Evil Impulse

by Leigh Russell

  ‘Have you seen this before?’ her interrogator asked.

  ‘No. What is it?’

  ‘I think you know what it is: heroin.’

  Geraldine did not answer, but she was filled with sudden dread.

  The woman indicated a second evidence bag. ‘What can you see now?’ She read out the reference number of the evidence bag for the tape.

  Geraldine shook her head. Understanding the gravity of her situation, she demanded a solicitor be present, and was locked in a cell while they waited. At last the interview resumed.

  ‘My client has not been charged,’ the solicitor intoned solemnly.

  He was around sixty, possibly close to retirement, rotund and rosy cheeked. In any other circumstances he might have looked more suited to the role of Father Christmas than that of a criminal lawyer. Geraldine hoped he was astute enough to grasp what was going on.

  ‘What can you see?’ the officer repeated.

  ‘Money,’ Geraldine answered. ‘I can see a bag stuffed full of bank notes.’

  ‘How much money is in there?’

  ‘How should I know? It’s not mine. I’ve never seen it before. But it looks like a lot.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘I just told you, I have no idea.’

  ‘Twenty thousand pounds. Do you deny it’s yours?’

  ‘Of course I deny it’s mine. I told you, I’ve never seen it before. Where would I get hold of that kind of cash? Has there been a withdrawal of twenty thousand pounds from my bank account? And have you found my fingerprints on any of the notes? Where is your evidence to connect me to the contents of these bags?’

  ‘How do you account for Class A drugs and a significant sum of cash being found concealed beneath your mattress in your flat?’

  ‘What?’ If Geraldine hadn’t been so terrified, she would have laughed. ‘That’s ridiculous. You can’t think I had anything to do with this.’

  ‘They were found in your flat,’ the male officer repeated quietly.

  ‘Then they must have been planted there.’

  ‘My client denies all knowledge of these items,’ the solicitor said.

  ‘This is an attack on my reputation, carried out by an aggrieved criminal.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ the blonde officer replied.

  ‘In the absence of any evidence, what you think is hardly relevant,’ the solicitor pointed out.

  With Geraldine insisting she knew nothing about the drugs or the money, the anti-corruption officers terminated the interview and she was marched back to a cell, too shocked to remonstrate at her continued incarceration.

  37

  Seated on a hard bunk in a police cell, Geraldine fought against a rising wave of panic as she gazed helplessly around the small room, taking in the familiar sight of a metal toilet, whitewashed walls, high barred window, and hard floor. She had seen the inside of such a cell many times in the past, but only once before from the viewpoint of a suspect, and that too had been as a result of her dealings with her sister. She had observed the faces of many people in custody, and they had evinced outrage, fury, terror, hopelessness, or resignation. Wondering which state of mind her own expression revealed, she did her best to maintain her outward composure while inwardly she gave in to a dark despair. After she had been sitting alone for what felt like hours, she called out to a guard and discovered that barely thirty minutes had elapsed since the door had been slammed on her. Another hour crawled by before a guard thumped on her door and shouted that she had a visitor. For a second, she hoped Ian had come to see her. She did her best to hide her disappointment when her portly solicitor entered the cell.

  ‘You have to believe me,’ she pleaded, despising herself for sounding so frantic. ‘The drugs and the money that were found in my flat had nothing to do with me. I’m being set up. How else would the anti-corruption unit have known about them? Someone must have tipped them off, which means someone knew what had been stashed under my bed. They wouldn’t go searching under my mattress unless they had been told what they would find there. For God’s sake, I’m an experienced police officer. Do you think I’d be ignorant enough to hide Class A drugs under my bed?’

  The solicitor smiled coldly at her. ‘We have to make a case that a jury will believe.’

  ‘Listen, I want to tell you something, but this has to be in confidence. I haven’t yet decided what I’m going to do.’

  The solicitor listened gravely to her account of what had happened.

