by Ian Williams
Ian parked his old Mondeo at the end of the street. He could see number 3 easily. There was scaffolding up and builders were just finishing up for the day. He had got there at 4:30 p.m. As he parked up, the last stragglers from the local Primary school were departing in various directions, either walking in small groups or climbing into their parents Porsche Cayenne’s or BMW X5’s.These off road vehicles were more a reflection of the modern parents over blown protectiveness of their little darlings than any requirement to actually do any off road driving. People’s innate desire for protection on all levels led to a kind of secret arms race between parents, where once they were all driving small cars, then it was the estate cars and the Volvo’s and now the 4x4, Ian wondered when one day an over zealous parent would think, hmm an Abrahms tank might be a safer option as it can ride over the 4x4 with ease, I wonder if you can fit a baby seat and whether they come in pearlescent black or indigo blue, I must check on eBay when I get home. He got out of his car, shaking his head at the constant stream of 4x4s as they sped off, and put his coat on, lifting the lapels and doing up all the buttons on his three quarter length coat to block out the wintry wind which was blowing down the street, bringing with it the flotsam and jetsam of modern living, crisp packets, empty coke bottles, leaves and various other assorted items. It had been a sunny day, but as the sun descended the cold was enveloping everything and squeezing the warmth out of cars, buildings and people.
Number three had a black door with the heavy silver knocker and was half open when he approached it. A small bell to the right of the door was lit up by an external light. He pressed the bell and a sharp ring was heard from inside. A woman’s (at least he hoped it was a woman) high heels click clacked on the dark wooden floorboards. It didn’t take long for her to come down the hall. She opened the door and Ian saw she was dressed smartly in a long blue pin strip pencil skirt with white blouse. Small diamonds elegantly sparkled from her ear lobes, necklace and her left hand. In the background a chandelier gently swayed as the wind from outside was allowed in and through the hallway, a faint clinking as the crystals barged into one another could be heard resonating down the hallway, disappearing on the wind down the street.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Yes, Madam, my name is DI Carragher and I am in the area calling on residents asking about neighbourhood watch programs. Are you Louisa Jensen?’
‘Yes I am’ She proffered her left hand by means of an introduction, as DI Carragher held up his warrant card for inspection, Ian shook her hand gently and actually almost curtseyed as she had that upper class, almost regal air to her. The diamond engagement ring on her left hand was a monster, he’d seen smaller chandeliers. The house must have been worth a few million as well. Over her left shoulder Ian noticed a number of pieces of artwork hanging on the walls of the hall, all with their own light fixture which illuminated them in just the right manner.
‘Also for my records can I just confirm your husband’s name, occupation and whereabouts, and also that of your daughter, Sally?’
‘Well my husband is currently away on business in New York. He is in corporate finance and is putting together a big deal over there. I have just got in actually, I am a lawyer in the City, but then you probably know that as you seem to know a lot of things already inspector. Anyway the nanny has just left and my daughter, as you can hear…is in the kitchen, drawing, which is something that children feel the requirement to do rather noisily despite constant reminders... SALLY, PLEASE BE QUIET IN THERE’ shouted Louisa rather sternly through to her daughter in the kitchen. It was clear that Ian needed to leave them to it. They were both safe and Louisa did keep looking round in the hope that Ian would get the message, she was far too polite to tell him to piss off but if she looked any further down her nose at him she was liable to fall over.
‘Sorry to have kept you Mrs Jensen, do you have any issues with security at all? Is the neighbourhood watch to your satisfaction?’
‘Well to be honest we do have an alarm although it’s been turned off for the past two weeks as the builders have been here doing some external improvements whilst also installing a new bathroom upstairs. The place has been a bit messy but they are nearly there. The neighbourhood watch are fine; nothing ever seems to happen here to be honest. But thank you for your time inspector’
Before Ian could say thank you Louisa was off down the hall, berating Sally as she got nearer the kitchen. No worries so far then. Looks like he was in time. Once the surveillance was set up they could just sit and wait.
By 6 p.m. the two teams were in place at both ends of the street. Doug Livermore and Robert Paisley had parked near Ian’s car opposite number 1. They had a decent view and were screened by a blue van so anybody coming down the street towards them wouldn’t necessarily see the car from too far away. It was a standard issue silver grey Mondeo. The two occupants would keep each other entertained, usually with dirty jokes, constant verbal abuse and sexual innuendo, lubricated with enough coffee and scotch eggs to keep a whole army on their toes. Doug and Bob were old school, early fifties far too fat, and sick to the back teeth of policy procedure paperwork and political correctness. They didn’t class themselves as sexist, racist or any other type of ‘ist’ for that matter, but they did prefer ‘the good old days’ when you could give someone a slap and they knew to behave. But they had a wealth of experience and some very good arrests under their belts. They were career coppers, once out of the force they would probably die early of a heart attack and boredom. Policing was their life…well policing interspersed with drinking, gambling and constant swearing, as well as looking at anything in a skirt under forty within a hundred metre radius. However their letching at the ladies had been reduced somewhat after the incident a few months back when they had the unfortunate notion of letching at someone as they walked into the station only to realise it was actually a man in drag. They didn’t live that down for several weeks.
