by Mike Pannett
I abandoned my sodden slippers, splashed my way across the carpet, banging my right foot on the corner of the sideboard and all but ripping my little toe off. I hobbled, cursing, towards the foot of the stairs. The bedroom wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. In fact, it was virtually undamaged. The water was mostly running down the wall, into the little cast-iron fireplace and disappearing around the back of it. The bed, by some miracle, was dry, but just to be on the safe side I dragged it to the far side of the room. Out of curiosity I tried the pull-cord – and hey presto. Light. So it was only downstairs that had gone; shorted out in all probability.
The phone was ringing. I galloped downstairs, pausing only to curse afresh as I whacked the little toe of my left foot on the sideboard. ‘Yes!’ I roared into the mouthpiece.
It was Soapy. ‘You don’t sound very happy, cock-bod.’
Have you ever noticed how, when you’re really, really mad and just managing to control yourself, the thing most likely to push you over the edge is someone sounding like they haven’t a care in the world?
‘Lissen, you numpty, long-haired, idle, cack-handed pillock. Get yourself over here NOW! And bring your toothbrush and a fresh pair of underpants, because you ain’t leaving here till you’ve sorted this lot out. Now then.’
‘I was about to come, mate.’ Down the phone I could hear him drawing on his cigarette. ‘Just thought I’d wait till t’rain eased.’
‘Till the bloody rain eases? Soapy, my friend, if you wanna salvage something from your worthless life you’d better get in that clapped-out motor of yours and get down here, with your tools, in record time. And you will enter this house on your knees, hands clasped, praying that I don’t do what natural justice demands I do, and rip your bloody head off.’
There was a short silence, then a very subdued voice said, ‘Right, cock-bod. I’m on my way.’
I put the phone down, looked around at the drenched carpet, the hole in the ceiling, the water coursing down the chimney-breast, at my little toes, one with the nail hanging off, the other weeping blood onto the floor – and laughed out loud. For some reason it made me feel a little bit better.
When Soapy showed up, about twenty minutes later, he was – there’s no other word for it – abject in his apologies. ‘Bloody hell, Mike, I’m sorry, mate. Honest I am.’ He stood under the hole in the ceiling, poked at it with a long-handled screwdriver, then went outside. I followed him. The rain had stopped now, and the late afternoon sun was slanting through the linden trees. Steam was rising off the pantiles, and a solitary wasp was hovering above the little gap where we’d spotted the nest a few weeks previously. A couple of feet away from it, against the lead-lined gully that drained the water down towards the gutters, a tile had slipped, forming a sort of bridge.
‘There’s the source of our trouble,’ Soapy said. ‘T’water’s come down that gully, struck the loose ’un, and got in – bloody hell, Mike, see that crack in the chimney?’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Look, under where t’aerial’s fixed to it. Runs right down to the base there. I make it that’s two leaks you’ve got.’ He shook his head. ‘Tell you what, why don’t you put t’kettle on, eh? Then start praying for a spell of fair weather, old lad, because this is gonna tek some time to fettle.’
Chapter 4
Going Dutch
Inspector Finch had a pencil in his hand. As he walked to and fro, waiting for us to settle, he held it as if it were a cigarette, flicking imaginary ash off it every few seconds. From a man who’d given up smoking a year earlier it wasn’t a good sign. But I’d seen this all before. He was always like this when he had something on his mind – and a chief superintendent snapping at his ankles. He would have some sort of campaign to roll out. Either that or we were – jointly or individually – in for a rollicking. Because there was no doubt about it: he’d had one from higher up.
We were on the early turn, me and Fordy, Jayne and Ed, with Chris as duty sergeant. Let’s hope for a quiet shift, I was thinking, because we’re a man short. Thommo was rostered to be with us, but his missus had rung in to say he had a fever. Birdie went through a few routine matters.
‘You may have seen that the government’ he began, ‘have introduced new league tables to measure our performance against other Police Basic Command Units – or BCUs for short. In a nutshell it means that nationally our performance will be judged against other, similar nicks in rural areas. The tables will be published for all to see. The chief superintendent has high hopes that we will do well.’
