“But that’s how Chris always—”
“I know.” Roger removed his glasses; they were fogged up again. “He swallowed a book on forensic procedures, and that’s how he works. He gets good results, too. But there’s more to it than that, much more than procedure; feel the scene, absorb what it has to tell you.”
* * *
Later, after six hours of fire-scene examination, Roger Conniston trudged into the archaic Scenes of Crime Office at Wood Street Police Station and closed the door with a heel. Soot smeared his glasses, aluminium powder coated his nostrils and more streaked his forehead in a silver smudge. Paul was upstairs in CID, showing his fingerprint lifts and the sample of pool-burned carpet to some DC.
Through the rotten window frame, an icy breeze whistled accompaniment to a length of broken plastic gutter that tapped against the rippled glass. From across Wood Street, the Town Hall and the Crown Court buildings stared in sympathy.
Roger tossed a handful of exhibits onto his desk, and an envelope containing fingerprint lifts into the wire tray marked ‘Assorted Crap’. The tray below it declared ‘Lord Lucan Files’. He took off his waxed jacket and then noticed her. “Helen? Everything okay?”
Helen too was a Scenes of Crime Officer, though she had problems peeling her arse from the office chair. She sat hunched over her desk, sweater sleeves pulled way past her fingers and her greasy hair falling forward to obscure all but her chin. She ignored him. But it was nothing personal. She ignored everyone equally.
Sighing, he threw his CID6 report book on his desk. “How’re things with—”
“Don’t mention his name, Roger. I don’t want my aura polluting.”
“Your what?”
“Just leave it; I feel delicate right now.”
Roger rubbed his glasses on his waistcoat. “Delicate. Right.”
He perched on the chair next to her, replaced his glasses. “You know, Helen, if you need to talk. I know a really good brick wall...”
For a while, she said nothing, and it was a long enough while for him to feel awkward. Then she whispered, “Roger?”
“I’m here.”
She didn’t speak for a long time. Then, “Never mind.”
He came closer. “Can I ask you something?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Why would a woman put make-up on if she wasn’t going out?”
“Maybe she’s expecting a visitor.”
“But...” Annoyingly, it made sense. “Any other reason?”
“Why, what’s all—”
“Just wondering, nothing to fret about.”
“Is this woman married?”
He shrugged. “It’s just a hypothetical question.”
“Is this hypothetical woman married?” Helen didn’t move. The words could have been coming from a loud speaker wired up near her desk.
“Could be. Yes.”
“How come men are so thick?”
“Beg your pardon,” Roger said.
“Why do you think she puts make-up on, Roger?”
“She never used to—”
Paul barged into the office.
The privacy shattered, Roger blew an exasperated sigh. “It’s okay, Paul, we have spare doors.”
“Just enthusiastic, that’s all.” Paul hung his coat up.
“Yeah, well stop it; you’re annoying those of us who don’t give a shit.” Roger returned his attention to the tip of Helen’s chin. “You okay?”
She looked up. It was the first time today that he’d seen her face. She flicked her sweater-covered hand in his direction.
“Don’t fool me,” Paul said. “I know you give a shit.” He straightened his purple tie. “Hey, if you get this promotion, will you still come to scenes with me?”
Roger laughed, “Nope.”
“Won’t you miss it, being a Scenes of Crime Officer?” Paul asked. “You’ve had a month of acting-up, of pretending to be a boss. Which do you prefer?”
Roger rubbed the scars that ran across the bulbs of his left fingers, licked his lips, and said, “Retirement.”
Paul pulled at his tie again. “Chris’s turn now.”
“I wish him well.”
Jon Benedict, another SOCO, as much a stranger to work as Helen, appeared in the doorway. He stared at Roger.
“What now?”
Jon came closer and whispered, “Heard the Bulldog on the phone just now.”
“Saying what?”
“Dunno, exactly. All I caught was ‘meeting’, and ‘half an hour’.”
