The Follow

by Paul Grzegorzek

  ‘Um, just one. Why do they call you Ding?’

  I laughed. ‘That, my friend, is something for the privileged few to know. If you’re still around in a year, ask me again and I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Ding!’ sang Tate and Ralphy at the same time.

  Bobby looked over at them in confusion. ‘Err, okay, I will.’

  Seeing from Ralphy’s face that he was about to spill the beans and embarrass me, I quickly changed the subject. ‘Oh, and while I remember, Bobby, don’t worry about the other day. I used to be called the “section five king” when I was a probationer. Even though I had a mouth like a toilet, I’d threaten to arrest anyone who swore in front of me, even once in someone’s own house. I was just in a bad mood when I saw you, so sorry for being a cock.’

  I smiled at him to show I meant it and he smiled back gratefully. Feeling proud of myself for not just dismissing him as a waste of space (which is very easy to do with probationers when you’ve got a few years in, however unfairly), I gathered up my kit and headed down to the car park.

  Twenty minutes later I was sat up near the Hampton pub on Upper North Street, tucking into a bag of Doritos that I didn’t really want or need, with the logbook open on my lap and the radio on. After enough surveillance jobs you develop a weird ability to be able to shut your mind off and let the time fly by, while still being alert enough to instantly spot anything suspicious or respond to your radio immediately. Except Ralphy, of course, who was famous for once having slept through a ram raid on the premises he’d been watching. At the time he claimed a radio failure, but eventually the truth got out and he’d never quite lived it down.

  The evening passed quite pleasantly with the help of Radio 4 and the occasional company of Bobby who, to his credit, sat quietly until prompted into a conversation. A few minutes after he’d left for the fourth time my radio suddenly crackled into life, with Eddie’s voice almost making me jump.

  ‘From Eddie, we have contact, contact on a suspect male matching description given. He is westbound up Church Street towards Dyke Road, eyes all about. Male is wearing a black woollen donkey jacket, black combat trousers, and black boots.’

  I copied down the relevant parts in the log, making a note of the time. Somehow it was already half one in the morning.

  ‘From Eddie, male is into the churchyard, one final look all about and he veers to the left of the gate and is away from my view.’

  Even though I wasn’t allowed out to play, I felt the adrenaline flowing through my veins. If this bloke was heading into the graveyard itself, away from the brick paths that cut through the church grounds towards the bottom of Dyke Road, then he was probably up to no good. Or desperate for a piss, but my money was on bad stuff.

  Kev’s voice came through on the radio. ‘Kev has control and the male is paused behind a gravestone near the path. He’s either having a dump or waiting for someone to pass by.’

  I actually reached for the door handle before remembering myself and taking my hand away.

  ‘From Kev, we have a female walking south to north along the path, it appears the male has seen her and is changing position slightly. I don’t want to wait any longer, strike, strike, strike.’

  I heard a chorus of clicks as people responded and this time I did get out of the car, walking towards Dyke Road as fast as I could, still clutching the logbook. I may not be able to join in, but if the target ran I could point him out to the others if he came my way.

  Even from as far away as I was, I heard the female scream. It must have been ear splittingly loud in the churchyard. I began to walk faster, wincing as the stitches pulled but eager to know what was happening. ‘Any update for the log?’ I called over the radio.

  ‘Runner, over the wall onto Dyke Road, towards the graveyard Kev was in,’ came Eddie’s voice, breathless as he gave chase.

  I reached the corner of the road in time to see a male dressed all in black scrambling over the iron gates at the front of the western churchyard with Eddie and Tate not far behind. Bobby then ran past them, climbing the gates like a monkey, and disappeared from view in moments.

  I limped up the road, seeing Ralphy and Kev moving only slightly faster as Kev talked to someone on his mobile phone. I guessed he was probably calling comms to get uniform out and assisting but I was more interested in what was happening in the graveyard. I needn’t have worried, as a few moments later Bobby and Eddie walked up to the inside of the gate with the man in cuffs. As I approached I recognised him as one James Elroy Petersen, a well-known sex attacker who I had thought was still in prison.

