The Follow

by Paul Grzegorzek

  He looked at me with genuine fear in his eyes. ‘What do I do?’

  I thought hard. ‘Well, for one, keep your phone on and near you and put me on quick dial. I never turn my phone off so I’ll pick up instantly. Any trouble and I’ll get the cavalry and come running.’

  I looked around to make sure no one was looking. ‘Here, take this.’ I pulled my pepper spray out of its holder and passed it to him quickly before anyone could see. ‘I know you’re off duty but you need something, just in case. For Christ’s sake don’t use it if the fat bloke tries to give you another sponge bath though, okay?’

  He ignored the joke. ‘What will you do for pepper spray?’

  ‘Do you still keep yours in your top drawer?’ I asked, knowing the answer already.

  ‘Yeah, and the key is blu-tacked to the underside of my monitor. Just try not to spray anyone unless you have to or they’ll ask some awkward questions.’

  Each can of ‘Captor’ has a unique number which we write down every time we change cans or spray someone. If there’s a discrepancy, it can be a job-loser as the spray is classed as a firearm.

  ‘Okay, I’ll be careful. I promise you Jimmy, this won’t be forever. You’ll be back home in no time and after a few weeks you’ll be back out with us, causing all kinds of grief and then screwing up the paperwork, yeah?’

  This time he did grin, and it was a relief to see. ‘So, Ding my old buddy, what are you lot intending to do about Davey?’

  I shrugged. ‘Dunno, I’m sure Kev has got a plan. Why, you got an idea?’

  His face became animated as words spilled out of him almost too fast to follow.

  ‘Well first things first, I reckon that you need to hit the little dealers, make them afraid to go out and deal. Then that’ll force the bigger boys to come out and deal and you can start taking them out too. Eventually it’ll get to the stage where no one will sell for Davey and he’ll end up owing so much money that they’ll take it out of his hide. Either that or he’ll have to come out and deal himself and we catch him and put him away. Problem solved!’

  What he was saying made sense. Dealers tended to work in pyramid theory with one guy at the top and a host of others below him. Those below in turn had their runners, and they had their runners, so getting the bigger fish near the top had always been a problem for the police. Quite simply there were always too many little fish willing to jump into the game at the bottom of the pyramid to make a quick buck and we rarely got any higher, but if we made an entire level of the pyramid afraid to even leave the house we could take down the whole thing.

  His idea made sense, even though we’d tried it a few years ago with little success. We hadn’t had the resources back then and they kept pulling the few we did have off onto other jobs. Finally the whole operation had been swept under the carpet as an embarrassment. Maybe if I took it to Kev and he pulled some strings, someone higher up would take it and run with it. Every copper in Brighton wanted Davey after what he’d done to Jimmy, from the tutor unit up to the chief super, so there was a chance that we could actually make it work this time. I certainly couldn’t think of any better ideas.

  ‘I like it. You’re not as stupid as you look, are you?’

  Jimmy settled back into his pillows, one hand still wrapped around the pepper spray half hidden under his blanket. ‘What do you think I’ve been doing in here all this time, scratching my nuts and listening to the radio? I’ve thought up about a hundred different ways to take Davey down and this is the only one that stands a chance of working, unless you want to start throwing his goons in the sea with concrete socks?’

  I smiled, and then it faltered as I thought again of Billy Budd lying in the next ward with injuries that I had given him. ‘Okay, I’ll take the idea to Kev and see what he says. Just remember, be careful and don’t get caught with the spray. I want to try and keep my job as long as possible, right?’

  He nodded and slid the canister under his pillows.

  ‘Oh, and Ken says hurry up and get out of hospital so you can come back to kung fu; he misses the screams you make when the exercise gets too much for you!’

  Jimmy and I had both been going to kung fu for about five years, although I had stayed throughout and Jimmy came and went depending on his love life. Being married to Lucy had made me only too happy to get out of the house twice a week, so I always won our little play fights.

