*****
DCI Miller had been back in the office since 11pm, his choices had been to stay in Glossop and co-ordinate the search for the attacker, or go back to HQ and see what he could find out about the amazing find of the attacker’s phone. He learnt shortly after stepping foot in his office that he had made the right choice. He had the attacker’s phone, which wasn’t locked, as well as his finger-prints, all over the screen. It was even logged into the owner’s Facebook profile. Saunders took enormous delight in showing these extraordinary exhibits to his boss.
“Tell you Sir, if this one had brains, he wouldn’t have enough to blow his nose.” Said Saunders, with a great deal of satisfaction and amusement present in his voice. Miller blinked and turned to his junior colleague.
“What, Keith, that doesn’t even make sense?”
“What doesn’t?” asked Saunders, scrolling through the attacker’s Facebook page, seemingly oblivious to what his boss was saying.
“What you just said. About blowing your nose. Anyway, can’t this guy just pop on a PC or another device now, and kick you out of his Facebook page?”
“Nah, I changed his password to TescoBigBoobs006. He’s not guessing that!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The mood was electric in all of the newsrooms up and down the country. As scoops go, this one was amazing, and none of the broadcasters or journalists on the night-shift could wait to get this sensational development out there. Britain’s most wanted man was now, about to become Britain’s thickest, dumbest idiot of all time.
Curtis Kennedy was the name of the man who had inflicted those absolutely abhorrent injuries on those poor victims. Kennedy’s photograph had been published via a police press release, along with the details that the police had managed to gather from his phone, and especially from his Facebook profile page.
“Have you seen this man?” asked Sky News. “This is the face of the DWP attacker. Curtis Kennedy, who police are seeking in relation to the horrific attacks in Manchester.” Said the BBC News presenter. “In a dramatic new development this evening, police have recovered the attacker’s phone from outside a DWP staff member’s home in Glossop. It is believed that he was waiting outside the property, waiting for an opportunity to attack the home-owner. But the attacker had been spotted, and whilst escaping, Curtis Kennedy left his mobile phone at the scene. The advice this evening, is do not approach this man, as he is very dangerous and is believed to be armed. If you have any idea where this man is, or if you have any information about him, please phone the number that has just appeared on your screen.”
*****
“Britain’s Dumbest Psycho!” Screamed The Sun’s front-page, alongside a photograph of the most-wanted man in the land. The police had deliberately chosen the least flattering image of Kennedy from his Facebook profile, to use as the official press pic. It was a picture of a pale, solemn looking youth, aged about twenty, looking like he was caned. He looked poor, and as though he had a bad attitude, and that he probably called himself MC Sick Rhymz or something equally as depressing.
Not to put too fine a point on it, the young man looked like any other generic chav, just another bland, paltry member of the idiotic Adidas North Face army. He certainly didn’t look like a man who was running a perverse campaign of evil against DWP workers. He didn’t look like the master-mind behind the UK’s most audacious and callous attempt to make an extremist style political statement about justice and fairness.
Instead, he looked like the kind of person who limped along the street with his hand down his tracksuit bottoms, holding his genitalia, in the misguided belief that this bizarre, unhygienic spectacle made him look “gangsta peng.” Indeed, the only impression that this extraordinary activity leaves on eye-witnesses is a strong desire to never shake hands with these imbeciles. Or use a door handle after them.
“This is the evil, cowardly piece of scum who attacks old ladies from behind, and yes, he’s on benefits.” Read the by-line.
The story had been absolutely massive prior to this extraordinary development. Now, there was nothing else to report on in the whole country. All TV, Radio, Online and Digital Media companies were tackling this development from every angle. At the heart of this journalism was the urgent need to uncover all of the information that they possibly could on Curtis Kennedy’s background. The other key objective was spreading the word as far and wide that this man needed to be found, and stopped.
