Driving Dead

by Stephen G Collier

  ‘Why give it to me?’

  ‘Randall isn’t exactly my best buddy at the moment; he told me when he visited that there were supposed to be two detectives in the pub she took me to.’

  ‘And where were they?’ Jake asked, sitting down.

  ‘They pissed off for a fag, or so it seemed. By the time they returned, the damage had already been done and I was being dragged away to her car. The one I smashed up on the A45.’

  ‘But it was my cock-up as well. I should have stationed myself closer.’

  ‘But Randall and his detectives were in the club, not you. He should have had my back and he failed.’

  ‘I understand how you must feel.’

  ‘I think,’ she continued, ‘that you have a fair idea who this person is?’

  Jake slowly nodded. ‘Possibly,’ was all he said.

  ‘Perhaps a certain drug company?’

  ‘Possibly,’ he said again.

  Parker reached into her bag and took out a plain, unaddressed envelope. On the envelope, Jake saw the company logo. She handed it to Jake, who took it from her. He opened it.

  ‘This is an acquisition request for controlled drugs.’

  Parker nodded. ‘Any you recognise?’

  ‘I recognise precursors that metabolise into drugs found in some of our victims and in your blood sample. I’m sure Kirsty would be able to identify the others.’

  ‘Look who the requisition is from.’

  Jake looked to the bottom of the page.

  ‘Signed by Doctor Tanya Nicholls, it would seem.’

  Parker sat with her arms folded.

  ‘It doesn’t mean to say that she’s involved, but it does seem to be a smoking gun, I have to say.’

  ‘Could be somebody in her employ?’ Parker suggested.

  ‘It’s possible. But it could also be someone a bit closer to home.’ Jake didn’t want to reveal to Parker who they saw at the company the day before. Not just yet anyway. He picked up the phone and dialled Randall’s office. When Randall answered, he said, without any preamble, ‘We need to do a raid on Tanya Nicholls’ company.’

  ‘Why?’ was the curt reply.

  ‘I have some information, which may lead to our suspect.’

  ‘What sort of information?’

  ‘Positive proof that this company or its employees are developing clandestine drugs of a particularly nasty nature.’

  ‘Where did you get this information from?’

  ‘Parker.’

  ‘Are you at the hospital?’

  ‘No, she’s in my office.’

  ‘I’ll come over,’ and rang off.

  Fifteen minutes later, Randall blustered into Jake’s office. ‘What’s this all about?’

  Jake showed Randall the contents of the envelope Parker had given him. He looked at it briefly, glanced at Parker, and handed it back to Jake.

  ‘Means nothing to me.’

  ‘These drugs are part of the make-up of the drugs that have been killing my drivers.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean to say that this company is involved.’

  ‘No, but it’s a bloody good lead, don’t you think?’ Parker said.

  ‘Mmm, maybe, but it’s not enough to go and raid the place. Anyway, it’s not even in our county.’

  ‘You don’t think?’

  ‘No, I don’t think.’

  ‘What more do you want then?’

  ‘Caught red-handed in the biscuit jar would be good.’

  ‘Catching someone actually stealing the chemicals would call for a massive operation, much more than just raiding the place.’

  ‘We need something more concrete, sergeant, not just a drug requisition sheet.’

  ‘Which was found in the house where I was held,’ Parker interrupted.

  Jake was getting more and more frustrated by Randall’s attitude over the investigation. In fact, Jake was beginning to understand why the two departments found it difficult to get on with each other. ‘This is the best piece of concrete evidence that we’ve found,’ Parker said.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Jake said at last, ‘leave it to me. I’ll sort it out myself. And when we’re right don’t come cap in hand to me wanting a piece of the action.’

  Randall stuffed his hands in his pockets, huffed and walked out.

  ‘Typical! When we want help from CID, we have to fight for it, yet when they want help from us, we jump to it like good little soldiers.’

  Parker looked at Jake and grinned. ‘I knew I’d made the right decision.’

  ‘Now all we’ve got to do is work out how to get into the building without a warrant.’ They both sat thinking.

  ‘Perhaps you won’t have to,’ a voice said from outside his office. ‘I told you, I’ve got your back, Jake,’ said Stevens as he entered the office.

  ‘How did you know Randall was here?’

  ‘I’m a detective,’ he said grinning.

  ‘So what do you suggest?’

  ‘Why don’t you go and wait outside her house? You know where she lives, don’t you?’

  Jake nodded.

  ‘Well then, job’s a good ‘un, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Not that easy, surely?’

  ‘Happens all the time.’

  ‘But I can’t recognise any of my captors, unless I see their eyes,’ Parker said.

  ‘Didn’t you hit one of them, when you escaped?’

  ‘Yes,’

  ‘Enough to hurt them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Time to come clean, Jake thought. ‘When Kirsty and I visited Tanya yesterday.’ Stevens looked quizzically at Jake. ‘Don’t ask. When we left or, more correctly, when we were thrown out…’

  Stevens looked at Jake. ‘Ah, we’ll make a detective of you yet, Jake.’

  Jake just shook his head and continued. ‘We saw Simone Nicholls enter the building and she had a right shiner.’