  Jimmy waved as I got up to leave. ‘Yeah, yeah, tell him I want my money back cos’ it didn’t stop the knife, I thought I was supposed to be invincible by now!’

  We both laughed and I left him to it, already working out in my head exactly what I would say to Kev to convince him to run with Jimmy’s idea.

  13

  AS SOON as I got back to the Nick I approached Kev, dragging him into the inspector’s office and closing the door. I started without preamble. ‘Jimmy’s got an idea for taking Davey down.’

  ‘Oh yeah, what’s that?’

  ‘Do you remember a couple of years ago when we were trying to take down those Liverpudlians who had all the local runners and we started taking out the bottom of the pyramid?’

  Kev nodded. ‘Yeah, and what a screw up that was. All we ended up doing was blowing out most of our officers and then they took away half the team for that paedophile operation. Made us look like idiots.’

  I shrugged. ‘But the idea was sound. Do you think that with Jimmy having been stabbed, the powers that be might see their way clear to allowing us to try it again, this time on Davey and with as much manpower as we can get our grubby little hands on?’

  Kev scratched his nose thoughtfully. ‘It could work, I suppose, but we’d need to keep hitting it every day without letting up. We left it too long between hits last time and they had time to regroup and get more people out dealing.’

  He began to look animated as he thought about it.

  ‘We’ve got a much better chance of remanding people prior to court nowadays, which means that we wouldn’t keep blowing out and being spotted. If we can get some good PWI charges, I reckon the chief super would be more than happy to help.’

  ‘Ding, you’re a genius, leave it with me.’ He got up and strode out of the office.

  ‘Uh, Jimmy’s the genius!’ I called after him, receiving a distracted wave in response as he trundled towards the main door. I shrugged and headed back to my desk to discuss the idea with the others, who were buried in piles of intelligence reports and surveillance requests as per usual.

  I outlined the idea and the others all agreed that it could work if we kept at it.

  An operation like this, which would have us all out of the office for most of every day, was something that we longed for. No one joins the job to do paperwork, but somehow it seems to keep most of us at our desks for ninety per cent of the time. This would be a chance to get out and do the job we’d joined to do.

  ‘So, providing that Kev gets the okay, where do we start?’ Rudd asked after we’d batted the idea around for a few minutes.

  I shrugged. ‘I suppose we look at the intelligence and see if we’ve got any regular dealing sites that we can link to Davey and his crew.’

  Sally swung her chair back to her desk and rummaged through a pile of intelligence logs that were sitting next to her keyboard. She turned back holding a single sheet of paper which she waved at me. ‘Actually Gareth, I think you’ll have more luck if you work on people that we know buy only from Davey. We know that there are a few, like John Melling, who are easy to follow. Have a look at this.’

  She handed me the intelligence log that she was holding and I grinned as I read the information on the sheet while a plan began to form in my mind.

  *

  That evening, Regency Square was quiet, the sun now hidden from view behind the tall buildings that lined three sides of the square. Although many of them were listed buildings, more than a few were DSS hotels filled with heroin and crack users, petty thieves and sex offenders. Strangely, most of the other buildings were also hotels,
albeit somewhat nicer and, surprisingly, they had little or no trouble from their seedier cousins.

  The central square was actually more of an oblong of grass on three slightly different levels as it sloped down the hill towards the sea. Underneath was a car park that was famed for being one of the least secure in Brighton. Our target, John Melling, a big blond chap who limped around town and was covered in needle sores, would regularly walk out of his DSS hotel (paid for by us, the taxpayers), head down into the car park and break into six or seven cars by smashing the window, then stroll back into the hotel with whatever loot he had found just carried openly in his hands.

  Somehow he kept avoiding prison, which had ceased surprising me some years before. In a way it was actually quite useful, as he was so unaware of being followed that you could walk ten feet behind him all the way to a dealer without him ever looking back, which is what we intended to do now.