“If you see this man, phone 999” was the simple message, and in fairness to the press, it was everywhere. Smart-phones, Kindles, PC’s, and basically any device that had an internet connection had pinged a message to its user about this “BREAKING NEWS” development. The key message was, get this evil little scrote off the streets.
Curtis Kennedy was born and raised on the gigantic council estate between Hyde and Glossop, called Hattersley. The estate was built to rehouse people from the slum clearances of Manchester in the 1960’s. As row after row of rotten, decaying terraced street was pulled down around the city, these brand new, spacious council homes were supposed to be the perfect solution to solve lots of problems that stemmed from those damp, cold, miserable, crumbling terraces.
But it wasn’t all plain sailing. Many of these new developments led to the “us and them” mentality which blights society today. The biggest mistake that the town planners made was to build these estates in the middle of nowhere. The feeling of isolation became a reality for many people, who had been ripped away from family and friends in their communities. The lack of jobs in the area and the lack of police resources so far away from the town, was a recipe for trouble here, and on so many similar “over-spill” or “sink” estates throughout the UK. It was the kind of place that people like Curtis Kennedy just fell into the world of petty-crime, anti-social behaviour and public self-molestation.
Within Curtis Kennedy’s local community on the Hattersley estate, a mile or so east of Hyde town centre, the idea of this well-known young dickhead being involved with the most serious crime in years was met with a great deal of derision.
“Is this a fucking prank?” asked local resident, Chardonnay Bradshaw of her Facebook friends, when sharing the BBC News story. Her comments box went mad with similar expressions of contempt and disbelief from people all over the Hattersley and Hyde community. Curtis Kennedy was a little scumbag, nobody was prepared to dispute it. But this, this was just completely stupid. Riding stolen mopeds into the canal was more this guy’s league.
“Not being funny, but I’ve seen this kind of thing before, they can’t find the actual real person who’s doing the crimes and that, so they just pick a random name out of the hat and stick it on them. There’s videos about it on Youtube.”
“I fucking hate Curtis Kennedy! But this is total balls mate, I’m not gonna lie.”
Similar discussions were taking place more publicly on the Manchester Evening News’ Facebook story. Dozens upon dozens of comments were making a mockery of the situation, and of Kennedy himself.
“Mate, this guy couldn’t tie his shoelaces until he was eighteen. Fuck off with this bullshit!”
“If Curtis Kennedy is responsible for those attacks, I’m Elvis Presley! The little fanny couldn’t fight his way out of his duvet. You need to delete this off your page before he comes and eggs your Gran’s house!”
“I used to teach Curtis Kennedy at Hattersley High, and I’m quite prepared to put my reputation on the line and state quite categorically that this is the most bizarre case of mistaken identity I’ve ever heard of. I’m so convinced by this, I’ve just phoned Manchester police and shared my views.”
The staff at the Manchester Evening News, as well as other reporters and presenters from other local media organisations such as BBC Radio Manchester and Granada TV were beginning to see an unusual trend in these comments. It was extremely unusual for a story to get such a strong reaction from the community, in fact, it was unheard of. Something just didn’t seem right with any of this. The M.E.
N were the first to add an air of caution to their own reports, by suddenly adding phrases such as “it is believed by police” and “the information supplied to us by the police suggests,” to the end of each paragraph.
Something just wasn’t right.
PART TWO
Curtis Kennedy was a very well-known young man in the area where he was brought up. He had quite literally pissed everybody off in the local community. From authority figures such as teachers, council staff, social workers and police officers, to ordinary members of the public. As the streets of Hattersley became unsafe for him to roam, due to the fact that so many people wanted to kick his head in, he began roaming other districts with his day-saver bus ticket. He had become one of Tameside’s best-known bell-ends, and was avoided by practically everybody who’d previously met him across the borough. He found the same reaction from people wherever he went, whether it was to Tameside’s main hub of Ashton, or around Hyde, or Stalybridge, Dukinfield, Denton. He’d even started making himself known as a total melon in Manchester itself, his attempts at selling weed, and acting like a ten-quid gangster in Piccadilly Gardens had earned him a few more enemies to add to the never-ending list. Wherever he went, his reputation as a fucking nugget had reached unprecedented levels.
