The Amen Cadence

by J. J. Salkeld

  ‘No. He didn’t like it. He’s taking a gap year. You know, while he decides what to do.’

  ‘Very sensible. And might he have visited Martin Brothers? For a job interview, something like that?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  ‘I expect he’d have said, if he had an interview.’

  ‘Aye. I expect so. But he doesn’t say much, not to us, anyway.’

  ‘Teenagers, eh? Can’t live with them.’ Copeland paused, waiting for the smile in response, but it didn’t come. ‘Will Micky be at home now, Mr. Thompson?’

  ‘Aye. He’ll be asleep, I expect. He normally sleeps in until dinner time. We nag him about it, but it never does any good, does it? They live in their own world at that age, and the lad takes no notice of mum and dad anymore. That stopped about the same time he stopped holding our hand when we crossed the road.’

  The Thompson house looked neat in a way that was above and beyond the call of anyone’s duty. The clipped privet and bright white paintwork made Pepper feel inadequate, but also slightly repelled, somehow.

  Copeland knocked, stood back, and waited. He grinned when, at the third time of knocking, the door opened, revealing a slight young man in jeans that looked as if he was still putting them on - though it was hard to tell as they rode so low - and a T-shirt promoting a band, or possibly a video game, that Copeland had never heard of.

  ‘We’re police officers. I’m DC Rex Copeland, and this is acting DI Wilson. Can we come in for a minute?’

  ‘No. What’s this about?’

  ‘Your dad’s car. Look it’s nothing to worry about. Just a routine enquiry.’

  ‘You can’t come in. I know my rights.’

  ‘Of course you do. We just wanted to ask you if you ever drive your parent’s car? It’s not such a hard question, is it?’

  ‘Aye, I drive it sometimes. Now, is that it?’

  The lad swung the door closed, or almost closed. He looked down, and saw the shiny end of Copeland’s shoe on the doormat.

  ‘Look, Micky, I know that you haven’t been in any trouble before, so you probably don’t know how this works. But we’ve got a legal right to ask you our questions, and we will. Now we can either do that inside, or you can come with us to the station, right now. It’s your choice. But it’s the only choice you have, I’m afraid.’

  The door swung open.

  ‘Come in, then.’

  Rex stood aside and let Pepper go first. Micky Thompson led them into the kitchen. It was small, tidy, and blindingly clean. But then the lad obviously hadn’t had his breakfast yet.

  ‘What do you do, Micky?’

  ‘I thought you wanted to know about dad’s car.’

  ‘We do. Have you used it recently?’

  ‘Aye, a few times. He’s such a stingy bastard though, always complaining about me using his petrol, and all that.’

  ‘That’s dads for you.’ Copeland smiled, but the lad didn’t. ‘Have you been to a place on the industrial estate called Martin Brothers?’

  The lad wasn’t making any eye contact. But then he hadn’t been, not from the very start.

  ‘Martin Brothers? Aye, I did, actually. I was asking about a job they’d advertised.’

  ‘Any luck?’

  A shrug. ‘Never heard. But you never do, do you? They don’t give a shit, any of them.’

  Copeland was going to ask another question, but Pepper’s phone was ringing, and when he turned towards her, she gestured that they should go. She walked quickly back down the hall, and Copeland said his brief goodbyes and followed her.

  ‘That was Davey Hood’, she said, ‘he wants to meet.’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Aye, now. Come on, his mum’s place is only five minutes away. Chop, chop, Rex.’

  He grinned. ‘You know it’s probably borderline racist, saying that?’

  ‘Is it? All right then. How about this? Get a bloody move on, Rex, or I’ll send you back where you came from.’

  ‘Tottenham?’

  ‘Exactly. And you wouldn’t want that, would you? Not now you’ve had a taste of the good life up here, like.’

  Copeland laughed. ‘Christ, you really believe that shit, don’t you, Pepper?. But what about the lad? Anything?’

  ‘Couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding, love.’

  ‘Did you see that bruise, on his face?’

  ‘Aye, I did. Probably fell off his skateboard, or his BMX, or something.’

  Copeland drove, following Pepper’s arm-waving directions.

  ‘Why does he want a meet?’, asked Rex, as he was parking.