  I sat on a park bench at the top of the grass, nestling between a still-wet glob of spit on one side and an even wetter lump of seagull shit on the other. The only things there were more of in Brighton than drug users were seagulls.

  Glancing at my watch, I saw that it was nearly eight o’clock, which meant that Melling would be out any time soon according to the information that Sally had found for us. We get intelligence from all manner of sources, from police officers to drug users themselves, and someone close to Melling had obviously decided to shop in his schedule for God only knows what reason. It was more than likely a personal feud, but we were never fussy where good intel was concerned.

  Most heroin users work on a four-hour schedule: apparently that’s how long it takes for them to get a hit, have it wear off, then find money for the next hit, and Melling was like clockwork. He would get up at eleven after a state-sponsored lie-in, eat a state-bought breakfast, and then amble into town at twelve to buy his first £10 bag of the day. Then he would take it somewhere, leave the needle for a child to find, trip over or stab themselves with and then he would start either stealing handbags from elderly ladies or he would scour the town centre car parks to get enough money for his next hit. Then at about four he would buy again, and so on.

  Almost at the stroke of eight the door opened and he lumbered down the steps, heading up and towards Western Road, one of the local shopping areas and a major bus route.

  ‘Contact, contact, I have the x-ray heading north on the east side of the square towards Preston Street,’ I murmured into my radio, hearing clicks as the rest of the team acknowledged my call. I followed at a distance; Melling might not be SV aware, but many were and you could never tell when individual users would form a gaggle, all heading for the same dealer. The other officers were dotted about nearby and I felt sorry for those on the seafront who would be running towards Western Road by now so that they could get ahead of the target. Surveillance, especially with small teams, is bloody hard work and don’t let anyone tell you any different.

  My target took me up Preston Street and onto Western Road, pausing at the corner opposite Sainsbury’s to chat to another user I recognised, Tracy Holden. Tracy was about as foul a creature as you could find anywhere, with only three teeth left and those black and reeking of decay if you dared get close enough. She was slim and suntanned with a slight bump that showed that she was pregnant for the third time in as many years. She had killed the first two at four and six months pregnant respectively by taking too much heroin – and I suspected the third would go the same way.

  She also kept her jacking-up kit (Coke can base, needles, spoon, lighter, tin foil with just enough residue to keep her going) inside her, so every time she got arrested there was a farcical scene where two unhappy female officers with two sets of rubber gloves on each would usher Tracy into a search room while we all waited outside with sympathetic looks.

  John and Tracy broke off their conversation and John headed up the hill and into Hampton Place, while Tracy wandered off into town, presumably to steal handbags from cafés, which was her speciality.

  I followed John, closing the gap slightly as he disappeared around the bend that took him towards the back of Waitrose. It was unusual that he hadn’t made a call from a phone box yet, but more and more users have mobile phones nowadays so their human rights aren’t infringed by having to use public phones for their drug arrangements.

  Kev called up over the radio and I saw him walking down the hill towards the junction that John had taken, approaching from the other direction. ‘Kev has control, and x-ray is into the Waitrose car park and towards the north-west corner. Target is believed to be a blue VW Golf, index unknown, two males sit within. Units at Montpelier to be ready to strike. Rudd acknowledge.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘Thank you. Tate acknowledge.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘Thank you. Gareth, with me. You make the approach to the vehicle; I will remain nearby to assist. Gareth acknowledge.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I said, feeling the adrenaline begin to build.

  As I reached the corner, I paused for a second and then walked around it as naturally as possible, my eyes not looking at anything particular. I needn’t have bothered, as Melling was walking straight towards the top end of the Waitrose car park with no thought to checking behind.

  In the corner he was heading for, I saw a battered blue VW Golf with a pair of guys sitting in the front seat. Another user, one I didn’t recognise (there are over three thousand in Brighton at any one time), was just leaving the car and yet another user was approaching from the far side of the car park. I was amazed at how blatant they were being even for Brighton, but realised that with the commanding view the dealers had of the car park I would have to rely on the rest of the team getting to me fast if it went wrong.