Around a month before Kennedy was linked to the DWP attacks, he made the biggest error of judgement of his chaotic, twenty-two-year life. He robbed a local dealer at knife-point outside Pete’s Chippy in Hattersley. Kennedy had relieved the guy of his weed and a few hundred pounds, threatening to “chop your little fingers off.” It wasn’t much in terms of quantity, it was only an ounce or so, but the consequences turned out to be much worse than Kennedy could have ever imagined. The dealer was an old school associate of Kennedy’s, and as this individual wasn’t particularly “hard,” Kennedy saw him as a soft target, somebody that he could make a habit of robbing. But the dealer’s supplier had different ideas.
Kennedy was awoken that night by his mum’s front-door going in. Two massive black men wearing all black outfits had taken the door off its frame in the middle of the night, and were calmly walking around the house, switching all the lights on, and saying “Curtis! Curtis!” in a really soft, almost playful way. It was terrifying. His mum was screaming, and his sister was kicking off, shouting all sorts of racist abuse at the two men. They were massive, at least six-feet-five tall, they were built like SAS soldiers, and they looked the part too, both were at least twenty stone of brick-shithouse. They were very scary men, and the fact that they were so calm, and were talking so softly made their presence all the more sinister.
“Curtis! Come on out mate, let’s have a look at you,” shouted one of the men, trying to drown out the noise of Kennedy’s family. He had a broad Manc accent, possibly city centre, Moss-Side sort of area.
“You better get the fuck out my house now dickheads, or some real shit is going down, you get me?” shrieked Kennedy’s older sister, Madison, standing at the top of the stairs in just her knickers and bra, wobbling her head from side to side.
“Not going nowhere Princess, not until we’ve had a word with Curtis.” The calmness was totally unsettling.
Just then, Kennedy’s bedroom door opened and he walked slowly onto the landing. Madison shot him an icy-look of hatred, before going into her own bedroom, slamming the door so hard that the whole house shook.
“Stop slamming my fucking doors!” shouted Kennedy’s mum, obviously forgetting the seriousness of her front-door being lay in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.
“Yo, what’s up mans?” asked Kennedy, using his black accent.
“Come down here, and we won’t jump up and down on your jaw until its hanging off your face.” The man was speaking so calmly, he made it sound as though he was asking for a light for a cigarette.
“I’m coming man, what’s it look like I’m doing? Chill your bean yeah?”
“Shush now, or I’m going to push a cactus plant up your bottom.”
The two scary intruders laughed loudly as they saw that Kennedy started pissing in his pants, as he walked down the stairs. His light-grey, fake EA7 joggies from Cheetham Hill were turning a shade darker around the groin area.
“What the fuck’s up with this?” asked one as they high-fived. Both men laughed loudly. This was priceless.
“Go and get changed Curtis, you’re not getting in the boot of my car with all that squish running down your legs man. Go on, hurry up.”
“I’ll go and stand outside, make sure he doesn’t try and make his way through the window.” Said the other man, quietly. The first one, who’d done all the talking so far let out a massive laugh again, as though he’d just witnessed the funniest moment in his life so far.
Kennedy’s mum was now standing at the top of the stairs. She looked scared, and stressed, and frail. She was only young, late-thirties, but her life with Curtis Kennedy had clearly taken its toll.
“Don’t hurt him. Please! He’s special needs that lad. You can’t hurt a window-licker, can you?”
“We can do whatever we want, when he’s robbing our friends at knife-point. Didn’t even wear a mask or anything over his face. I see what you mean about him being a not-right. Anyway, tell him to hurry up.” The remaining black guy had really big, gentle looking brown eyes. He looked like a very nice man, and he sounded very calm and patient. But it was pretty obvious that he was a gangster, and that Curtis had messed up in a really big way, this time around.