  ‘You’re telling me you were abducted a week ago?’ the solicitor asked her.

  ‘Yes. Last Friday.’

  ‘And you say you were blindfolded and shackled and driven somewhere in a van?’

  Geraldine’s hopes faltered on hearing the incredulity in his voice. If her own defence counsel refused to accept her account of what had happened, it was unlikely a jury would believe her.

  ‘Why didn’t you report the assault straightaway?’ her lawyer asked.

  He sounded distant, and his beady little eyes seemed to glaze over, as though he had lost all interest in her now that he reckoned he could not win the case. Mentally, he was already walking out of the room, perhaps thinking about where he was going next, or what he was going to eat for dinner that evening. It only remained for him to go through the motions of preparing the defence he was being paid to deliver.

  ‘Yes, yes, I know I should have reported it at once, but they were threatening to kill my sister. I needed time to work out what I was going to do.’

  The solicitor shook his head with an expression of distaste on his round features. ‘Even if a jury believes your story, your silence isn’t going to help your case. As a police officer, you should have known better than to keep this concealed from your colleagues.’

  ‘They were threatening my sister’s life,’ Geraldine repeated helplessly. ‘I had to think about what to do.’

  ‘What to do? Are you suggesting you considered co-operating with these criminals?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘So if you weren’t sure whether to report the incident via the correct channels or not, what other possible alternative could you have been considering? Surely you weren’t planning to take the law into your own hands and deal with your assailants yourself?’ He was growing impatient with her.

  Geraldine hung her head. However she thought about it, her conduct had been inappropriate for a police officer. To anyone judging her case, it must appear that either she was now lying to cover up her involvement with drug dealers or she had concealed a crime, with the intention of taking the law into her own hands.

  ‘Did you tell anyone else about this?’ the solicitor asked.

  Geraldine hesitated. She was not sure whether Ian would have broken her confidence and revealed what he knew about Helena to anyone else. No one knew he had moved into Geraldine’s flat, and the last thing she wanted was to involve him in her troubles.

  ‘I told no one,’ she said, aware how easily her lie could be exposed.

  ‘Your defence seems to be that these items were planted in your flat without your knowledge, and you are being framed by a drug dealer as a warning about what will happen to your sister if you refuse to co-operate with him?’

  Geraldine nodded, aware that it sounded unlikely.

  ‘Very well. That is the story we will tell.’

  ‘It’s not a “story”,’ she protested, ‘it’s the truth.’

  The solicitor inclined his head. ‘So you claim, and we will use what you have told me in putting the case for your defence. Your years of service will be taken into account.’ He hesitated. ‘It is unfortunate that your record is not blameless. There remains a question mark over the reason for your demotion and relocation to York.’

  Geraldine did not answer.

  ‘Can you explain why you were apprehended in a London car park for
handing over a large sum of money to a known drug dealer?’

  ‘It was part of a set-up to have him arrested,’ she mumbled.

  ‘You don’t appear to have been working under cover for the drug squad at the time,’ the solicitor pointed out. ‘Did you ever, at any time, work for the drug squad?’

  Geraldine lowered her head and did not reply.

  ‘No, I thought not. So the question is: why did you take it on yourself to become involved with a drug dealer, without authorisation from a senior officer?’

  Geraldine shook her head. It was hard to see how she could account for her actions without involving her sister. With a sigh, she explained how she had taken Helena’s place, handing over a large sum of money in the hope that the dealer would leave her sister alone after that.

  ‘I was trying to persuade my sister to go into rehab. That was the deal. I would pay off her debt to her dealer, and she would do her best to kick the habit.’

  ‘Why couldn’t she hand the money over herself?’

  ‘That was what I agreed with her, but at the last minute she bottled it and refused to meet him. She wasn’t being exactly rational, but she was clearly afraid of him. Since we’re more or less identical, I agreed to see him in her place. That was the plan, anyway. Only the DS got a tip-off and I was arrested. It took some doing to extricate me from the situation.’