  Melling had served his purpose and I ignored him as he scored and then left via the far side of the car park. I waited until there was a gap in the near constant flow of users then shuffled towards the car as if I had injection sores.

  I had chosen my clothing carefully, wearing old jeans that were a couple of sizes too big, (thanks to my regular trips to the gym in the past year), which with just a dash of motor oil looked as though they had been worn for a year. The outfit was finished off with a big grey duffle coat which was ripped all up one side. I had got a great deal of ribbing during the briefing but I was hoping that it would pay off and let me get close to the car before they realised that something was wrong.

  I reached the car and shuffled up to the passenger window as the other users had done, keeping my head tucked into my chest. I needed to get them out of the car somehow, or get myself around to the driver’s side so that they wouldn’t just drive off when we struck, but I wasn’t sure how. Then an idea came to me.

  ‘Brown or white?’ I recognised the voice. It was Paul Denton, a young scouser who, according to the association chart, was in debt to Davey for several thousand pounds. I risked a quick glance at the driver and recognised him as Vincent Attlingworth, or Vinnie to his mates, another low-grade user who made his living driving dealers around town for cash and drugs.

  ‘Brown, just one,’ I said in my best rough Brighton accent. It seemed to work, as Paul rustled around between his legs for a moment before holding a hand out for the cash. I kept my pressel down so that the rest of the team could hear what was happening and be ready to come to my aid judging by what they could hear.

  My cunning plan revolved around an old lottery ticket that I had in the pocket of the jacket. I was hoping that he would be working on autopilot and that I would be passed the drugs before he realised that it wasn’t a ten pound note in his hand.

  I passed the ticket and his right hand automatically passed me a small clear bag of brown powder which I shoved in my pocket and then began to walk away.

  ‘Oi, OI!’ he yelled as he realised what had happened, and I began to shuffle faster across the car park, hoping that they would run rather than drive after me.

  I was right and Paul, closely followed by Vinnie, raced over
to me, letting me know where they were by the sounds of their steps. Just as I thought the first one was about to reach me I spun around, dropping into a crouch with my right leg while sweeping my left out in an arc behind me.

  It worked like a charm and Paul went sprawling over my extended leg, banging into the gravel face first. Vinnie tried to slow down but he was already moving too fast as I used my bent knee to launch myself upwards, my hand already raised to grab his arm and twist it up behind his back. I managed to pull the move off and he screamed as I pushed him off balance, using the pressure on his shoulder to keep control. I could hear the sounds of running feet and knew that the rest of the team was coming to my aid, but as I looked up to see how close they were, a huge weight hit me in the back and I fell on top of Vinnie, making me release my grip and tumbling us both to the ground.

  Paul had regained his feet and thrown himself on me, pummelling the back of my head with his fists. I tucked my head in and rolled over, dislodging him, but one of his fists caught me in the mouth and I felt my top lip split open. Now lying on my back, I raised my leg high and dropped my heel into his face as he tried to scramble away, feeling it connect with bone. He yelled in pain and I rolled back to my feet, wiping the blood away from my mouth with the back of my hand. It hurt like blazes and as the rest of the team caught up and jumped on the surprised pair, I moved away and nursed my lip.

  Vinnie tried to run but only made it a few yards before Rudd rugby tackled him, skinning his knuckles as they fell to the ground. Paul disappeared under the combined weight of Tate and Kev and very quickly resurfaced wearing a pair of handcuffs and a hangdog expression.

  I ran over to help Rudd with the violently struggling Vinnie and, between us, we managed to contain him by dint of placing him in a ground pin, which is a double armlock that involves both officers kneeling on the hollow between arm and back, while raising the arms straight up while the prisoner is face down. Much like the pressure points, we had all had it done to us in training, and I can personally vouch for just how painful it is if you struggle.