Wasted Lives, a Detective Mike Bridger novel

by Mark Bredenbeck

  Chapter Twenty

  The bullet caught him just below the right clavicle, striking the meaty part of the shoulder. A searing hot pain went straight through him, spinning him around and dropping him to the ground, the rough tarmac scraping his back and tearing open his shirt. He was expecting it but he did not think it would hurt this much. God it hurt like hell. He lay on the ground, staring at the sky, trying to control his breathing. The pain was getting worse as the initial adrenalin wore off and his body realised it had been shot. He struggled to make his muscles work but managed to put his hand up to his shoulder and felt a hot sticky wetness. When he pulled his hand back, he saw it was red with blood before it dropped uselessly to the ground beside him, the strength in his muscles giving out. He felt his heart starting to beat faster as it tried its best to compensate for the loss of fluid from its vascular system. His vision started to blur, the blue sky above him became grey and mottled, shadows fell across his face and then his sight became cloudy, sinking him even further into darkness. The last thing he saw before slipping into a murky unconsciousness was the distinctive shape of a rifle barrel pointing at his chest; the eyes staring out of the black mask behind it looked angry and confused.

  Bridger kicked at the shotgun that was lying to the side of Martin’s lifeless body, sending it scattering across the tarmac. Dropping to his knees, he placed his hand over the wound on his shoulder, trying desperately to stem the blood flow. “Get a bloody ambulance here right now,” he yelled looking at Gary and Ken who were standing above him, rifles still trained on Martin. He could not hear any breathing when he lent down close to his face, but then his ears were still ringing. He had felt the bullet fly past his ear so close that the tiny projectile had caused his eardrum to pop with the change in pressure.

  He knew who’s rifle it would have originated from and could not help wondering if he had actually missed his intended target. “You could have killed me, you dumb prick” Although he was angry and hyped up his voice lacked any real venom as he knew Ken had undoubtedly saved his life.

  “You’re welcome” Ken said, barely containing his own anger, before turning away and shouldering his rifle then pulling his radio from his belt and calling for medical assistance.

  “If you hadn’t been in the line of fire Mike then Ken wouldn’t have been put in that position,” Gary said disapprovingly “I’m not happy about what you did at all. You’re bloody lucky Ken is such a good shot, I’d say he saved your life.”

  Bridger noticed Gary had spoken in his quiet and contained voice, a voice that he used when he was extremely pissed off but needed to remain professional, but he was pissed off himself and did not have time for other people’s feelings.

  “Just save it for another time will you Gary, I need this boy alive. My wife’s safety depends on it.” Right now Bridger did not really care what he said or how he said it, he could repair those bridges if he had to. He would not be able to put Laura back together if McLaren’s henchman made her a victim. He continued to put pressure on the wound while compressing his chest at the same time, trying to bring him back.

  Gary crouched down beside him and started doing his own compressions in a rhythmic manner, so Bridger went back to using both hands on the wound.

  Martin gave a small cough below him and his eyelids fluttered slightly, his chest started rising and falling, it was very shallow but he was visibly breathing again.

  Bridger sucked in a deep breath of his own; Martin was not dead… yet. He opened his eyes slowly and looked directly up at him; his mouth was working up and down his tongue flicking inside his mouth as if searching for moisture. He spat out small flecks of blood that were landing on his lips, Martin was trying to say something.

  Bridger bent closer “What are you trying to say? I can’t quite catch it.” Martin’s voice was hoarse and shallow, the lung next to his wound not providing enough air to push out the words and he could not hear anything clearly. “The parcel? What parcel Martin? Where is this parcel?” Bridger had no idea what this meant. He watched helplessly as Martin’s eyes rolled back in his head and his mouth hung open but did not move anymore.

  “Shit… where is the bloody ambulance? I thought you had one on standby for times like these?” he looked up at Gary and Ken

  “We do, it should be here in a few moments, it was back behind the outer cordon” Gary had stood up again and was looking back down at Bridger “Don’t worry Mike, he will be alright”

  Ken Moore the man who had nearly shot him and most definitely shot Martin just snorted air from his nose and mouth as if he did not care either way.