  ‘Which side?’ Parker asked.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘With a cut?’

  Jake nodded.

  ‘That’s her then. It’s got to be. Too much of a coincidence otherwise, don’t you think?’

  ‘Indeed it is,’ Stevens said, ‘I think that’s enough to at least bang on her front door and convince our illustrious leader.’

  ‘No, Clive, he had his chance. Leave it to us.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘Yes, and you, but only if you’re sure it won’t get you into more trouble.’

  ‘Trouble, is my middle name,’ Stevens said.

  They agreed on a plan of action. Parker couldn’t get involved, because of her injuries, but when it came to doing an identification parade, she’d be there, no doubt about that.

  ‘What I can’t understand,’ Parker said, as she struggled to stand up and was helped by Stevens, ‘is that there were two of them. I’m convinced that they were both female, but they never spoke. I got the impression that they were a bit out of their depth, didn’t really know what to do with me.’

  ‘So, we’re looking for an accomplice for Simone Nicholls.’

  ‘It would seem so,’ Stevens said.

  ‘We’ll have to ask, after we’ve arrested her, won’t we, Clive?’

  49

  Jake and Stevens wasted no time in trying to find Simone Nicholls. They parked outside Tanya Nicholls’s house and waited for her to return. Jake had decided not to tell Kirsty what they were doing. He didn’t want to compromise what friendship she had left with Tanya.

  But he couldn’t get the nagging feeling out of the back of his mind that Tanya was somehow involved. And he was sure that Kirsty probably had the same feeling after their conversation in Tanya’s office. Something that was said at that meeting picked at his brain, but he couldn’t remember what.

  He and Stev
ens sat in an unmarked BMW saloon, secreted in a farm gateway a few yards from Nicholls’s house. They could just about see her driveway.

  Stevens sat in the passenger seat, stuffing a burger into his mouth. The aroma of the burger made Jake’s mouth water and he realised how hungry he was. He should have taken Stevens’ offer, when he invited him to partake.

  ‘Right,’ Stevens said, licking his fingers, wiping them off on a paper towel, ‘you can’t beat a great, greasy burger, can you?’

  ‘Just don’t get grease all over my upholstery, Clive, or the Super’ll have my balls in a sling. This is a new car, remember.’

  ‘And very posh it is too.’ He stuffed the container back into the plastic bag and put it down in the passenger well. ‘Wish we had cars this posh. Ford Focus is about it – and diesel at that,’ grumbled Stevens.

  They sat in the quiet of the evening; waiting and watching the sun go down.

  Stevens broke the silence. ‘Tell me about Dr Kingsfield and you?’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Jake kept his head looking out of the driver’s side window. He could see Stevens’ reflection.

  ‘That’s not what I heard.’

  ‘What did you hear, Clive?’

  ‘That you were shagging her.’

  Jake turned toward him. ‘I’m not and she’s your friend as well, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I know, sorry, a bit crude of me, but you do seem to spend a lot of time together. It’s been noticed.’

  ‘We’re friends, Clive. Just because a bloke likes the company of a woman doesn’t mean to say he’s, as you so crudely put it, shagging her.’

  ‘But, if you look at the statistics, it’s only a matter of time.’

  ‘So what if it is?’

  ‘Nothing, only you’re a divorcee, and…’

  ‘Don’t remind me.’

  ‘And she’s a widow, both single. So what’s the problem?’

  ‘I don’t see a problem, but the force does.’ Jake pointed to his Sergeant stripes on his epaulettes. ‘Hence these still,’ he said, tapping them.

  ‘Ah, so it’s the force then? Not your reluctance to take it a step further?’

  ‘Clive, I’ve just finished a bloody messy divorce. I don’t know whether I want to commit to another relationship at the moment.’ He decided to be economical with the truth on this matter, until it was necessary to admit the way things were.

  ‘Does she?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Haven’t you asked her?’

  ‘We’ve had a conversation.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We’re going to take it slow.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘Look, Clive, I like her. I know that. The whole bloody force knows it too. But I’ll do things in my own time.’

  ‘Just don’t leave it too long, OK?’

  ‘Do I need your permission?’

  Stevens shook his head.

  ‘Anyway, changing the subject, what’s happened to the Clive Stevens’ great sense of humour?’

  Stevens held his face front and quietly replied, ‘I grew up.’

  ‘What sort of answer is that?’

  Stevens was quiet for a moment, while he took a gulp of what was left of his coffee.

  ‘As a colleague of the same rank,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell you, but only you. Both of us have been through the ringer over the last twelve months.’

  Jake nodded. ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Jim Kingsfield was a good friend. A real friend. And you don’t get many of them in a lifetime, if at all. He took me under his wing, when I joined CID as a DC and he was my DS. I was the best man at his wedding with Kirsty. They were a fine couple. Both suited each other really well, and what happened was an absolute tragedy. Did you know, it hit me hard, harder than I ever thought it would? Spent six weeks on the sick, three of them at Flint House, on rehab.’

