For Richer, For Poorer

by Kerry Wilkinson

  Harriet didn’t move.

  The gunman stood at the front, the other three behind him. He waved the gun towards Ian. ‘Is there anything else I should know about?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Do you have any other way of contacting anyone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you expecting visitors?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good – now open the safe.’

  Harriet curled her toes, hoping Ian wouldn’t be stupid. She didn’t know how much money was locked away – but she did know all her expensive jewellery was in the safe. She didn’t care that much about it but Ian did. On the occasions he requested that she wore it out, he would spend a large part of the evening bragging to various other people about how much it cost.

  Ian’s eyes darted to the floor. ‘What safe?’

  In one swift movement, the gunman lunged forward and cracked the butt across Ian’s head. Harriet yelped but kept herself from screaming as her husband slumped sideways. Blood dripped onto their cream carpet and she again found herself drifting, thinking there was no way she’d be able to get that out. She’d once read that blood was worse than red wine. Harriet tried to blink away the ridiculous thoughts: why was she worrying about household things when her husband was bleeding? When her children were upstairs as a masked gang terrorised them? Was this normal?

  ‘I won’t ask again,’ the intruder said.

  Harriet opened her eyes and Ian tried to sit back up, even though he was swaying slightly. The blood drenched his hands and suit.

  The gunman pointed the weapon at Harriet again. ‘Don’t you care about your wife? Your kids?’

  The reply was low, almost a cough. ‘Of course.’

  ‘So where’s the safe?’

  Ian sighed. ‘It’s built into the wall in our bedroom.’ One of the other men stepped forward but Ian held up a hand, coughing a spray of blood into his lap. ‘I can’t open it.’

  Harriet could feel the cool ring of metal stinging her forehead as the gunman pushed the weapon into her skin.

  ‘No, really,’ Ian said, voice raised, panic making his voice crack. ‘There’s a timer – it can only be opened at certain times of the day. I swear, there’s no way around it.’

  The pressure of the gun metal eased slightly on Harriet’s forehead but she could still feel it tickling her skin. She suddenly realised her hands were balled, fingers digging into the material of the sofa. She didn’t risk moving but her eyes flittered around the room as the four intruders peered at each other.

  ‘That true?’ the gunman asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Harriet replied.

  ‘I’ll shoot her.’

  The man pushed forwards again, pressing Harriet deeper into the sofa. He had one hand on her throat, the other thrusting the gun into her temple.

  Ian’s voice had gone up an octave, squeaking in a way Harriet had never heard before. She couldn’t see him but the sofa popped up as he stood. ‘No! Honestly, it’s true.’

  ‘When can you open it again?’

  ‘Between six and eight in the morning.’

  Harriet’s eyes crossed again as she tried to peer at the trigger. The gunman’s weight was leaning into her windpipe and she couldn’t stop a gentle splutter from escaping.

  ‘Please . . .’ she whispered.

  Harriet had no idea how long passed but suddenly the pressure was gone and the man stepped away from the sofa. He wafted the gun towards them, indicating the two-seater in the corner. ‘Move over there – I guess we’re in for a long wait.’

  2

  Detective Inspector Jessica Daniel listened to the hum of the radio as everyone got into position. Four officers dressed like bulked-up ninjas around the back, six at the front: no guns but batons and bloody big boots if anyone kicked off. The four tactical entry team members at the door glanced backwards through the moonlit shambles of a front garden towards Jessica.

  She checked her watch, patted the incapacitating spray in her pocket for a reason she wasn’t quite sure of, and then nodded slightly.

  ‘POLICE, OPEN UP!’ Bang, bang, bang, thump, crack, oof, ouch, thump, thwack, stomp, stomp, stomp.

  Ouch?

  The army of black-clad big bastards blasted through the house, followed by a handful of uniformed officers. Jessica stepped inside behind them, peering down at the thin, pasty figure of a girl curled into a ball in the hallway, splinters of wood on top of her, a graze across her head. The officers had thundered through the door, stepping on the teenager without even realising.

