by M A Comley
“Christ, I think he knows that, sir. We’ve got all the leaflets, remember? Look, if Rob has his heart set on something, then he’ll go for it. Nothing stands in his way when he’s determined about something. Anyway…” She paused to grin at him. “It’ll get him out of my hair at the weekends.”
“Yeah, out of your hair and into mine.” Hero grinned back, trying to give her the impression that he was sharing a joke with her, when the opposite was true.
Before taking another bite of her roll, she said, “I can see you two becoming real pals.”
Funny that. I bloody can’t. He didn’t say anything further on the subject, but his thoughts continued to turn over. He really didn’t want a wanker like Bryce spoiling his weekends. His kind thought of the TA as a place where they could practice what they had learned down at one of those paint-balling circuits. He’d also seen a number of frustrated coppers join the TA just so they could wave around a gun. There was much more to the volunteer army than that. Hero was in the Regional unit because of his demanding job, but if he didn’t have a family to consider, he would’ve jumped at the chance to sign up to the National unit. Friends of his had travelled the world with the TA, volunteered to fight alongside the “proper army” soldiers, or helped out after natural disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes. Hero couldn’t see the likes of Bryce doing anything worthwhile like that. Maybe he was doing him a disservice, but his gut didn’t think so.
When he and Julie had both finished their lunches, they went back to the station.
Walking into the incident room, Hero could tell something major was afoot. “What’s going on, Foxy?”
“We’ve just had news of a suicide on one of the estates, sir.”
“And why should that concern the team?”
“The attending constable didn’t think it was any ordinary suicide, sir.”
“In what way?” Hero asked.
“The guy poured petrol on himself out in the open,” Foxy told him, screwing up her nose.
“In the open? On waste ground?”
“No, sir. It was in the middle of the street.”
“What am I missing here, Foxy?”
“Oh, I don’t know, sir. Something just doesn’t sit right with me.”
Hero tutted at her unwillingness to confide what she was thinking, and he decided that it would be best if they spoke alone. “All right, in my office.”
Foxy followed him into his office and gently closed the door behind her.
“Come on, Sally. This isn’t like you. If you have something to say, just say it.”
“Well, I did a little checking into the area. Something at the back of my mind told me I recognised the name of the estate.”
He interrupted her, “It’s not Brickfields, is it?”
“No, sir. Although it is renowned for being the same as Brickfields, it’s another gang-ruled estate.”
“I see, I think. Go on.”
“I’m wondering if it’s more a gang-related crime—a murder, if you will—rather than a suicide.” Foxy drew a circle on the floor with her foot.
“I see. Let’s see what the pathologist has to say about the death before we head off in that direction, shall we? But I do understand where you’re coming from. It’s not every day someone tips petrol over themselves, and most suicides take place inside the home, in my experience. Thanks, see if there was any CCTV cameras in the area, will you?”
“I’m already on it, sir. There aren’t any in the immediate vicinity. I’ve enlarged the area, and I’m searching the roads nearby. I’ll let you know what I find.”
“Good job, Sergeant. Send Shaw in on your way out.”
A few seconds after Foxy left, Shaw knocked on the door before she pushed it open. “Sir?”
“We’ll head out in five minutes. You’re driving.”
“Yes, sir. I just need to make a call, and I’ll be with you.”
• • •
The rain was coming down in torrents by the time Hero and Shaw arrived at the scene. Shaw ran to the boot of the car to fetch her umbrella. She offered shelter to Hero, but he refused it. Instead, he pulled up the collar on his jacket and ran inside the marquee the scenes of crimes crew had erected over the body.
“Hello, Susan. Have you been here long?”
“About twenty minutes, Patch. Had to wait for the tent to be put up before I could come near the body,” the disgruntled pathologist said.
Hero couldn’t resist his next statement. “I bet the rain helped to put out the fire. Saved you a job!”