  ‘I didn’t realise, Clive. I thought you were just… Clive, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Yeah, I understand, but it sort of knocked the wind out of my sails, you know. Before I was known as the office joker. I still make the odd joke here and there, but as I said, I grew up. I understood that this wasn’t a game. Colleagues – friends – get hurt. I’d never had anything like that in my service up to that point, up to Jim’s death… ‘ His voice trailed away, and Jake looked at him. He thought he could see his eyes watering a little.

  ‘I only knew him as a Probie. We went our separate ways. Funny old life, the way it brought us back together, if only briefly.’

  ‘Yes, you don’t know what life has in store. Before Jim’s death, my attitude was live it, do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you know what they say, “shit happens”,’ he said, trying to lighten the mood. The sun had gone down and the interior of the car was also cooling. Jake did his jacket up, started the car and put the heater on.

  ‘You really like her, don’t you, Jake?’

  ‘Yes, I really like her.’

  He nodded. ‘Do me a favour will you?’

  ‘If I can.’

  ‘Look after her, look after her well – for Jim’s sake – will you?’

  ‘I will do that, Clive, as long as Randall keeps his nose out.’

  ‘I’ll make sure he will.’ Stevens pointed out an approaching car.

  ‘It’s Tanya’s Merc,’ Jake said.

  ‘And Simone’s in the passenger seat. I wonder where her car is?’ He grinned across at Jake. ‘Let’s go and find out, shall we?’

  Jake pulled out of the gateway they were parked in and drove the few yards to Nicholls’s house, parking across the drive, to prevent them from using the car to escape, if they were so inclined. They got out of the car and approached Simone Nicholls. Tanya was just putting the key into the house door lock, when she turned and saw Jake.

  ‘I told you that the next time we met, I wanted to see a warrant.’

  ‘We’re not here to talk to you. We’re here to talk to Simone.’

  ‘Why do you want to talk to me?’ Simone asked.

  Before they could answer, Tanya said, ‘She’s an employee of mine, so the same stands.’

  ‘Not on this occasion, Dr Nicholls,’ Stevens said.

  ‘And who are you?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Stevens, Major Crimes Unit.’

  Nicholls looked aghast at Stevens and shot a menacing look at Jake. She was clearly uncomfortable with two policemen standing on her drive, but Jake wondered whether she was going to make more of a fuss.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum. Just call our solicitor, will you?’

  Tanya came towards her daughter. ‘Are you sure about this?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Simone Nicholls, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder, grievous bodily harm and abduction. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence, if you do not mention when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you say will be given in evidence. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, and you’ll regret it.’ Simone answered with a threatening voice.

  Tanya went to say something, but Jake interrupted her. ‘It would be in your interests, Dr Nicholls, to keep quiet.’

  Stevens placed the handcuffs on Simone and marched her towards the car.

  ‘You haven’t heard the last of this,’ hissed Nicholls. ‘You’re making a big mistake.’

  ‘I’m sure we are,’ mumbled Jake, as he got into the car.

  50

  Randall sat at his desk reviewing action messages. A large mug of coffee steamed to one side, within reach of his outstretched hand. The heavy rain, which seemed to be a feature of the autumn, continued to pound on his office window. The occasional flash in the distance was enough to warn ev
eryone that the storm was coming. It was still hot and muggy, even in his office. He would have loved to open the window, but knew that would mean getting as wet as if he were standing outside.

  The light had faded so much in his office that he had to put on the desk lamp to the left of his computer screen. Flicking through the messages, nothing of importance screamed at him.

  He thought that the two most important cases on his desk, Jake’s car crash killer and those UIDs in the morgue had become stagnant. Randall needed to inject some life into them, but if nothing was coming in, there was little he could do. Perhaps a section on Crimewatch might help the bodies-in-the-wood scenario. He made a note to speak with media relations to see what they thought.

  The interview with Parker had revealed nothing, other than that worthless piece of paper that was floated at him. Although he thought that Jake might be right. There might be something in it after all. He made another note, on his list. Then there was the search for Frank Philpott, which seemed to be doing nothing either. That was an important task. Another all-ports warning and some press coverage might be best for that as well. CCTV perhaps might reveal something. He’d get Stevens to look into that, when he came in. Another note. Then there was Lord Fulborough. Randall needed to speak with him again, but the hospital wasn’t playing ball. Another note.

  He drained his coffee and stood from his desk, stretched and looked at his watch. It was just gone 08:00. He’d been in the office for a little over an hour. Time to reflect before the rest of the team arrived. Adjusting his tie, he decided to go to the restaurant for another coffee and to wash down a butty.

  As he made his way to the restaurant, he reflected on his time with Northants since his arrival and promotion from Thames Valley. He still felt a little lost. His integration into Northants had not gone as smoothly, as he would have wished. He seemed to have made too many enemies already in the short space of time he’d transferred in. He knew that he was not the most amiable of people. His time in the army built a suit of armour that very few were able to penetrate, and only if he let them, which wasn’t often enough.

  He tried with Dr Kingsfield, but her allegiance was to someone else, that was obvious. In a way he could understand why she’d been a little aloof. Her husband, after all, was a Detective Inspector, so Randall was probably barking up the wrong tree with that one. He genuinely wished her success in building her new relationship with Jake. Perhaps he ought to tell them both, one day.