  She moaned slightly as Jessica crouched. ‘You all right?’

  The girl uncurled herself, spitting onto the ground. ‘Fucking piggy pig pigs.’

  Good evening to you, too.

  Jessica pushed herself to her feet and followed the noise into what turned out to be the living room. Three young men were facing the wall, being frisked, as another girl shouted and swore at a female officer, including poetic gems such as:

  ‘You a lezzer, or what?’

  ‘You trying to touch me up?’

  ‘Get off my sodding tits.’

  ‘I’m going to ’ave you, you fat bitch. And your mum.’

  Jessica could only feel grateful that she no longer worked in uniform. Compared to some of the abuse hurled on a Friday night in the city centre, the young woman was positively delightful.

  The girl from the hallway was led in, clutching her elbow and making oinking noises, while two more lads were frogmarched down the stairs by Greater Manchester Police’s ninja squad. They were so thin that Jessica could see the outline of their ribs poking through their T-shirts, with scraggy unwashed hair hanging around their shoulders.

  Jessica blinked. Neither of them was him but just for a moment, because of the hair, it was as if he was still with her.

  The officers directed the lads to the wall where the other three were and told them to face it while they were frisked. ‘This one was in the toilet,’ a ninja said.

  The young man flung his arms wide. ‘I was taking a dump! Is that a crime nowadays? Christ’s sake. Big Brother Britain where you can’t even have a shite any more.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Jessica ordered sternly, creating a silence even she hadn’t expected.

  As the seven of them had their pockets turned out, Jessica surveyed the room. Behind and above, footsteps clunked around the dilapidated house. The walls were largely bare, with scrawny patches of ripped wallpaper clinging on for dear life. A light bulb was plugged into the fitting above, with no lampshade. The living room was sparse, with bare floorboards exposed: a television at one end with a games console and controllers on the floor in front of it, two sofas and a scuffed coffee table. Littered around the corners were empty coffee mugs, once-white plates with dried-on pieces of food, an upturned baked bean tin, cutlery, a set of speakers with a phone plugged into it, a bobble hat, a pair of dirty trainers, crumpled beer cans, empty bottles and a box of matches.

  Hmm . . . not what they were expecting.

  The house’s inhabitants were told to sit on the sofas, which they did with minimal complaining as the search team assembled behind Jessica. Even without turning she could sense their nervousness. Eventually she spun to face Detective Constable Archie Davey but his frown told her they hadn’t found what they were searching for upstairs. He was looking at his ridiculous tanned best, standing as tall as his alleged five-foot-eight frame would allow him.

  Jessica nodded a silent acknowledgement to tell the ninjas they were done for the evening and then stood watching Archie, listening until the other footsteps had disappeared back into the van outside. Upstairs and in one of the other downstairs rooms, Jessica could hear the remaining officers continuing the search.

  Archie strutted towards the sofa, lip curled, in his element. This was only a few streets away from where he’d grown up as a mouthy Mancunian. He was always going to end up either sticking people behind bars, or living behind them.

  His accent was as thick as ever,
extending the vowels: ‘Who lives ’ere?’

  No one spoke.

  Archie half-turned to Jessica. ‘Am I speaking English? I’m not in the mood for arseing around – who lives in this dive?’

  The thinnest of the males half-raised his hand. He was wearing skinny jeans, Dr Martens, what was probably a child’s T-shirt and had an earring through each ear. At best he was twenty.

  Jessica pointed a thumb towards the stairs. ‘Right, upstairs with me.’ As he started to climb to his feet, Jessica leant in and whispered in Archie’s ear: ‘Try not to kill anyone, please.’

  The house’s occupant stepped past Jessica and began creaking his way up the stairs, leading her into a bedroom with more exposed floorboards, an unmade bed and piles of clothes and shoes. He sat as Jessica tried to catch what Archie was shouting about downstairs. When she turned to him, the young man was staring up at her.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘Noel.’

  ‘I’m only going to ask this once, Noel – where are the drugs?’