  ‘I suggested it, last night. What happened to Linda, that changes everything.’

  ‘I hope you’re not going to share any privileged intel with him, Pepper.’

  ‘Like what? We’ve got sod all to share. No, it’s just a chat, like, that’s all it is.’

  Hood opened the front door before Copeland had reached it, and the two men shook hands. Pepper held out her hand as well, and Hood shook.

  ‘Sitting room’, he said. ‘Mum’s upstairs.’

  The big man who’d been completely filling the small sofa stood up when Copeland walked in.

  ‘This is Josh’ said Hood, offering no further explanation, not that any was needed. The big man left the room like a rhino on tiptoe. The ornaments on the mantlepiece rattled, but at least none actually fell off.

  ‘I got the message last time, and I’ve not touched Young,’ said Hood, sitting down on his mum’s wing-backed chair and pointing at the sofa that Josh had just vacated. The cushions could do with a good plumping, thought Pepper, as she tried to get comfortable.

  ‘And has he left you alone?’ asked Pepper.

  ‘Aye, so far.’

  ‘So you’ve had no contact with him?’

  ‘Look, what’s this about? I’m just taking care of my mum, that’s all.’

  ‘So you have seen Young?’

  ‘I’ve had a word, aye.’

  ‘Did it help?’

  ‘Who? Him, or me?’

  ‘Either.’

  ‘It helped me, I’d say. Aye, it went pretty much as I’d expected.’

  ‘Look, Davey, this isn’t a game, you know. People could get hurt.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me. It’s war, is this. But you don’t only win by going straight over the top, like. That just brings medals, pinned on you posthumously by pricks, and I’ve got no plan to die just yet.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’

  ‘So what was this development you wanted to talk to me about, anyway? Have you found some proper evidence that it was Young who attacked mum, or what?’

  Pepper shook her head. ‘No, it’s not about your mum. It’s something else. A woman I know, someone I grew up, has been killed.’

  ‘Dai Young? I’ve not seen owt on the news about that. Are you keeping it all quiet, like?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t here that it happened, it was down in Birmingham.’

  ‘Birmingham? Didn’t know that you’d ever been that far south, Pepper.’

  ‘Not from choice, marra. Anyway, the point is that we’re pretty sure that Young was involved in my mate’s murder. Without going into the details, let’s just say that this woman was more than my friend.’

  ‘An informant?’

  ‘Used to be, aye.

  ‘Oh, I get it. She was on the run from Young.’ He paused, then clicked his fingers and pointed at Pepper. ‘And she was exposed by a mole in your lot, wasn’t she?’

  Pepper nodded, and glanced across at Copeland. He didn’t look impressed.

  ‘You’re not as green as you’re cabbage looking, Davey. That’s pretty much where we’re at, anyway.’

  ‘But you do know who this mole is, don’t you?’

  ‘No. Not yet, but we’re working on it.’

  ‘What about your oppo here? Could it be him, like?’

  ‘Now wait a minute’, said Copeland, starting to get up. ‘I’m getting bloody sick�
��’

  ‘You’re all right, mate’, said Davey Hood, smiling. ‘I know it’s not you.’

  ‘Well thanks very much….’

  Copeland wasn’t finished, but Pepper cut across him.

  ‘How do you know that, Davey?’

  ‘Because we know who your mole is.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You don’t need to know that.’

  ‘Yes, I fucking do. This isn’t a bloody war game.’

  ‘All right. We had a little chat with one of Young’s people last night, and he told us.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘There was a bit more to it, I admit it. But we didn’t lay a finger on the bloke. Didn’t have to. He was crying and pissing himself before we’d even started asking questions. A low threshold of anticipated pain, that’s what one of my old bosses called it. Very useful it is, and all. Anyway, that’s what chummy had. A very low threshold.’

  ‘Christ on a bike, Davey. Don’t tell me anything else, or we’ll have to nick you. So who do you reckon it is, then?’

  ‘Your station commander, Mary Clark.’

  ‘Bollocks. No way. Your bloke just told you any old shit to stop you from waterboarding him, or whatever.’

  ‘Then why did he have her personal mobile number on the burner he was carrying?’