  ‘I can imagine. Well, first we will need to call your sister to corroborate your story and she’ll be subpoenaed to appear in court and give evidence.’

  ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘Geraldine, this may be your only hope if you want to avoid a custodial sentence.’

  Geraldine hesitated. She was not sure her sister would agree to appear in court to defend her. Helena might refuse, and simply disappear. Worse, without Geraldine’s support she might return to her former destructive habit. All of Geraldine’s sacrifice would have been for nothing. Even if she escaped conviction, her career would be over. There would be no coming back from this mess.

  38

  Having established where she had been taken, Ian hung back from visiting Geraldine in her cell. Telling himself he wanted to have positive news before speaking to her, he knew that his resistance was partly dictated by his reluctance to see her locked in a cell. Clinging to the hope that she would soon be released, he felt awkward living in her flat while she remained incarcerated, but it seemed defeatist to move out, as though he didn’t believe in her imminent release. He did his best to reassure himself that it was simply not possible that anyone would believe her capable of being involved in drug trafficking but as the hours passed and nothing changed, he began to panic. Somehow he had to find a way to prove her innocence without involving her sister, and he had to work alone. If he drew Helena into the case, Geraldine would never forgive him.

  His attempt to use CCTV from Geraldine’s residential block to prove that intruders had entered her empty flat drew a blank when he discovered that all the cameras in the building had stopped working for half an hour on Friday morning, soon after he had left for work. That had allowed just three hours before the anti-corruption officers had turned up to question Geraldine. Within those three hours, someone had managed to break into Geraldine’s apartment, disable her burglar alarm, plant incriminating evidence, and vanish without leaving a trace of their presence. The fact that the CCTV cameras had failed at just that point in time would have been enough to alarm him, but in addition to that, the break-in had been so skilfully executed, he was seriously worried. The people who had broken into Geraldine’s flat were not amateurs.

  His next line of attack was to speak to his contacts on the drug squad in York. Without being able to reveal Geraldine’s relationship with her sister, it was difficult for him to learn much from them. He took one of his colleagues out for a drink and attempted to pump him for information.

  ‘It’s just not possible that Geraldine would be in any way involved with drugs,’ Ian insisted as he put two pints on the table and took a seat.

  ‘Well, it’s feasible. There are dealers capable of doing what you’re suggesting,’ his colleague said. ‘Especially if she’s managed to upset one of the bigger players. Some of these vermin are crafty, and they have all sorts of contacts. Breaking into a flat wouldn’t be too much of a problem, even a place that’s secured with decent locks and alarms and all the rest of it. No, if they’re determined to gain access, they’ll find a way in. Don’t forget, these pariahs have criminals on their payroll used to carrying out all sorts of crimes, and the dealers often have vast amounts of ready cash. I’m talking tens of thousands, maybe more. Fortunately for us, most of them are too stupid, or too off their heads, to escape our attention for long, but as soon as we catch up with one, another one starts, and we never get near the really big players who are behind it all. They don’t do their own dirty work.’ He took a swig of beer and shook his head. ‘There’s too much money at stake for us to stamp them out completely. All we can do is try to keep a lid on it, and make their lives as difficult as possible. But the situation is volatile. You did yourself a favour sticking to straightforward murder cases. Drugs is a mug’s game, for everyone involved, whichever side of the fence you’re on.’

  ‘But what about Geraldine?’ Ian said, bringing the conversation back to her. ‘Who might have the skills to do that?’

  His colleague frowned. ‘What I don’t understand is why they would target her. She’s never worked in drugs, never had any of the big players arrested. She’s not been a thorn in their side in any way that I’m aware of. Why would they have a score to settle with her? It’s odd, mate.’ He stared at Ian, screwing up his eyes. ‘There was a rumour that she’d been working undercover on a drugs raid in London, only something went very wrong, and as a result she was discreetly demoted and shipped out of London. Someone high up protected her from the consequences of some shady dealing that went pear shaped.’ He paused. ‘Are you sure your colleague is as squeaky clean as you say she is?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘What about you? Could someone be getting at you through your girlfriend?’