“Meeting?”
“Don’t know what about though,” Jon shrugged.
“That it?”
“He’s just left his office. Looked very suspicious to me.”
“Your mother looks suspicious to you.”
“The info’s there, mate, if you choose to use it.”
Roger thought for a second or two, then grabbed his coat and left the office, hurrying down the corridor, already searching in his pocket for the van keys.
— Four —
Inspector Colin Weston sat at his desk watching the slivers of cold sunlight glint through the blue lights of patrol cars parked in the back yard at Wood Street. It turned them a curious liver colour. Another forty minutes and the sun would be kissing the Wakefield horizon. He spat a chewed nail across the room then drummed his fingers.
The phone startled him.
“Weston.” He recognised the caller’s voice, listened intently to the caller’s words. “When’s he due for release?” He listened, nodded. “Where? Right, I want a meeting. Half an hour.” He stood and leaned against his desk, was about to hang up when he paused. “You still there? Good,” he said. “Don’t ever call me on this fucking line again.”
— Five —
The floodlights buzzed, blinked into life and then glowed almost humbly across the car park, slowly growing in intensity as Roger sat in his van and watched Weston’s BMW reverse out of its allotted space and snake towards the gate.
Roger started the van’s still warm engine and followed.
Weston nosed the BMW out of the junction and broke into the line of traffic.
A moment later, Roger tried to follow but Weston had already vanished. “Bastard!” He thumped the steering wheel and abandoned any thought of trying to find him now. He decided to wait for a better opportunity to arise. Where was he heading, Roger wondered, and who was he going to meet?
Across the busy street, silhouetted against the window of Mum’s Pantry, an old man ambled by, leaning forward as though walking into a private gale, the streetlamps glinting on his balding head. “Be careful out there, Hobnail.”
— Six —
Inspector Weston could have walked. But he chose to go by car because there was less chance of Conniston following. He parked the car in a narrow street behind the Theatre Royal and Opera House, and punched a hole through crowds of shoppers and rugby supporters. Any other day, the short journey on foot would have taken ten minutes; today it took twenty, and elicited countless profanities through Weston’s clenched teeth.
During the walk, he removed the epaulets from his white shirt and tucked them away in his coat pocket, followed by the clip tie. He slackened his top button. Weston was off-duty now. Head down, shoulders forward, he moved past the blackened façades of Victorian buildings and cobbled alleyways that shrieked in the wind, barging aside inattentive people.
Redundant Christmas lights stretched across Westgate and looked cheerless like pendant skeletons. And then he walked the periphery of the Bull Ring, a two-hundred-yard wide pedestrianised circle of banks, travel agents, pharmacies and beauty shops, glistening jewellers’ windows; filled with the smells and noises of cafes and delis, of newspaper vendors, Big Issue sellers. Busy introspective people.
A greying statue of Queen Victoria overlooked all this. Plastic benches surrounded her, and fake gas lanterns glowed in the twilight. The Town Hall clock spat four bells as Weston stepped onto Northgate. The Joker, his favourite town centre pub, loomed u
p on his left, its caricature sign creaked back and forth in a northerly breeze. He checked the Cartier that dangled next to a thick gold chain on his wrist and quickened his already rapid stride, hurling himself at the bland crowds.
* * *
The Joker was a proper pub, not one of these new fangled theme pubs. The beams in here were real, take them away and the ceiling would fall down. Behind the bar, Mac pulled ale from real pumps. The shine on the carpet was genuine one-hundred-percent blood, beer and puke. It added to the ambience – and kept the wine-drinking ‘elite’ away in their droves.
Weston strode for the far left corner, which afforded a good view of the only entrance, a place away from the public phone and the toilets, a place where he had met this man before. A double whisky waited for him. He removed his glasses, stared through heavy smoke and swallowed the scotch, revelled as it burned his throat.
“You’re late.”