  “He bloody well better be, for my wife’s sake,” the anger in Bridger’s voice had returned.

  “What do you mean; your wife’s safety depends on it?” Gary Stone looked like his blood pressure had just ratcheted up past boiling point. “Is she tied up with John and Jo’s disappearance? What about their safety Mike or have you forgotten about your colleagues?” There was more than a slight edge to his voice as if he questioned Bridger’s priorities. “Are you going to elaborate on any of this Mike?”

  Bridger did not answer, instead he looked at the watch on his wrist, he had 2 hours left before Joseph Kingi’s deadline and he had already failed in his first objective, things were not going his way. He pressed down harder on the wound, but the blood kept flowing.

  “Get that ambulance here now.”

  Detective Inspector Greg Matthews put the phone back on the cradle and contemplated the information he had just received. He was sitting in his small and stuffy office, a place he had begun to loath recently. It had never occurred to him that he might start having doubts about his work this late on in his career. He had not been able to shake the feelings ever since a fellow officer’s psychotic son, a case that had far-reaching implications for many people, kidnapped Marion Watson. He had been a Police Officer for the best part of 35 years; he had spent a brief stint as a police dog handler and then qualified and worked as a Detective for 15 of those years before climbing the ranks to where he was today. Policing was his life; it was in his blood, just as it was in his father’s blood before him. He recalled what his father, Sergeant Jim Matthews, had said to him on his graduation day from the police college when he had stood there proudly in front of him dressed in his crisp blue uniform.

  ‘Son, in this job there are two types of people, those that follow the sometimes obtuse and strict rules of law and think they are doing a good and a just job, and more power to them, and then there are those who catch the criminals. It’s up to you what sort of person you are, but remember criminals are criminals and we all have a sworn duty to catch them.’

  He had not really given much thought to that bit of advice over the years, he was not quite sure what his father had meant; and his father had never repeated it, he had just sat back and watched as his son worked his way through the ranks. He thought about that, his father had not amounted to much in the job, he was happy to retire a Sergeant. Matthews had not been satisfied with that rank; he had wanted more from the job, and he had worked hard to get where he was, he had caught many criminals in the process. Did that make him the latter person his father was referring to? He was not anything like his father.

  He knew that he had cut some corners in his time, crossed a few lines, but never once had he lied in court when providing his ‘evidence in chief’. It was something he was proud of, he lived by the mantra that if nobody asked him directly then he did not tell. Defence lawyers had never pushed Mathews about how his evidence came into his possession, taking it at face value. Maybe it was his size and stature, which intimidated them, or the way he delivered his evidence in a sincere and believable manner. Then maybe he had just been lucky. His attitude was evidence is still evidence no matter how you came across it. Many criminals had gone to jail because of that, and they had all deserved it.

  The man downstairs in the cells had not gone to jail very often though. He had done time when the offence was violent enou
gh or public outrage would have been a probable outcome, but he had slipped past the net on numerous occasions. Baz Ropata was almost a protected man thanks to him, and it had never bothered him up until now.

  He had been receiving information from Baz for the best part of 20 years, ever since the night he had come across David McLaren, the same night his dog Zeus had died at McLaren’s hands. It was the most terrible sight he had seen up until then, his dog bleeding to death in a cold wet alleyway, and it had ended his career as a dog handler. However, the man who had inflicted those fatal wounds, the dangerous killer who had slain the man earlier, and who he found crouched against the fence crying quietly had been the one to facilitate his journey on his new career path.

  His first instinct had been to kick the shit out of him, make him pay for killing his dog but he did not. His blood had been boiling but he was glad he had managed to refrain, as David McLaren became his first real informant. He was pathetic that night, crying like a baby, babbling on about family and role models as if he was actually a decent human being lured off the path by some dark and evil force outside of his control. All Matthews remembered seeing was a killer, plain and simple; he did not really care how he ended up in that position or what sob story he was going to dish out. He had killed someone and he had killed his dog, he had wasted whatever opportunity life was going to throw him in that one moment.