  ‘What was the number?’

  Hood told Pepper from memory. You flash bastard, thought Copeland, while Pepper checked her phone.

  ‘That’s not proof’, she said.

  ‘I can get proof. If that’s what you really need, like. But I doubt that you do. Not really.’

  Pepper jumped up, walked quickly to the window, then back to the middle of the room. The china ornaments, flower girls and a balloon seller, were faintly agitated.

  ‘Shit. This can’t be true. No way’, she said, although her tone said something very different. How the hell hadn’t she spotted it before, she asked herself, even though she already knew the answer to that question. It was because Mary had never seemed like a proper copper; but that didn’t stop her having access to pretty much all of the information that the constabulary held. So she had a civilian’s vulnerability, but a copper’s knowledge.. But Mary couldn’t have known where Linda was, could she? After all Pepper herself didn’t know. Or at least not until she saw those pictures of her friend’s dead white hands, she didn’t.

  ‘Who else knows about this?’ asked Copeland, flatly.

  ‘Just a couple of my lads.’

  ‘Will they keep their mouths shut?’

  Hood just laughed. ‘I don’t think you need to worry about that, mate. That’s the least of your worries, at this point, I’d say. Now then, that’s my contribution to this little get-together, so what’s yours, eh? What I want is to bring that fucker Young down, and all I need to know from you two is this. How are you going to help me achieve my objective?’

  ‘Now you wait a minute, mate,’ Copeland began, but Pepper held up her hand.

  ‘Look, Davey, can you sit tight for a day or two? Just while I think this through. Take on board what you’ve told us, like. I don’t want to put anyone at any unnecessary risk. Will you and your mum be safe, meanwhile?’

  ‘Oh, aye, we’ll be safe all right. Don’t you worry about that. But I need an assurance that you won’t tip Mary Clark off. Because I just might need a word with her at some point myself.’

  ‘Jesus, no. Don’t have a word with anyone else, OK? You stay here and do nothing. We’ll be back, and we’ll sort out a way forward that works for all of us. A way forward that gets us all what we want.’

  ‘A world without Dai Young in it?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘No. It has to be something exactly like that, Pepper.’

  Pepper left work in time to collect Ben from the after school club, and he looked surprised, but happy, to see her. So he pushed his luck, and asked for an iced lolly from the corner shop. They only had two Zooms left, and Pepper almost felt guilty about buying both as she blew into the wrapper on Ben’s, and then her own.

  ‘What colour are you on, mum?’ he kept asking, as they walked, and Pepper kept telling him.

  ‘They all taste the same to me though, love, like Jelly Babies.’

  ‘No way, mum. Jelly Babies all taste different.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  The evening was soon passing much like any other, and Pepper was trying not to think about work. But she wasn’t surprised when she got a text from Copeland, about ten minutes after she’d sent Ben off to bed. She could hear his video game banging away upstairs, but he was entitled to his fifteen minutes of flames before sleep. Those were the rules, solemnly agreed. They both knew that he’d have another ten with the sound off afterwards, but neither of them talked about that.

  She looked in the cupboards for nibbles to offer Rex when he arrived, and could only find a couple of packets of crisps, the flavours that Ben didn’t like. They’d have to do. She was almost sure that she had a couple of bottles of wine left from her last big shop, but when she checked they’d gone. Was it her, or one of the sitters? Both explanations were equally likely. Just for a second she thought about nipping to the off licence and leaving Ben for five minutes, but that wasn’t going to happen. Worst case, she’d just send Rex off with a tenner to buy a bottle. But then she checked her purse. Shit. All she had was shrapnel.

  She needn’t have worried though, because Copeland came bearing food and wine. It was thoughtful, she thought, until she realised that they’d eaten kids’ snacks and drunk gin with no tonic the last time he’d been round, so maybe all he was displaying was a good copper’s memory. But she was grateful, and she said so.

  ‘I thought the wine might lubricate our brain cells’, he said. ‘Have you decided how to progress this? You’re not taking Hood’s word for it about the Super, I take it?’

  ‘No, of course not. And it’s not even his word, is it? Just what some un-named minion of Young’s said, while that huge mate of Davey’s had him in some kind of death-grip.’