  He shrugged. ‘What drugs?’

  Jessica raised her eyebrows, not breaking eye contact. ‘I told you I was only going to ask once.’

  ‘You can ask as many times as you like – I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Come on, Noel – people coming and going all hours, loud music, empty beer bottles and cans all over; this whole place reeks of smoke. How old are you?’

  A thunk erupted from the next-door room as one of the search-team officers dropped something.

  Noel’s eyes flittered sideways and back again. ‘Old enough.’

  ‘How old’s that?’

  ‘Nineteen.’

  ‘Who are the people downstairs?’

  He shrugged. ‘Mates.’

  ‘And what’s a nineteen-year-old doing in a big house like this by yourself?’

  Another shrug: ‘Living.’

  ‘Really?’

  One more shrug: ‘What about it?’

  ‘Not too many teenagers end up living in a place like this without parents.’

  The shrugs were beginning to annoy her now. ‘So?’

  ‘So, what’s going on here? Is this your parents’ house? Are you renting? Who’s your landlord? Get talking.’

  Jessica braced herself for the shrug that inevitably arrived, balling and unballing her fist. ‘You got a warrant?’

  ‘Didn’t someone show you it downstairs?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Jessica stepped backwards onto the landing, not taking her eyes from Noel and bellowing down the stairs for Archie. A minute later, Jessica thrust the warrant into Noel’s hand as Archie continued shouting at the teenagers downstairs. As Noel read, Jessica caught the end of Archie’s rant: ‘. . . and don’t think you can get away with shoving it up your arse because we’ve got dirty bastards at the station who’ll happily go digging . . .’

  Charming.

  Noel finished reading and peered up at Jessica. ‘Can I keep this?’

  ‘It’s yours.’

  ‘Good – I’m going to get it framed. It’ll be something to show visitors.’

  ‘Who’s your landlord?’

  ‘Me, I suppose. I own the house.’

  Jessica thought about all the tribulations she’d had to go through to buy a house. ‘You got a mortgage?’

  ‘I bought it outright.’

  Jessica couldn’t hold back the cough of derision. ‘You bought this house with cash?’

  Another shrug: ‘Gandhi once said that possession was a crime. He said “I can only possess certain things when I know that others who also want to possess similar things are able to do so”. He believed the only thing we could all possess was non-possession, so that none of us had anything at all.’

  Jessica’s toe was tapping in annoyance. ‘For someone who claims there aren’t any drugs in the house, you’re doing a pretty good impression of someone higher than the international space station.’

  Noel’s shoulders started to twitch again.

  ‘And stop bloody shrugging!’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘I want to know where the drugs are.’

  ‘There aren’t any. I just have my mates over during the week to play a few games, watch some movies, have a couple of drinks and a few fags. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘What about the noise?’

  ‘We have a few songs on the go: Smiths, Stone Roses, Oasis, Noel, the Mondays – not my fault if the neighbours wouldn’t know a good tune if someone shoved a guitar up their arses.’

  What was it with young men talking about sticking things up other people’s arses?

  Jessica took a moment to think and then ordered Noel to stand on the landing where she felt sure he couldn’t dispose of anything without her noticing. She popped her head around the door of the adjacent room, which turned out to be the bathroom, where an officer was hunting through a cabinet.

  ‘Anything?’ she asked.

  A shake of the head.

  Next door was a bedroom, where a pair of officers were searching through a stack of cardboard boxes. ‘Anything?’

  One of them nodded towards the wall, where a red-triangle Give Way road sign was propped up against the wall.

  Jessica couldn’t hide her disappointment. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘So far.’

  Jessica picked it up, straining unexpectedly under the weight and lugging it into the hallway. ‘Whose is this?’

  Noel shrugged. ‘Dunno – Chris’s I think.’

  ‘Who’s Chris?’

  ‘He’s downstairs.’