  Matthews had seen the opportunity that presented itself; he knew what McLaren was offering him and grabbed it with two hands. He had used McLaren’s vulnerability and played on his conscience recruiting him as a snitch as he crouched on the ground crying and stroking the bloodied fur of the dead animal at their feet. That human source relationship had endured all this time via his trusted henchman Baz Ropata. McLaren had told him he wanted to make amends for Zeus and had been true to his word, providing a lot of information through Ropata about the local criminal element. Matthews had a lot of success on that information which had helped him make the jump into being a trainee Detective. When that information had started to dry up, McLaren thinking he had done enough to quell his conscience, Matthews had just reminded him that he would not want to be branded a grass while he was confined to jail, and so the information still flowed.

  Matthews was not stupid though, he knew McLaren had been throwing curve balls on a few occasions. McLaren had used him to further his own agenda by providing information or evidence against people he wanted out of the way. But as always he weighed up the evidence against the person it was used against; if that person was a criminal living on the edge of society and had got away with other things in the past then he used it, plain and simple, and he slept like a baby knowing another scumbag was off the street. His father’s words came back, a criminal is a criminal; it is all just a matter of time for them.

  He had never let on to anyone his connection with McLaren or Ropata and that was never going to change. He wondered if Bridger had the same sort of relationship with Joseph Kingi senior, it was not beyond possibility, he knew Bridger played his cards close to his chest. This little visit he was on at the prison could be just a little ruse to meet and exchange information but then it didn’t make much sense for Kingi senior to be dobbing his own son in to the police because that’s who was most certainly involved in the murder of the shop keeper. Brian Johnson had confirmed as much with his phone call earlier about the DNA match.

  All he knew for sure was that since Bridger had gone to the prison to visit Kingi, two of his officers had gone missing and Bridger had a photograph showing them in a state of hostage in some shithole somewhere. It pained him to admit but he thought Bridger was actually a decent Detective, someone who stood up for himself, so he knew the photo would be legitimate.

  He recalled an incident a long time back when Bridger had questioned him on a charging decision involving a domestic assault. He had balls to do that; Matthews had outranked him several times over even back then. He had him down as someone to watch, ever since that day. Sure, he was a bit 'rough and ready' and certainly not without personal problems, but then who did not have any of those. Deep down, he knew that whatever Bridger was doing it was what Bridger did best, which was work on his own.

  He knew he would never tell Bridger what he thought of him, that just was not his style. His was more of a ‘take no shit’ sort of guy, it had served him well throughout his later career and he knew he had gained a reputation of being a bit of a hard nut.

  He thought of reaching out to McLaren, but it was Baz Ropata in the cells now, not McLaren. He was the monkey, not the organ grinder and that posed a little problem. Baz had been arrested at the pad where his two subordinates had been held very recently and it made sense he would know where they were now, but he was also the monkey that danced to Joseph Kingi junior’s organ, just by nature of the gangs hierarchy so he would be loyal to Kingi to. If he pushed Ropata he risked his relationship with McLaren, but then what information had he received recently. He rubbed at his temples wishing the decision were easier.

  Although he did not know what connection McLaren had to this, he knew Ropata would know where they were holding his colleagues. He had never actually elicited any information from McLaren or Ropata; he only ever received the titbits that they threw his way; that was going to change today. Baz was going to tell him where they were, or he would sell that little monkey down the river, and even Baz would not survive being a grass within the Gang. He did not give a toss what McLaren thought, his colleague’s lives were at stake.

  Matthews stood up in his small stuffy office and tucked his shirt into his trousers before heading for the door, the reflection he caught in the polished brass nameplate as he walked out of the door looked drawn and haunted. He was getting to old for all this shit and he needed a break. He walked out into the hallway and took the short walk to the lifts, stepped inside and pushed the button marked ‘Basement level’. The cold concrete and painted block walled level with no natural light…, where the cells were.