A wooden chair creaked under Weston’s weight. “Tell me about this kid.”
The man’s hand reached out of the seclusion, placed a pint glass on the table and flicked cigar ash onto the floor. “He’s fresh. Wants to play in my gang.”
“I want it doing right. I don’t want no kid having a go just to impress you.”
“Everybody’s got to learn—”
“Not on my job. Break him in on a fucking ram raid or something.”
“This is where I break him in. My man, Colin, my rules.”
“I want someone else.”
“Take it or leave it.”
Pub noise blared. “What makes you think he can do it?”
“Because he’s desperate. Jess told me all about him.”
“Jess? If he was so fucking clever, he wouldn’t be in the clink.”
“Like I said, take it or leave it.”
Weston’s jowls wobbled above his shirt collar. “Better not let me down.”
“This Conniston, family man. Going for promotion you said.”
“You lost your best source because of him,” Weston said.
He nodded thoughtfully, “He’s the one grassed you up, eh?”
“Straight to my DCI.” His eyes narrowed, “I had to threaten him with the magic words ‘compensation’ and ‘publicity’.”
“But you’ve traded with me since—”
“No smoke without fire... One-offs, here and there. I’ve had to pull my neck right in!” He looked around at the crowd. No one paid him any attention.
“Just be careful—”
“I’m trapped. Every time I leave work to do business, he’s there following me around like a fart in a space-suit.”
The contact drained his beer, snapped his fingers at Mac. “He sounds like a pleb, Colin. Threaten him. Usually works with his sort.”
Weston drained his whisky, then peeled a cigar from his breast pocket, lit it and added to the smoke. “I caught him following me once; said if he ever came near me again outside work I’d pull his innards out through his arsehole.” He flicked ash every couple of seconds, hands always moving, fingers feeling the sticky grain of the table.
“It wouldn’t look good for his promotion if you complained he was harassing you.”
Weston shook his head. “It would draw more attention to me.”
The man stubbed out his cigar. “So you need to use action.”
“At last, the penny drops. I’m losing business because of him.” And then he growled, “I’m losing money.”
“Shouldn’t live so rich, Colin. It gives the game away—”
“My money, my lifestyle.”
The man tipped his empty glass. “Touché.”
“I want him out of the way; if he ever gets proof, I’m finished. And just because I bluffed ‘em once, don’t mean they’ll never investigate again.”
Mac coughed, placed two pints on the table.
“Seems you have another problem, then,” the contact said.
“Only one?”
“You’ll have to supply the metal and meet with the kid yourself. I’m in Manchester for the next ten days or so. Leaving tomorrow.”
“Marvellous. Some help you are.”
The man shrugged, watching Weston fidget. “Listen, I’ve got you a man, you provide the metal and the target. Job’s a good ‘un.” He sank back into the shadows. “Anyway, it’s good that you see the business from the sharp end for once. You barely get your stubby little fingers dirty these days.”
Through a defeated sigh, Weston said, “Gimme details.”
“Beaver. Thursday. Noon. Don’t be late.”
“Where?”
“Final RV, stable.”
Weston nodded.
Chapter Three
— One —
West Yorkshire Police Headquarters on Laburnum Road displayed a classical decorum lacking anywhere else in the Force. It was a huge brick-built monolith that boasted private gardens and silver service in its own restaurant; a place where visitors were shown the hub of police management. This was where the Senior Officers made the big decisions and this was where Chris Hutchinson now found himself. Like Roger before him, he was under scrutiny again by his Head of Department, Denis Bell, as part of a four-week promotional trial initiated by the death of Charles ‘Lanky’ Richardshaw of heart failure five months ago.
Chris was Roger’s colleague at Wood Street. They shared the same office and had developed a close friendship. Thanks to Lanky, things were about to change.
In co-operation with Bell, the Personnel Department had put eight prospective candidates for Lanky’s job through a series of role-playing scenarios that lasted a full day. Four of those scored high enough to qualify for an interview. Out of those four, only two made it through to the final stage. Chris and Roger.