  Jessica dropped the sign at Noel’s feet. ‘Tell your mate he’s just cost you a front door. If we’d broken in here and not found anything, we’d have to fix it. As it is, we’re going to nick him for theft – and you can pay for your own door. Now – how did a kid like you afford a house like this?’

  ‘Inheritance – I got it at auction.’

  ‘Who owned it before you?’

  ‘I don’t know what he’s called. That lottery winner guy that was all over the news – what’s his name?’

  Jessica had a sinking feeling as she remembered the story. Everyone in the station had joked about it but no one would be laughing now. She sighed before answering for him. Someone had really ballsed things up.

  ‘It’s Martin Teague.’

  3

  Detective Sergeant Isobel Diamond perched on the edge of the spare desk in Jessica’s office as Archie strode back and forth. Jessica listened to him make the same floorboard creak for the fifth time and then snapped. ‘Will you sit down? You’re driving me crazy.’

  ‘Crazier,’ Izzy corrected.

  Archie flopped into the spare office chair, legs splayed wide, as ever, head bobbing up and down. ‘I still say we should’ve ripped up the floorboards. They’ve probably got bricks of heroin and dead cats under that house and we’ve let ’em get away with it. You can’t trust these student types.’

  ‘Weren’t you a student?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘Aye, but not like that.’

  ‘What – you hung around the park drinking cider instead of trashing your own house?’

  Archie stared at his shoes. ‘Not quite . . .’

  Jessica nodded towards Izzy. ‘Haven’t you got work to do now you’re off probation and a proper sergeant?’

  Izzy shook her head. ‘I’m hiding – that pillock Franks has been trying to get me to do some work for him but he has that way of looking at you as if he’s trying to chat you up.’

  ‘What do you expect from someone known as Wanky Frankie? How’s Dave?’

  DC David Rowlands had been assigned to Detective Inspector Franks several months previously and hadn’t escaped. Although they’d been firm friends, perhaps still were, Jessica and Rowlands had barely spoken since then.

  Izzy smiled in the weary way she did when she was trying to be nice. ‘He’s just busy all the time.’

  Jessica turned back t
o Archie. ‘Anyway, you know I’m going to get called upstairs any minute to try to justify this balls-up, so what have you got on Teague?’

  Archie clucked his tongue and straightened his suit. He replied with a twinkle in his eye: ‘Too important to do your own checking?’

  Jessica pointed to the papers on her desk, knowing she shouldn’t really take his lip: ‘Too busy.’

  Archie picked up a cardboard folder from the desk and passed across a printout from a news website. Jessica scanned it, recognising the photograph. The pudgy-faced man walking out of court was bald on top but with rough stubble covering his cheeks and chin. He was wearing a thick overcoat and offering a middle-fingered salute to the camera.

  ‘Martin Teague has been on our radar for yonks,’ Archie said. ‘He’s lived in the area his whole life and been in trouble for most of it. He was expelled from school for threatening to burn it down and ended up in this behavioural problem place. When he was eighteen, he spent four months in prison for an assault and he’s also been inside for a separate assault, handling stolen goods, as well as dealing amphetamines. In all, he has almost forty convictions for various things.’

  Jessica more or less knew that part of the story – it was the later parts she was sketchy on.

  ‘But then he turned himself around,’ she said sarcastically.

  ‘Quite,’ Archie replied. ‘Lucky sod won the lottery three years ago: nine point eight million quid. He bought a house out Cheadle way and set about spending it all. He bought a monster truck, a fleet of sports cars, and a nonleague football team. Inside the house, he had a full-sized cinema screen installed, he bought fifty old-fashioned arcade machines, plus he’d started having a rollercoaster built that ran around his back garden and looped into the house.’

  ‘Sounds like my place,’ Izzy said.

  Archie didn’t miss a beat: ‘He hired an entire Caribbean island on which to marry his childhood sweetheart and flew out two hundred people for a week-long celebration less than three months after winning.’ He flicked to the next page and continued: ‘Just over a year ago, inevitably, he was declared bankrupt. He’d been borrowing money against the interest but when the banks came calling, he’d spent it all.’