  ‘No,’ Ian replied firmly. ‘This has nothing to do with me. And she’s not my girlfriend,’ he added, a trifle too fiercely. ‘She’s a colleague. We go back a long way.’

  ‘I get it, you’ve got a soft spot for her, but either there’s something you’re not telling me, or there’s something she’s not telling you. Because I’m telling you, this whole thing doesn’t add up. In fact, there’s a rotten stink about it. If I were you, mate, I wouldn’t go anywhere near this, or it might all blow up in your face. You wouldn’t want rumours circulating about you, would you?’

  Ian shrugged miserably, doing his best to conceal his dismay. ‘I’ve told you everything I know. I guess that’s that then. But keep your ear to the ground, will you, and let me know if you hear anything.’

  His colleague gave him a curious glance and agreed to do what he could. ‘But don’t expect too much,’ he added. ‘I’m telling you, this doesn’t smell right.’

  Ian hated himself for lying, but Geraldine had made him promise not to mention her sister, and if he broke his word and his indiscretion led to Helena’s arrest or worse, he knew Geraldine would never forgive him, even if he had acted in her best interests. Somehow she seemed to have a blind spot where her twin was concerned. He suspected she felt guilty for having escaped a terrible upbringing by their birth mother, when Helena had been left behind. The twins’ different opportunities in life had not been of Geraldine’s making, but it hadn’t taken years on the police force to convince Ian that guilt was impervious to reason and logic.

  He was unable to ascertain whether or not the CCTV at Geraldine’s flat had been deliberately tampered with, more evidence that the criminal gang was highly skilled. They probably bankrolled someone working in security technology. All the same, he took his findings to Eileen who raised her head wearily a
nd nodded at him. Geraldine’s arrest had clearly affected her almost as much as Ian.

  ‘This is terrible,’ she said straightaway. ‘It’s unbelievable. What the hell’s going on, Ian? Have we really been so blind? Is it possible she was playing a double game all along?’

  When Ian told her about the disruption to the CCTV filming at Geraldine’s flat, Eileen sighed.

  ‘Don’t you see?’ he insisted, nearly shouting in his desperation. ‘That proves someone entered her flat unlawfully on Monday morning, shortly before the tip-off to the drug squad.’

  Eileen shook her head. ‘It proves nothing,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘All we know for certain is that the CCTV stopped working. Anything else is speculation. Hasn’t it occurred to you that it’s more likely Geraldine disabled it herself, because she was expecting a visitor and didn’t want to leave any trace?’

  ‘If she had been in communication with members of a criminal gang, do you really think she would have invited them to visit her at home? Or that she would have left drugs and a bag of cash under her mattress? Only a complete idiot would leave themselves so open to accusation, and whatever else she may be, Geraldine’s no idiot. And there’s no proof she handled the drugs or the money.’

  ‘I agree, it all sounds very odd. How is she coping?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he replied. ‘I haven’t spoken to her since her detention, but I’m on my way to see her now.’

  ‘Tell her…’ Eileen hesitated. ‘Tell her I’m sorry. I’ll do what I can,’ she added helplessly.

  Before going to see Geraldine, Ian investigated her sister’s circumstances. It confirmed what he had already suspected, that Geraldine was covering Helena’s rent and paying her a modest allowance. Unable to do anything more to help Geraldine without speaking to her first, he went to see her. She had not yet been moved to a prison but was still being held in a police cell. Given her circumstances, she did not appear too downhearted when Ian first saw her. As he entered the cell she looked up at him and smiled sadly, but she did not break down in tears, as he had been dreading. She even smiled at him when he entered, and told him it was good to see him.