Ed nudged me and whispered, ‘Thinks he’s a bloody football manager now. Do you think we’ll get some kind of sponsorship on our shirts Mike?’
‘What was that, PC Cowan?’
‘Nothing sir, just mentioned to Mike that we will do our best to hit the Premiership.’
‘This is not football Ed, this comes from Whitehall. You’d do well to take it seriously.’
‘Yes sir, of course sir.’
Birdie then got to the business that was clearly preying on his mind. ‘We’ve talked about ecstasy a couple of times recently, and I know that one or two of you are worried that it’s starting to be used more widely on our patch. So you’ll be pleased – or alarmed, take your pick – to hear that the intelligence unit confirms what you suspected. There’s been an explosion of its availability and use in the wider area around us. What we don’t want is to start finding it on sale outside every pub and club. Our chief superintendent has been keeping an eye on the situation. She tells me she’s very concerned about the problem and wants to know what we propose to do in order to get on top of it.’
Birdie paused, strolled to the window and looked out. It was a beautiful, sunny midsummer morning out there, with white puffy clouds sailing across a blue sky. It was hard to tell what was on his mind – whether he was awaiting a response from the floor, as it were – but we all sat and waited in silence. Nobody was going to say anything, not yet. Whenever the chief super got involved, Birdie jumped. And when Birdie jumped we knew that we too would soon be hopping.
‘Now,’ he said, turning to address us once more, ‘all we have locally is your individual observations and reports. It’s bits and pieces of information, arrests for possession, the collapse of that girl out at Pickering – and we’ve recently had Mike’s tip-off about the lad in the VW with cash to burn. Rumours, word-of-mouth, and a general feeling that the drug is increasingly available, am I correct?’
We mumbled our agreement.
‘The point is, we don’t really know what’s going on on the ground – not yet, at any rate. So what I’m proposing is a dedicated operation. Pannett.’ He turned and faced me – as did Jayne, Fordy and Ed.
‘Yes sir?’
‘You ran an operation – Clean Sweep I think it was called – a couple years back, didn’t you? Around the time you first joined us. Cannabis, am I right?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘And you got a decent result, I believe?’
‘Myself and PC Cowans made twenty-seven arrests, sir, and a number of seizures.’ I was going to add that I’d got a pat on the back from the former chief super, but decided not to push my luck.
‘Right. I want you to mount a similar operation as soon as we can get it organised. First of all, we want to know what’s out there. Ideally, we want a few leads on who’s supplying it. You and PC Ford will double up on this.’ Fordy looked surprised – as indeed I was. I’d presumed he’d team me up with Ed. Then I remembered that he was about to take off on his holidays. ‘We’ll make it a weekend op,’ Birdie continued, ‘and bring in a couple of Specials to keep the numbers up to strength. You will report to me.’
As he spoke, I saw Jayne pulling a face. She would love to have been in on this too, and to tell the truth I would happily have worked it with her, but I had no say in the matter. Fordy, on the other hand, was nudging me in the ribs and giving me the thumbs-up. He knew I would be up for this. And I knew he would give it everything. As the junior hand,
he was new to this kind of operation, and keen as mustard. For him, it was a chance to learn; for me, it was going back to what I used to do on an almost daily basis.
When I was in the Met we dealt with drugs around the clock. Observation, surveillance, stop-searches: it was a never-ending process – and a more proactive kind of crime fighting. I’d seen most things on the drug scene down there, having arrested numerous cannabis, heroin and crack dealers. I’d also dealt with some nasty individuals – and shrewd operators. Having said that, ecstasy was something relatively new to me. Ryedale rarely saw any hard drugs, whereas London was plagued with users and dealers of class A drugs. They’d be on the streets from ten in the morning until the early hours, seven days a week. Which was why many nicks had a dedicated full-time drugs squad. Here in Ryedale, with cannabis, ecstasy and so on, what people call the recreational drugs, you were looking at a much more restricted spread of activity. People looking for ‘something for the weekend’, people who had jobs, who you never saw in the week, would be out in force on a Friday and Saturday evening, to a lesser extent on a Sunday. So it didn’t take a genius to work out that we should launch our campaign over back-to-back late turns, on a Friday and Saturday. And Birdie agreed.