Susan shot him a look, letting him know that she hadn’t found the stupid comment amusing in the slightest.
Hero felt suitably reprimanded. “What do we have?”
“Possible suicide. That’s what I’m saying initially.”
“That’s officially. What about unofficially, Susan?”
She turned to face him and gave him an expression that told him he should’ve known better than to ask her that at the scene. “I’ll let you know later when I’ve carried out a thorough examination as usual.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve found any ID on him or her.” He surveyed the crisp remains at his feet and tried to work out if the clothes belonged to a male or female. He couldn’t tell because the fabric had melted in parts and shredded in others.
“Nothing yet, no. I think we’re looking at a male victim, though.” Susan’s gaze roamed the length of the charred corpse and stopped at the feet.
“Ah, yes, I didn’t get that far in my appraisal,” he admitted after noticing the victim’s thick-soled ankle boots.
“Right, now don’t get in my way, Patch. Go on, shoo, and get on with your police duties, and let me get on with my job.”
“Ring me after the PM?”
Susan nodded and gave him another one of her well-practiced looks. He took the hint and left the marquee. Turning to Shaw, he said, “Let’s see what uniform have to say and then start knocking on a few doors. Someone around here must have seen what happened.”
Shaw opened her umbrella, and together, they approached the two uniformed constables taking shelter in their police car. The detectives opened the back doors and got in.
“What can you tell us?” Hero asked.
The two constables twisted in their seats to face them. The younger one said, “We got the call to say there was a small fire on the estate from one of the flats.” He pointed at the block to his right. “When we got here, we realised it was a body, called the ambulance and the pathologist right away.”
“Did you see anyone hanging around or anything out of the ordinary when you arrived?”
The other constable spoke next. “The thing that struck me was that the area was completely deserted. I know it’s raining heavily, but even on the journey over here, there are still people milling around in the streets.”
Hero nodded, noting the accuracy behind his point. “Is this your patch?”
The younger copper screwed up his nose. “Yeah, unfortunately. There’s a lot of drug-related crimes in this area.”
“If you don’t mind me saying, you don’t seem surprised by what’s happened,” Julie jumped in.
The younger copper shrugged. “I’m not. This is gang turf. Everything and anything goes, basically.”
“What gang are we talking?” Hero wondered if the Krull Gang spread this far east.
“I think they’re called the Tidy Gang.”
“The Tidy Gang? How come?” Hero asked.
“Word has it that they always tidy up after themselves,” the older of the two constables told them.
“Hmm…not in this case. Which makes me wonder if the gang was involved at all. What do you think, Julie?”
“Not sure, sir. If the gang is involved and if it’s true they tidy up after themselves, would they really try to move a burning body?”
“Good point. We better wait to see what the pathologist has to say and if we can ID the body. Have you two knocked on any doors yet?”
; “Nope. We were waiting for you lot to arrive.”
Hero gave a brief nod. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road. Someone knows what went on here. Julie, ring the station, see if Foxy has had any luck with the CCTV footage yet. Then we’ll go up and question the woman who reported the crime. It was a woman, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, a Mrs. Tyler. She lives at number thirty-three, sir.”
“Right, we’ll take this side. You two take the other.”
The four left the vehicle. Inside the entrance to the block of flats and out of the rain, Julie rang the station while Hero knocked on the first door. The knock went unanswered. Hero glanced over at Julie, who was nodding and looking interested at what Foxy was obviously telling her. He made a sign to hurry things up as he moved on to the next door along the corridor, which stank of urine and was dotted with patches of vomit.
Julie hung up and joined him.
“Well?” he asked impatiently. He rapped his knuckles on the next door, and they waited for someone to answer it. Again, he got nothing. Hero was beginning to get the suspicion that no one would be willing to talk to them.