“Oh, I’m going to bed. Can’t be doing with this lot at three-in-the-morning!” Kennedy’s mum turned and headed into her own bedroom. Kennedy reappeared, with another pair of pants on, they were filthy, and it looked as though he’d just raided the dirty washing basket to find them.
“What’s all this about then blud?” asked Kennedy, trying to make this sound trivial.
“It’s about you nicking our weed, and our money. So, pop your shoes on, so we can take you away and teach you a lesson, Curtis.”
Kennedy began wailing, and screaming. It sounded as though he was being spun around the room by his ears. But he wasn’t, he was just terrified. He’d heard of these two before, the Cole brothers. They looked after security for a number of high-profile people in the Manchester area. They were not the kind of blokes that you wanted to piss off.
The first black man grabbed Kennedy, hoisted him up in the air and onto his shoulder, then started carrying him out of the council house, and towards the all-black BMW. Once he reached the car, he pressed a button on his key-fob and the boot opened.
“Here, lie down in there. And don’t touch anything.”
“Fucks sake man!” protested Kennedy, but it fell on deaf ears. The man just slammed the boot shut, and moments after that, both doors were opened, then closed and the car pulled away. The Kennedy household was left in peace, but without a front-door.
*****
The Cole brothers had a great deal of fun driving their BMW around with Kennedy in the boot. They’d screeched around roundabouts, flinging him all around the boot. They’d built up speed on the dual carriageways, then slammed the brakes on, whooping with delight at the sound of Kennedy’s skinny little body crashing against the metal work in the boot.
“Alright, fuck off now!” he’d shouted. His pathetic pleas for mercy were met with more explosive sounds of laughter. Kennedy decided that he just needed to put up with this bullshit until they got bored, and let him go. But the two massive black men had different ideas.
After around thirty minutes, the car pulled up, and one of the men got out. Kennedy could hear a big chain being pulled, followed by a heavy, metal, banging sound. It was like a girder being scraped along the side of the car, followed by what sounded like a heavy gate being opened. Footsteps came back towards the car, and the car door closed again, then the vehicle started moving again. And then it stopped, and Kennedy realised that the gate that had just been opened, was being closed, and locked.
Once it was locked up, the footsteps returned to the car a
nd it pulled away slowly. Less than a minute later, the car stopped, the engine was switched off and the hand-brake was pulled on. Both car doors opened, and slammed shut. Kennedy was glad that this was finally all over, and he could go back home now.
The boot opened, and just as Kennedy was about to speak, he felt a bang in the face, and nothing else. He’d been knocked out with an expert blow to the temple. The two men pulled him out of the car, and one of them threw him onto his shoulder, whilst the other closed the boot. They walked across the car-park in silence, and into the steel, reinforced doors of an old red-brick cotton mill. Once they were in, and the doors were closed, they started talking.
“Are we just leaving him here then?”
“Yeah, Marco said just lock him in the dungeon, and he’ll sort it tomorrow.”
“Then what?”
“Then, I’m going to get a kebab roll, extra salad. What are you up to?”
“Nowt, if we’re done, I’ll get off. I’m ready for my bed.”
“Fair dos.”
After a short while, the two enormous blokes reached another solid steel door at the end of a long corridor. It took a few seconds to undo the gigantic padlock, but once it was unlocked, the door was pulled open to reveal what could only be described as a medieval prison cell. It was a small, cold, dark room. There were no windows, no toilet facilities, no lights. In the corner was a disgusting, damp looking mattress which looked as though it had dried blood stains smeared all over it.
The man who was carrying Kennedy on his shoulder stepped inside, and placed him down on the mattress. Before retreating out of the foul-smelling dungeon.
“Night night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
The big steel door was slammed shut, and the huge padlock was noisily reinstated.
The Final Cut Page 22
