking and one caught Stand-In right in the nads. He fell to his knees clutching his ball sack. Danny never got to his feet so fast and was gone in a flash. Sod the changing rooms, he was straight out of there in his skimpy outfit.

  ‘We'll get him for you, sir!’ A group came out after him. ‘You're dead, Weirdo!’

  Danny kept going as the crow flies, across the yard and onto the playing field. He scrambled up an embankment, through a whole in the mesh fencing and dashed onto the railway lines. A horn blared and several hundred tons of screeching metal bore down him, wheels screaming, sparks flying as the brakes engaged and metal ground into metal. By the time it pulled to a halt he was nowhere in sight.

  Several teachers appeared and sent the kids back inside while the driver and guard searched the track. Everyone waited. Everyone feared the worst. Minutes went by without a sign of him. They all started searching the embankment. He must have been tossed into it. Everyone moved among the tall grass and weeds hoping they wouldn’t be the one to find him.

  A passenger rolled down a door window and gobbed off. What did they think they were playing at? He was going to be late for a very important meeting. They expressed their fears concerning the Ward boy.

  ‘Short fat thing in a gimp outfit?’

  They nodded.

  ‘Thank fuck for that. He went that way,’ the man pointed, ‘faster than Usain Bolt. I thought I was seeing things.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  If he’d blinked he would have missed it. The eyes had opened and flicked in the direction of the phone vibrating on the bedside table, the ringtone switched off. Then they were closed again. Her moaning had paused, briefly, and then resumed, louder in an attempt to cover the tell. He thrust harder and faster and she responded to his every move, pushing up against him, stroke for stroke but there was no mistaking what he had seen. He pounded into her, anger driving every stroke until his face contorted and he cried out. He closed his eyes and groaned, finishing. She kept on until she was sure he was done.

  He pulled out and sat astride her rolling the condom from his shrinking dick. She reached out to him but he pushed her back. He dropped the condom and it slapped onto her belly. She left it there above the rose tattoo and watched him clamber off and begin dressing. He refused to meet her eyes. He was filled with anger, shame and pain. He had thought that she had really grown to like him. That she had looked forward to his visits as much as he had but there was no mistaking the contempt he had seen in her eyes. The hatred. He was just another punter to her.

  ‘I won’t be coming anymore.’

  She couldn't help laughing at him. He looked like a spoilt little boy. He was pathetic.

  Him and her?

  Really?

  As if.

  What a loser.

  He stepped forward, fist raised. That wiped the smile off her face.

  ‘Don't be silly Kenneth, you know the tax.’

  His face dropped. She saw a brief moment of fear in it and her smile returned.

  ‘Ah, don’t be like that Kenneth. You'll be back.’

  She was right and it made him feel even worse. All the anger drained from him. He picked up his jacket, pulled out a wad and threw it at her. It separated and fell around her. She mouthed a kiss at him.

  He pulled his jacket on as he went out the front door, fishing for his phone. His thumb worked the screen, looking for his missed call. North watched him. He felt his own phone vibrate as it took the call. He let it go to voicemail as he watched Scanlan disappear into the stairwell at the other end of the landing and waited for him to appear down below. He watched him get into his car and drive away. He had a little think about it all. Then he called him again.

  ‘What do you want?’ Scanlan answered straight away this time. The pissed off tone matched the body language North had seen.

  ‘Darren Ward,’ said North, ‘gang name, Blu. Have you heard of him?’

  Silence.

  Of course he had heard of him, he had just left his fucking house. He must be mulling over whether he should tell North if he did or didn’t.

  ‘Why?’

  Either he hadn’t seen the CCTV pictures or heard the APB that was put out on Ward and his mate for the arson, or he was playing silly buggers. What was Arnie up to?

  ‘He’s been ID’d as a possible for the arson job.’

  More silence.

  ‘So do you know him or not? He’s a juvenile suspected of being in the Choirboys, I thought he may have blipped on your radar before now.’