Julie sighed. “A couple of roads away, the CCTV footage highlighted a car speeding away from the area. Foxy ran the plates, and it came back as being flagged up stolen. She’s trying to trace the vehicle’s journey through the CCTV cameras across Manchester. She’s pretty confident she’ll have an answer for us soon. Some of the images are sketchy. One or two are actually good enough to see who the driver is. She’s put his picture in the database and awaiting the results on that, also. Do you want to give number thirty-three a try? At least we know the person is in.”
“Bright spark,” Hero mumbled under his breath as he marched toward the lift at the end. The metal doors of the lift opened, and the smell that emanated from it turned his stomach in a flash. He moved away from the elevator and retched, almost bringing up his lunch. “Jesus, this place is a fucking shithole.”
Julie stifled a smile and headed for the concrete staircase off to the side of the lift. Hero followed her up the faeces-encrusted stairwell. They reached the flat they were after, and Julie knocked three times on the door.
Within seconds, a woman in her mid-fifties pulled open the door. She had her hair done up in large foam rollers and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. “Yeah, what do you want? You’re filth, ain’t ya? I can smell you a mile off.”
Hero smirked at the irony behind her statement after the journey they’d been forced to endure on the way to her flat. “Mrs. Tyler? I’m DI Nelson, and this is DS Shaw. Mind if we come in for a chat?”
The woman threw the door back against the wall and stomped up the hallway in front of them. Hero followed her, and Shaw closed the door behind them. The smell inside the flat matched, if not surpassed, the stench in the stairwell, and Hero found himself gagging as he stepped into the lounge. The room was full of boxes from floor to ceiling. When they walked into the room, three cats, which had been asleep on top of some of the boxes, all scattered, their legs going in different directions as they ran out of the lounge door.
“I’d tell you to sit down, but I wouldn’t want ya getting too comfortable.” The woman grinned and showed off a mouthful of blackened teeth.
“Hopefully, we won’t keep you long. If you can just tell us what you saw.”
The woman collapsed into the threadbare couch and stared at him while she reached for another cigarette, then lit it. “It was awful, just awful. Everything went quiet, and you know ’round here, when the silence comes, trouble’s never far behind.”
“I see,” Hero said, turning to Julie and motioning for her to take notes.
Julie withdrew her notebook from her pocket and flipped it open at an empty page. “Go on.”
The woman puffed hard on her cigarette until the end glowed red. She exhaled a large smoke-filled breath before she went on. “This car pulled up, and four hoodlums got out. I could tell they were going to be trouble the instant I laid eyes on them.”
“Have you ever seen these men around here before?”
“Men? Did I say men? I wouldn’t call ’em men, especially after what they did. No, my description of them was pretty accurate. Hoodlums.”
“Sorry. What sort of age are we talking about?”
The woman’s eyes creased up as she thought. “No more than nineteen, I guess.”
Hero nodded while Shaw scribbled away in her notebook. “And have you seen these boys around here before?” he repeated.
“Nope, can’t say I have. I’ve seen others like them, but I didn’t recognise this motley crew.”
“Others? Are you talking about other gangs?”
“Yeah, we get them all the time. The Tidy Gang seem to attract other gangs to the area, like bees to the honeypot. Anyway, I was watering my plants on the balcony, and I saw or rather heard this car draw up. Tommy Jones turned on his heels and ran to warn the other gang members.” She pointed at the corner of the building opposite. “There’s usually one of the gang members keeping that spot warm, on the lookout for trouble. Within minutes, the Tidy Gang were in position. We see it so many times around here. Usually, there’s a fight and a lot of shouting for half an hour or so before the visiting gang retreats. The Tidy Gang aren’t pushovers, ya see. They’re tough, hard as nails. They’ve got the scars to prove it, too.”
“When did you call the police?” Hero asked, wrinkling his nose at the smell of smoke that had somehow managed to disguise all the other smells in the room.
“When it was all over and the other gang had gone.”
“Why? Why not call them when you saw the gang arrive?”