  I stopped by the gates at about the same time as Kev and Ralphy. ‘Good job lads. I couldn’t have climbed the gate that quick.’

  Bobby grinned, as did Eddie, looking very pleased with themselves.

  ‘One thing though chaps,’ I said, glancing down at the thick padlock then back up at the ten foot gates. ‘How are you going to get him back over this side?’

  22

  THE NEXT morning, I was woken at about half past ten by my phone buzzing angrily. I eased myself carefully onto my side and groaned when I saw Kev flashing up on the screen. ‘What?’ I answered, trying not to sound too surly. I only got to wake up naturally two days out of seven and he’d just spoiled one of them.

  ‘I’m fine thank you Gareth, thanks for asking.’

  I was still too sleep-fuddled to try and be funny back, so I just grunted in the hope that he would get to the point.

  ‘So, how’s the leg?’ he asked.

  ‘It hurts a bit but I’ve got a little more movement in it today.’ I flexed it experimentally as I spoke.

  ‘Good. I want you to take today and tomorrow off, just to make sure you heal up properly. Aren’t I nice?’

  ‘You’d be nicer if it wasn’t the weekend, we work Monday to Friday, remember?’

  ‘Do we?’ he asked innocently. ‘Well isn’t that convenient?’

  I was tired enough that I wondered if I’d missed the point of this phone call. ‘Did you just phone me up to torment me?’ I asked, searching with my free hand for the pint of water I always kept by the bed.

  ‘Pretty much. Seriously though, I just wanted to make sure that you’re all right.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine thanks. It’s just been a long week is all.’

  ‘Okay, well you make sure you get rested up. We’ve got a lot on next week and I need the whole team operational. Don’t go doing anything stupid, okay?’

  He hung up and I lay there for a moment wishing that I was still asleep. Thoroughly awake now, I crawled out of bed and forced myself up and down the stairs ten times before breakfast, not wanting my leg to seize up. Then I went through my recently lapsed routine of press-ups and sit-ups, stopping when the strain got too much.

  After a brief breakfast, I popped over to see my dad and take Lily out for a walk over the fields at the back of Woodingdean, then called Sally to see if she fancied lunch. She let the phone ring without answering, so instead I spent the day wandering around town, buying crap that I didn’t really need.

  As I walked around the mall at Churchill Square, dodging squealing children and families with no sense of spatial awareness, I couldn’t help but think of the heroin I had hidden in next door’s garden. What I’d done was not only stupid, it was criminal, and I kept worrying about the line I’d crossed. I’ve always thought that the only thing that separates us from the criminals is our morals and, if that were the case, was I any better than the people I was trying to stop?

  Much as I wanted to I couldn’t think of any way to come clean without losing my job. I couldn’t even risk going to Kev. Despite his relaxed attitude he would have no choice but to throw me in a cell and get PSD over to deal with me.

  I didn’t think I could bear to be kicked out, losing my job and most of my friends in one swoop. It would be like being divorced all over again but without the support I’d had the first time from my colleagues.

  I was so wrapped up in my dark thoughts that I almost
didn’t notice the two men following me. The first I knew about it was when I came out of the toilets on the middle level of the shopping centre. I exited the corridor back out into the main area, instinctively looking around. Two men, both apparently separate from each other, avoided making eye contact at the same time and the hackles rose on the back of my neck as I recognised one of them. It was the guy from the hospital with the leather patches on his jacket, the same one who had burgled my house. The other I didn’t know but as I walked calmly away, straining my skills to the limit to act as if I hadn’t seen them, I saw his reflection in the window of HMV as he began to pace me from the far side of the mall.

  I considered calling someone at work but then wondered what I would say. ‘Excuse me chaps, but the dealer I nicked a load of heroin off has got a couple of his guys following me?’ No, I’d just have to lose them or deal with them myself.