‘This is all right, mate,’ Fordy said as we made our way to Mennell Motors the next day. We were both in plain clothes, and we were on foot. ‘Always fancied working undercover.’ We’d come in to work a couple of hours early and plotted out what we were going to do. This would take the form of old-fashioned policing. We’d looked at the intelligence system locally for details of who had been arrested in possession, or reports on anybody who was thought to be involved in some way. Experience told me that the best chance of catching the low-level dealers was when they were moving their merchandise around from A to B, either on foot or by car, and generally before the punters hit the pubs. Our plan was to carry out as many stop and searches as possible and give the users and dealers a hard time, to cause them as much disruption as possible. We didn’t need to hit the jackpot. Experience told me that the small finds can often give you the intelligence leads that point the way to the main players.
‘Yeah,’ I said, answering Fordy’s earlier remark. ‘It’s hardly what I’d call undercover. But it makes a change, doesn’t it?’
We were walking into the wire-fenced compound. They had a number of white vans there, and a couple of fairly nondescript saloons – just the sort of thing we wanted for an operation like this that had a limited lifespan. Plenty of people – particularly the kinds of people we would be looking at – would be likely to recognise me and Fordy. They’d have seen us on patrol, in many cases got involved with us. So the anonymous hire-car, it gives you a head start. ‘Once you start doing stop-and-searches,’ I said, ‘word’s gonna get out, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose so. They’ll be on their mobiles.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘The minute we start pulling people over, you mark my words, they’ll be on to their mates in a flash. I reckon we’ll do well to get one evening in Malton, another in Pickering and Helmsley, then we might as well shut up shop.’
‘Sounds like we need to get lucky,’ Fordy said.
‘And soon,’ I added.
We hired a Vauxhall Corsa, a nice, plain saloon car, several years old, the sort of thing that might belong to a student, a hairdresser, some pensioner who never went any further than the supermarket once a week. Unobtrusive. So when Fordy got in the car and whipped out a pair of mirrored sunglasses I had to give him the hard word. ‘Gary, lad, this ain’t Miami Vice, y’know.’
‘I just thought it’d help. So they wouldn’t recognise us.’
‘Not recognise us? Fordy me old mucker, you might as well get a bloody great neon sign and stick it on top of the car. Police. Disguised as Ordinary Blokes. I mean, two fellers out together? Cruising the streets at twenty miles an hour and clocking everyone who looks a bit dodgy – and one of them is wearing shades?’ I laughed – and even Fordy could see the funny side now. ‘Nah. Save ’em for the holidays, buddy. Besides,’ I added, ‘the sun’s gone in.’
That Friday evening was near enough a total let-down. We made a number of stop-searches, and all we got for our trouble was a lot of abuse and aggravation. An operation such as this isn’t as simple as it sounds. Just because you suspect that drugs are circulating it doesn’t give you carte blanche to stop everyone you come across. Basically, you have to have reasonable grounds to suspect the person is in possession of drugs. However, I have long since learnt that you can go around and speak to whoever you want. There’s no law against that, and experience does give you an idea of what to look out for: the fixed pupils, the smell of cannabis, the person’s demeanour – and of course any intelligence or local knowledge. Obviously most people dislike being stopped and searched. It’s intrusive and personal. People kick off because they have nothing on them and feel empowered to object, knowing they are clean. Others kick off because they are carrying something and want to deter you. My personal opinion is that it’s an absolutely vital tool for the police to have. If you take away the power to stop and search – well, we may as well pack up and go home.
So we more or less drew a blank that night, although we did get one result when we chanced upon a group of lads on a bench outside the swimming pool. We might not have bothered had they not looked so startled when we drew alongside. They had a few spliffs between them, and we duly arrested them, took them back to the station and cautioned them. But it was a frustrating start. Not what we were after at all.