The woman’s mouth dropped open for an instant, then she snorted. “You’re fucking kidding me, ain’t ya? Your lot don’t care what happens to the likes of this estate. The first thing the girl I spoke to asked was if the crime was gang related. I lied and said it wasn’t. I knew your lot wouldn’t bloody show up if I told the truth. Your lot give this estate a wide berth that’s no fucking help to us residents.” Anger caused the colour to flood into her cheeks.
Hero looked away from the woman, embarrassed that she was right. People shouldn’t have to live on estates run by gangs, afraid to walk in their own neighbourhoods for fear of being ridiculed or robbed every time they stepped outside their homes. “I’m sorry. We’re doing our best to combat the situation.”
“Sure you are, in your dreams. We ain’t seen a bobby on the beat around here in years. I thought the government said that community bobbies were going to be walking the streets again, getting to know their communities once more. Bullshit! It’s all frigging bullshit. They should have a fucking woman running this country. We never had this type of shit when Maggie Thatcher ruled Number Ten.”
Hero grinned, not because of how the woman was getting on her soapbox about putting the wrongs in the country right, but the fact that she was correct. Sometimes it did take a woman at the top to properly sort things out. “Mind if we get on with what happened next?”
The woman scowled at him and sighed heavily. “There was like a standoff for a second or two as the gangs met. Then a guy who looked like the leader from the other gang said something, which narked little Ken. He ran at the bloke. The bloke knifed his face, and when Ken went down on the ground, one of the other guys poured a can of something over Ken’s head. I watched in horror as he struck a match and Ken went up in flames.”
“Shit! Did anyone try to help him?”
“Nope. The Tidy Gang just stood there, gawping at Ken, who was understandably crying out in bloody pain. Eventually, he dropped to the road, and that’s when both gangs walked away.”
“I can’t believe his gang members didn’t try to help him,” Julie said quietly.
Hero shook his head slowly. “No, neither can I.”
“I’ll tell you one thing, the Tidy Gang are hard nuts, but even they seemed scared of this other gang.”
“I’m not surprised if they carry out stuff like that. Can you give me
an address for any of the Tidy Gang members? Maybe we should have a chat with them,” Hero asked, but he already had an inkling what the woman’s answer was going to be.
“There’d be no point. You wouldn’t get near the place. I’ve seen it happen many times before. Coppers turn up here to arrest one of them, and someone drops a petrol bomb from one of the flats above aimed at the coppers. That’s why your lot refuse to police the area, and yet the bloody council won’t consider rehousing the likes of me. You lot are scared of these gangs, and no one gives a flying fuck what happens to the residents living with these menacing toerags on their doorstep.”
“Fair point. Can you give me some names, at least?” Hero felt his frustrations mounting.
“Why? I’m not sure I see why you want the Tidy Gang’s names. For once, they were innocent in all this. Have you not heard a word I’ve said?” The woman stood up and started up the hallway. Hero and Julie left the room after her. She yanked open the front door and glared at the two detectives. “I think you’d better leave. Good luck finding the culprits. You’re gonna fucking need it.”
The second Hero and Julie stepped over the threshold, the door slammed shut behind them.
“Oops! I think you upset her, sir.”
“Less of the wisecracks, Shaw. I think we better heed her advice and head out of here and get back to the station.”
It was almost three by the time they got back to the station. No sooner had they stepped into the incident room than Jason Coltman, the newbie detective on the team, approached them. Hero could tell by the concern written on the twenty-one-year-old’s face that he wasn’t going to like the news. He drew in a large breath to prepare himself. “What is it, Coltman?”
The detective handed Hero a newspaper. “There’s an article on page five that will interest you, sir.”
Hero groaned as he ripped open the paper and searched for the article. He didn’t need long to figure out which article Coltman was referring to. Slap bang in the centre of the page was a disturbing picture of two graves with the headline: “Mown down in cold blood. Police not interested.” Fuck, fuck, fuck!