  The second guy was wearing a grubby blue shirt and blue jeans, making him easy to spot as few people dress all in one colour, and I kept tabs on him as I used the escalator to go to the lower level. Patches was coming down the escalator on the far side, still trying to act as if he wasn’t watching me. Neither of them were particularly good but then they hadn’t had the training and experience I had, so on someone less aware they probably would have been fine.

  I was torn between leading them around town for a bit or heading straight down into the car park and driving off. The twinge in my leg told me that I’d be better off driving, and I guessed that they probably knew what car I drove anyway so it wasn’t like I had to keep it a secret. I walked down the steps to the car park, resisting the urge to turn and see where my tail was. The only time the target has an advantage on a surveillance job is when the followers don’t know that they’ve been blown and I wanted to keep that advantage as long as possible.

  If they figured it out, they might do something rash. Without knowing what they wanted I couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t go for me, and I was in no condition to be rolling around on the floor with people. My adrenaline began to kick in at the thought, making me buzz with unwanted energy. I shoved my hands in my pockets to stop them from shaking and stared resolutely ahead, tensed against a half-expected attack as the crowds thinned out.

  I finally reached the level I’d parked on and walked to my car as if nothing was amiss. I hoped that this would be the end of it and that I could just drive off without them making a move, but as I slid into the driver’s seat, Patches jogged over and banged on the window with an intense look on his face. I didn’t wind the window down, instead looking at him through the dirty glass. ‘What?’ I asked, not bothering to pretend to be surprised.

  ‘You’ve got something that belongs to a friend of mine. He wants it back. He told me to tell you that this is the only friendly warning and after this, bad things start to happen, copper or not. You got that?’

  I just stared at him, a cold feeling spreading through my stomach as the implication of what he was saying sank in. Davey wanted his gear back and he was making threats to someone he knew was a copper. Davey was well known by police and criminals alike as a total psychopath, and he had a reputation for never making threats that he didn’t carry out. Apparently it was a point of pride.

  ‘Well, I’m waiting.’

  Something in his tone made me angry. I wasn’t used to people like him making demands. I unrolled the window just enough so that I could be heard clearly without him being able to get a hand inside the car. ‘You can tell your friend that I don’t deal with monkeys. If he wants something from me, he’s going to have to ask me himself. You got that?’

  Patches grinned at me as if I’d made a joke. ‘Yeah, I’ll tell him that. Just don’t be surprised if something unpleasant happens between now and our next chat, speaking to him like that.’

  I shook my head and closed the window, watching Patches recede in the mirror as I drove away. Somehow I’d managed to get myself into a situation where a psychopathic drug dealer with a penchant for knives was upset with me and making threats, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I felt powerless, scared, and most of all, alone.

  23

  WHEN I got into the office on Monday morning my leg was barely hurting. I’d spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and it had done me the world of good. I got all the way to my desk before I realised that something was wrong, then saw Tate, Rudd and Kev in the inspector’s office. As soon as I made eye contact with Kev he waved me in and I closed the door behind me.

  ‘We’ve got a problem Gareth,’ he said before I could even perch on my usual filing cabinet.

  ‘What’s up?’

  Tate handed me a sheaf of intelligence reports and printed logs.

  ‘We had two more dealers stabbed over the weekend, with a third cut badly. The first two are both critical, one of them probably won’t last the day.’

  ‘Is anyone talking to us?’ I asked, looking at the reports.

  Kev shook his head. ‘Not so far. I need you all out on the ground on this one. CID are treating them as attempted murders.’

  I scratched my head thoughtfully. ‘Who do the victims work for? Surely we can work out who’s doing it from the targets?’

  ‘We could,’ Kev said, handing me three mugshots with names underneath, ‘if they all worked for the same person. The first two work for Trash and the other one works for Davey. It could be another group trying to muscle in but so far it’s all just guesswork.’