Fordy was properly downcast by the end of the shift. ‘I was hoping for better than this,’ he said, as he drove us back to base about half past midnight. ‘I mean, how many stop-searches have we conducted?’
I flipped open my notebook. ‘A dozen, just the four that were positive. Look on the bright side, Fordy. That’s one in three – not a bad strike rate. I once did a street robbery operation in Croydon where we stop searched over 350 people and made forty-seven arrests in the week. What’s that? About . . . Oh, I can’t do the figures. Too bloody late at night.’
‘One in seven, mate.’
‘There you go then. Tonight’s ratio isn’t that bad.’
‘Yeah, but not a sniff of the result we’re after.’
‘Well Fordy, as they probably told you when you joined up, it’s not like on the telly. These things can take time – and a lot of luck.’
‘Yeah, I suppose you’re right. It’s just frustrating.’
‘Look,’ I said. We were at the back of the police station now, and he was manoeuvring the Corsa into the far corner of the car park where it would be hidden away among the shrubs. ‘This sort of operation is a bit like going fishing. You have to be patient. You have to wait for that little nibble. And you have to accept that some days you’re going to go home with nothing to show for your trouble but a stiff back and frozen feet. I had far worse days in the Met. I remember sitting outside some guy’s flat for ten hours waiting for him to come out – and then it turns out he moved house a week ago and no bugger’s bothered to tell me. Patience, lad, that’s the name of the game.’
It was always amusing, working with a young lad like Fordy. It made me feel like a real old hand. I found myself talking to him the way the old lags in Battersea had addressed me when I first started, fresh out of Hendon and full of it. So the pair of us went home feeling a little low – and I was about to feel even lower. I arrived at Keeper’s Cottage to find Ann standing outside the back door shining a torch up at the roof and pulling a long face. There was a ladder propped against the wall, and a huge polythene sheet covering an expanse of roof where someone had stripped half the tiles off.
‘Let’s have it,’ I said. ‘What’s the state of play?’
‘Right,’ she said, ‘I’ve had Soapy. I think he spent the best part of the day here. Found him hard at it when I got in at teatime.’
‘Hard at what? Supping tea and having a crafty fag?’
‘No, he’ll have heard
me coming up the lane. By the time I got out of the car he’d managed to scoot up the ladder and raise a sweat.’ She pointed at a stack of tiles up against the side of the cottage. ‘As you can see, he’s made a start. Next job is to replace the timbers – well, some of them. They’re due to arrive some time in the next few days. Then he’s putting us a layer of roofing felt on, because it’s never had any, then they piece it all back together.’
‘They?’
‘He had some lad with him. Probably a blood relative working for peanuts.’
‘Great. Just what we need. I mean, here we are, halfway through the year already, and I haven’t even started on – well, you know what I’m talking about.’
‘Preparing for your sergeant’s exams?’
‘Yeah, that.’ I looked at my watch. ‘Damn. They’ll be closed, won’t they?’
‘The Farmers?’
‘Aye. I could murder a pint right now. Can’t remember the last time we got down there.’ We trudged into the house. ‘Oh well, guess we’ll have to do without, eh?’
‘Come on,’ Ann said, ‘there must be something in the drinks cabinet for a nightcap, surely?’
‘Didn’t know we had one of those.’
‘OK, the sideboard.’ We rummaged around and dug out half a bottle of cheap sherry left over from last year’s New Year’s Eve party, a bottle of very flat tonic water, a packet of Twiglets, and a dodgy-looking liqueur of some kind that neither of us could remember buying, let alone drinking.
‘We should never have given Walter that ouzo,’ I muttered.
‘Relax.’ Ann had reached deep into the top shelf and plucked out a bottle of rather expensive-looking malt whisky. ‘Will this do?’
I took a look at it. ‘Fifteen years old? I reckon it will.’ I perched myself on my recliner, and kicked away a sheet of newspaper. We’d spread papers all over the floor to try and dry it up as much as possible. The carpet was still outside, draped over the logpile.