  ‘No. Yeah. No.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  What the Hell was he involved in?

  ‘Sorry, I’m on a case right now. I’m a bit distracted.’

  Bull-shit!

  ‘Yeah, I know him. If he did it it’s a bit of a step up. He’s just another little rip. I know his school and where he lives, I can check up on him if you want.’

  ‘That’s okay, you keep on with what you have. I’ll deal with it.’

  ‘You sure? It’s no trouble.’

  You wish. And this has trouble all over it.

  ‘Thanks, but no. I will need your help with some background info so I’ll catch up with you later.’

  North rang off.

  He had already called Darren Ward’s school. He wasn’t there. He hadn’t been in all week.

  He knocked four times. If he hadn’t seen Scanlan leave he would have assumed there was no one home. No one answered. Nothing stirred. No music or TV. He listened through the letterbox. All was still. He knocked again and kept on knocking. The door finally opened and an angry face appeared, cursing. Then it rearranged itself and smiled.

  ‘Sorry,’ she looked him up and down. ‘I thought you were someone else.’

  She couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen underneath all that fake tan, hair extensions, false eyelashes and make-up.

  ‘Is your mam in?’

  ‘No. Who’s asking?’

  ‘Darren in?’

  ‘No, I’m on me own. What has the little shit done now?’

  Exactly what North was thinking about Arnie. He comes out dressing himself and this girl is home alone?

  ‘Are you a fed? You don’t look like no fed.’

  ‘So I’m told,’ he offered his ID. ‘Can I come in?’ He would rather check the place out than simply take her word for it.

  She stood aside but not far enough for him to avoid brushing past her. She just couldn't help herself. She thought she was God's gift and obviously craved any male attention.

  The layout was similar to Lumsden'
s place. He went straight on, past a kitchen stacked with dirty dishes, rubbish littering the surfaces and the beginning of an unpleasant odour tainting the air - the similarity continued. He had a flashback to Lumsden's broken, bleeding body as he entered the living room. At some point the door had come off its hinges and it was propped behind the settee. Photos lined the windowsill, TV and mantle. All were of three kids, all at various stages in their young lives.

  ‘Are they your brothers?’

  She looked at the photos and made a face like it pained her. She was the third kid. There were no photos of a fourth. Of Dawn.

  ‘Does it look like it?

  ‘No, but you don't see too many live-in au pairs round this way.’

  She giggled.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Chelsea.’

  Some people have no shame, calling their kids after cockney football clubs.

  ‘None of you are exactly dead ringers.’

  ‘Thank fuck. It’s because we all have different dad's, not that any of us ever new them. What can I say? Our mam's a right dirty bitch. Thank God I must have got the handsome one. She was quite pretty too, once, before life round here ravaged her looks. Later she couldn't be so choosy about her blokes so those poor little bastards didn’t have a chance. None of them hung around very long. She's a lesbian now. She doesn't know I know. I was meant to be away for a few days, a bloke I know had to go to Manchester for work and invited me along only his wife decides to chuck a sicky last minute and tag along for the shopping. He made it up to me though. Some blokes know how to treat a girl right. I was already in a taxi to the station and headed straight back. My heart went into my mouth when I opened the door. For a split second I thought she was in trouble, before I recognised the sounds. She must have been gagging for it because I couldn't have been gone thirty minutes, the mucky cow. She obviously doesn't want us to know. Well, you wouldn't would you? Not at her age. Not your mam. So she tells the boys it’s work and me that she's going on a bender and that she doesn't want the boys to see her like that and disappears for a few days every now and then. She’s with her now, been gone all week. I suppose you can't really blame her, the men she's had, all treating her like shit. You won't catch me getting knocked up until I've got a rock the size of Cheryl Cole’s on my finger. I'm going to get out of this shithole. I meet plenty of the right kind of fellas who can make it happen: footballers, agents, people who have already got me a bit of modelling.’