  ‘Could it be Davey cleaning house, maybe?’ Rudd chipped in.

  Kev shrugged. ‘Maybe, but why would he be attacking Trash’s crew and his own?’

  I held up a hand. ‘What if he’s stealing product from Trash now that we’ve got most of his in the store, and his guy was retaliation by Trash?’

  Kev looked at me, clearly impressed. ‘You know, Ding, you’re not as stupid as you look.’

  ‘Well it makes sense. We know that his operation has ground to a bit of a halt and he’s got to get some more gear from somewhere. If I was him I’d go to the easiest free source, which is Trash.’

  Kev stood and began rapping out orders. ‘Okay. Ding, Rudd, find out where Trash is living and sit up on the house. Tate, you call as many informants as you can and find out everything you can get about who’s doing the stabbings. I think Gareth is right. If we can catch these guys in the act, we can hopefully trace them back to Davey and bring the whole crew down in one easy hit.’ He looked around the room at the three of us. ‘Well what are you waiting for gentlemen? We have criminals to catch.’

  We all but ran out of the office and began flicking through reports, trying to find anything relevant before we got out on the ground. As per usual Sally found what we were looking for before any of the rest of us, handing a sheet of paper to Rudd.

  ‘Got it. Sal, you’re a genius!’ he said, waving the report at me.

  ‘Where is he then?’ I snatched the paper out of his hand. I scanned the report, which had been put in over the weekend by a uniformed officer who had seen Trash kissing a girl goodbye on the doorstep of a house on Elm Grove on Saturday morning. ‘Right, let’s go. Thanks Sally.’

  She nodded as I grabbed a set of keys from the board and raced Rudd to the car park. I had deliberately chosen the nattiest car we had and it didn’t look out of place as we parked up at the end of May Road, just across from the target address on Elm Grove.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Rudd asked, lowering the back of his seat so that he could slouch comfortably.

  ‘Well, I could be wrong, but I think we probably sit here and wait until Trash comes out, then we follow him. It’s called surveillance, maybe you’ve heard of it?’

  Rudd laughed. ‘I think I might have done, once or twice. You hungry?’

  ‘Yeah, starving. What you thinking of?’

  What he was thinking of turned out to be a pair of massive all-day breakfast sandwiches from a nearby café. He got back into the car and dumped one of them on my lap, already halfway through his. I ate my sandwich as I st
udied the front door to the target premises. It was a three-storey house with a single front door but I could see at least five buzzers, meaning that it was split into flats.

  I’d never seen any intelligence on this place before and made a mental note to email the officer who had seen Trash and thank him. Too few officers remembered to put in intel logs and moments like these proved how vital they were.

  I managed to finish the sandwich without getting too much of it down my shirt, and was about to get out and stretch when the house door opened and Trash stepped out. He actually looked like a scouser, with close-cropped ginger hair and a pale complexion and he had a face that only a mother could love. He was wearing a green jacket and blue jeans and I wrote the description and time down as he walked down the steps, looking around himself to make sure that he wasn’t being observed.

  I tried to think casual, as did Rudd, and we managed to avoid catching our target’s eye. He walked over to a silver Vauxhall Astra and, with a final look around, he slipped into the front and drove off down Queens Park Road.

  Rudd got on the phone to Kev while I followed, being careful not to get too close. It’s always tricky doing a mobile follow with only one vehicle but I stayed as far back as I could and tried not to anticipate what he would do. An early indication from me or anything else out of place would alert him, and then we were screwed.

  He reached the end of the road and turned left onto Eastern Road, driving carefully. Trash was normally an awful driver, so I knew that he had to be going somewhere important. I just clipped the red light as I followed him through, keeping a couple of cars between me and him as cover.

  ‘Kev says that they’re on their way and not to lose him,’ Rudd said helpfully with the phone still stuck to his ear.

  ‘Yeah thanks. Does he want to catch up and take over driving?’ I asked as Trash turned right into Upper Bedford Street and drove out of my view.