The other car was in place ten minutes later. The two other detectives were youngsters by comparison. They had a more modern approach, fresh out of University, they had all the qualifications but without any real experience, although it didn’t stop them thinking they knew everything. Jacob Williamson and Joseph Lawrenson had joined the force at the same time and followed the same path. They were together all the time and took constant stick. ‘The two disciples’ they used to be called rather affectionately by the rest of the lads. Doug and Bob in particular loved the religious connotations of their first names. Doug’s favourite was ‘Oi Jacob and Joseph, can you just give your dad a ring and ask him what time is he expecting me’. Bobs favourite was constantly asking Joseph if his latest girlfriend was pregnant or not. If she is and its not yours make sure she doesn’t blame a ‘higher power’ for god’s sake. Look at the last woman who did that, she told a little white lie and they are still talking about it two thousand years later.
It was getting dark when the thermal imaging van arrived. The van was actually a dark blue Ford Transit van. They didn’t even bother cleaning it; the theory was it just looked like hundreds of other vans. As Ian went round to the back of the van and opened the door he saw various aspiring comedians had written in the dirt ‘Clean me’, ‘sshh..Immigrants sleeping’ and Ian’s favourite of the three ‘I wish my wife was this dirty’. Ian climbed into the back and was amazed to find it was full of high tech equipment. There were screens, keyboards, knobs and switches everywhere. There wasn’t much room either. Ian had to squat down in order to talk to the two people in there, the ‘tech-ees’ as they were known. The equipment looked like something out of a nuclear submarine, however its occupants looked more like they won first and second prize in the Bill Gates lookalike competition. Steve & Steve…which obviously wasn’t helpful, however Ian knew them more colloquially as Spotty Steve and hippy Steve, and was never afraid to call them this either.
‘Hello Spotty, where’s Superted’ said Ian giggling. Such a corny line but he loved that one. ‘Hello hippy, how’s things?’
‘Piss off Ian’ they both retorted in unison. Rank meant nothing to these two. As clearly neither did soap or a barbers shop but never mind. The stick they got probably warranted a frosty reception so Ian let it pass.
‘So lads, what have you got for me, are you all set up?’
‘It will take about ten minutes to get everything up and running. We would explain what we are going to do but unless it’s about football, women or fatty foods you probably won’t understand so we won’t bother’ said Spotty Steve frostily.
Ian picked up a rather rough looking copy of Stuff magazine and flicked through it whilst he waited. Some of the gadgets in there were amazing, the new HDTVs, the Wii, the new laptops, however a lot of the narrative was beyond him and sometimes even what he was meant to be looking at. On the plus side there were a few pages where he knew exactly what he was looking at, a hot woman with hardly any clothes on holding some new gadget. In all fairness it took a while to work out that she was actually holding anything apart from his thorough and undivided attention.
Hippy peered over and said ‘She’s holding an external hard drive, in case you were wondering’
‘Never mind her; I think I’m holding an external hard drive of my own. Ding dong I never realised technology could be so interesting.’
Hippy snatched the magazine away from Ian and pointed at a large screen on the wall which had varying colours, some blacks, reds, yellows and a thousand others. All denoting the level of heat being given off by a particular object. The scaffolding was coming up black. The doors and windows had a light red colour and there were various other coloured shapes in the house. Hippy and Spotty adjusted knobs and switches and typed various things out with their keyboards whilst moving their mice at speed.
‘Just sharpening up the image DI Carragher will be with you in a minute’. After a couple more minutes they confirmed they were ready.
‘Right then here we go’ began Spotty. ‘So you can see the little girl there top left. That must be her bedroom. A small light is on in her room, and you can see that the landing light is also on. The bright square object downstairs will be the television. Looks like a forty two inch plasma from here. You can see her mother is sitting on the sofa. Now what else have we got?’
‘Err, Steve, what’s this?’ Spotty enquired to Hippy as he pointed at a large heat source upstairs.
‘Is it the boiler, looks about the right size?’
‘I don’t think so, it’s a bit misshapen and to be honest I actually think it might be a person…in fact confirmed that is a person, as if it is a boiler its just grown arms and stretched them above their head. Is that the husband then Ian?’
Ian looked at the screen, the colour drained from his face and he leant forward to get a closer look.
‘The father is in New York boys…that means there is somebody else in the house……oh shit, can you confirm exactly where she is?’
‘She…how do you know it’s a she guv’
‘Well the only other person who would be anywhere near that house, and especially hiding like that is Jane..She’s already in the house. She beat me here, she’s in the bloody house, shit shit shit..quick where is she exactly’
Spotty and Hippy reviewed the information before giving the really bad news ‘It looks like she is in the child’s room, in her cupboard…it must be a small walk in wardrobe. She’s sitting on the floor.’
Ian slowly swept his hand through his hair and stared at the red blob on the screen. This was bad, very bad. ‘What the fuck are we going to do now boys….’
Chapter 19 – ‘Okay I like it’