  ‘Probably just sat on him.’

  Pepper laughed. ‘Aye, he was a big lad, wasn’t he? And all muscle too. Come on, let’s get this wine poured.’

  They sat in the sitting room. Copeland stayed quiet, and Pepper knew why. They were both asking themselves the same question, so she might as well give her answer.

  ‘Aye, I do believe that Mary’s at it, truth be told. As soon as Davey said it I realised.’

  ‘Why? Where’s the evidence?’

  ‘Nothing concrete, Rex. Just the way she’s been acting lately. Very up and down. And we all know that she’s just a civilian in uniform. It would be far too easy for the likes of Dai Young to put the bite on her, one way or another.’

  ‘Cash, do you think?’

  ‘No, not that. But you know what those bastards are like. They always find a way, don’t they?’

  ‘So you’re going to put it to her are you, straight out?’

  ‘Aye. In the morning.’

  ‘Alone, I take it.’

  ‘Aye, alone.’

  ‘And then what? What if she admits it to you, and what if she doesn’t?’

  ‘Exactly, Rex. I’m a bit stuck, either way. If she owns up, what’s next? And if she denies it, do I believe her anyway? But what if she doesn’t admit it, although she is actually dirty, then what’s her next move? Maybe we should concentrate on looking at that. It’s where all the risk is at, I’d say.’

  ‘Then she cuts and runs, surely?’

  ‘Yes, but where? Straight to Dai Young. And we both know what he does next, don’t we?’

  ‘Sends her on a nice little cruise?’

  ‘Yes, maybe, but it’d be the kind that finishes with a burial at sea.’

  ‘But you’ll warn her about that possibility, won’t you? If she denies it, I mean.’

  ‘Aye, I will. But I’m still worried about what might happen to her. I can’t afford to lose another friend, Rex, even if she is di
rty.’

  He nodded, and listened to the sound of gunfire from upstairs. He pointed towards the ceiling, and smiled.

  ‘Takes after his mum, does he?’

  ‘He’s got no-one else to take after, has he?’

  Rex wished he’d never asked. ‘So what if the Super owns up, then? Do you turn her in? After all, your mate died because of her.’

  ‘No, Rex, that can’t be down to the mole, whoever it is. I didn’t know where Linda was, genuinely, so none of us did. No-one at work could possibly have known.’

  ‘Maybe she had another handler on the force. Someone you didn’t know about.’

  ‘No, that’s not possible. I know that lots of our snouts put it about a bit, and earn where they can from different officers, but Linda wasn’t like that. She mainly told me stuff to get back at that useless husband of hers.’

  ‘He’s already been eliminated from the murder enquiry, I take it?’

  ‘Oh, aye. Took about thirty seconds for those two blokes from West Midlands who came up to interview Tommy today to decide that he didn’t do it. I’m not saying he wouldn’t have killed her, because I expect he would have, eventually. But she’d have to have been right in front of him at the time, like. He doesn’t have the gumption to find his underpants in the morning, that bloke, let alone track down Linda and the kids.’

  ‘All right,’ said Copeland thoughtfully, ‘let’s accept that the Super didn’t give up Linda, and assume that she does confess to you. That’s our best case, yeah? What are the next steps then?’

  ‘I’m going to offer her a deal. Informal, just between us, like. She gives us Dai Young, directly or indirectly, and in return she gets to resign, and doesn’t face trial.’

  ‘Are you serious? No way, Pepper. Who knows what she’s given Young, this last few months. No, she’s got to go away. I’m sorry, but she has. I know she’s a mate and everything, but come on.’

  ‘It’d kill her, Rex. I’m not exaggerating. She wouldn’t last five minutes inside. A cop in prison who was never even really a cop. Can you imagine that? It would be a living hell. But that’s not why we need to offer her a deal. This is our best chance of catching Dai Young, of actually nicking the man himself. Because you know how this plays out otherwise, don’t you? Even if we do manage to tie Linda’s killing back to Young it’ll be one of his lads who does the time, not him. He’s got the money and the clout to stay clear of all this. So long as he wasn’t the one who did the beating, and we both know it wasn’t, then he’ll not do a single day inside for this.’