Already friends, they were now rivals. And while each had congratulated the other and said May the best man win, Chris had said it with his fingers crossed. In another two weeks, Bell would decide which of the friends gave the orders and which acted on them.
On this particular Saturday afternoon, Chris was one of nine sitting around a polished mahogany table in the Old Library, listening to Bell ramble. The others were Supervisors within the Scenes of Crime Department, in charge of up to fifteen SOCOs, and responsible for providing forensic cover within their own Divisions, their own particular segment of the West Yorkshire County.
Chris twisted the gold wedding ring on his finger, then rested his chin on his fist.
All significance leaked out of Bell’s voice as it sank into a monotonous drone like listening to a conversation through a brick wall. The audience’s attention drifted; in particular, Chris’s mind wandered back to the promotion race, the promotion fight, and his impending victory.
“...refresher course at Durham, Chris?” Bell waited. Bell coughed.
Chris’s chin fell off his fist. “Sorry, Denis.”
“I trust you will take more notice of me in future Supervisors’ meetings. Should you be lucky enough to have any future meetings.”
“Sorry, Denis.”
“Mr Bell, to you, Chris. Mr Bell.”
Chris sat up straight. “Right. Mr Bell.”
“I want a list of those who qualify for a refresher course.”
Chris nodded.
The meeting, the lecture as Chris now thought it, lingered for a further ten minutes before Bell thankfully wrapped it up. “Okay, ladies and gentlemen, any other business before we leave?” He loitered only briefly. “Wonderful. Well, thank you for your attendance and don’t forget if there’s anything I can do for you, my door is always open, blah blah.”
Everyone stood to leave.
“Chris, a word, please,” Bell muttered.
“I’m really sorry about—”
Bell hushed him with a stare and moved towards the door.
Silently, Chris followed him along a series of corridors, absorbed by Bell’s short legs jabbing each stride as though stretching them any further would release whatever was clamped between his arse cheeks. He smiled at t
he image.
Bell unlocked his office door, admitted Chris and closed it behind him.
“Sit down.”
Spotlights illuminated a bookcase containing manuals of Forensic Science Case Studies, Post-mortem- and Scene Examination Best Practices, ACPO DNA Recommendations and several management manuals, all of which appeared unread. The office smelled of old men in green corduroy trousers; warm and dank.
Bell sank into his leather chair. He had cholesterol-ringed eyes and dark yellow teeth. “Paul settling in okay?”
Chris sat opposite on a cheap fabric chair, and prepared himself for the game – ‘the mind-fuck game’ as he called it, a delving session where the Old Man would prod his brain and assess his suitability for the post. He looked past Bell’s counterfeit smile and saw the contempt in his eyes.
“He’s doing fine. I think experience will—”
“What are you going to do to convince me to promote you instead of Conniston?”
Chris’s mind was blank. “Well, Roger’s a good man, Denis—”
“You’re supposed to be scoring points for yourself not the opposition.”
“Well—”
“And it’s Mr Bell, Chris. You’re not there yet. Don’t forget it.”
The barriers in Chris’s mind rose quickly.
Bell continued, “I have to say that you’re bordering on the Fail-to-Impress side of my desk. I’ve heard good things about you over the years and it’s why you’re here now, but you have to move up a level, a distinct level, in order to fulfil the role of Supervisor. And daydreaming in a meeting is not a quality I admire.”
Chris struggled with a vision of himself flying across the desk and wrapping his hands around Bell’s neck, squeezing until his fingers met his thumbs. He looked away, gathered himself.
“How would you feel if you got the job and Conniston had to take your instructions?”
Chris flushed with anticipation. “It would be an honour. And Roger? I wouldn’t treat him differently to anyone else on my staff. I think that’s important.”
“I think you’re right.” Bell leaned forward.
A Long Time Dead Page 2