by John Stewart
When working that case, Mike spoke to every person he could find in the area who had a bike stolen from them. After a raft of interviews and unpaid overtime, a teenage boy informed him that he had hidden his house key under the saddle padding of his stolen bike. Knowing that the thief would be oblivious to this fact, Mike spent weeks stopping and searching any bikes that fit the description given by the teen. Eventually, he found it and its new owner directed him to the suspect repair shop. The statement was enough to get a search warrant for the shop and in a garage at the rear, he found several of the stolen bikes. The case proved pivotal for Mike as it gave him his first conviction along with the respect of his peers at the station.
This time around, he had no such ambitions. His job wasn’t to catch anyone. It was merely to document the numbers, locations and frequency of the thefts and then write up an informative piece on the perils of modern society and offer tips on how to improve cycle security. He got back to the office after spending the day out interviewing cyclists for reactions to the thefts and began typing up the less than riveting, tale at his desk. His editor, Eric Munroe wanted it for the weekend edition, which was his code for as soon as possible, which meant that Mike had to stay late to finish it up.
It was just gone 11.30pm that night by the time he had it ready and emailed off to Munroe for proofing. Sitting back looking at the time, he let out a long sigh just as Rebecca arrived in from her equally exhausting and fruitless day. Mike hadn’t noticed her come in and she watched him for a minute as he sat back looking dejected in his chair. Knowing her reluctance to take on a potentially more engaging story was the cause of his demeanor, she clenched her jaw, walked over to his desk and handed over her phone. Looking a little puzzled at what the gesture meant, he took it and listened as she spoke.
“His name is Simon Meadowcroft. His number is in there. Let’s see what he has to say.”
Mike looked up at Rebecca with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. “Are you sure? I don’t want to do this unless you’re okay with it.”
Rebecca smiled, knowing he meant every word.
“Yes I’m sure. You were right. It’s exactly the type of story we need and this time we can step back if things get in any way dangerous. Research only! Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Mike said as he shuffled through the numbers on her phone looking for the former detective’s details.
“Here he is,” he said, looking at the time again. “I hope he’s still up.” He hit call, put the phone on speaker and placed it on the desk. The phone rang out, but seconds later it began ringing. Seeing it was Meadowcroft, Mike once again activated the loudspeaker and answered.
“Hello, Mr. Meadowcroft?”
“Hi, Michael Wesley I presume?” the former detective said assuredly.
“Please, call me Mike.”
“Mike it is. I was hoping I would hear from you. Your partner didn’t seem to be very interested in discussing my proposition.”
Rebecca quickly made her presence known with more than a little air of formality. “Hi, Mr. Meadowcroft, Mike and I have discussed your interest in our work and have decided to hear what it is you have to say.”
Mike gave a grin at her less than accurate version of events.
“That’s great,” Meadowcroft replied with an enthused tone. “I can meet you whenever suits.”
Mike stepped in before Rebecca took over the entire exchange. “That sounds grand Mr. Meadowcroft.”
“My father was Mr. Meadowcroft. Simon will do just fine.”
“Okay Simon, we’ll contact you tomorrow and organise a time and place.”
“I look forward to hearing from you. Have a good night.”
“Same to you. Speak to you soon,” Mike said as he ended the call. He then looked to Rebecca, who had fallen silent.
“Everything okay? He seems to be on the level.”
Rebecca forced a smile. “Yeah, don’t mind me. I just need to get my game face on, God knows what he has to show us.”
Mike stood up, handed her back the phone and gave her a hug. “Let’s go home. Tomorrow could well be a long day.”
***
6am the next morning, Mike stirred from a deep sleep as Rebecca climbed across him to turn off the mobile phone alarm which was blasting his favorite Rolling Stones song ‘Start me up.’
“Can you please, change that alarm? Every time I hear that song now, I get wake up panic,” Rebecca said as she clambered back to the warm pillow.
“It puts me in good form,” Mike mumbled with his head buried in his own pillow, clearly dreading the prospect of leaving the warm bed.
Rebecca got up and shook his leg on the way to the shower.
“Come on, if we’re gonna meet this guy today I’ll need to clear some time with Munroe beforehand.”
“Just tell him you have something big, you never know, this time you might be telling the truth,” Mike said, giving a subtle dig at her frequent claims of potential big leads.
Rebecca laughed as she turned on the shower.
“You’ve been hanging around Ray Phillips too much. He’s starting to rub off on you.”
Mike lifted his head at the suggestion.
“God! Don’t say that. We’re not alike at all,” he said, dropping his face back into the pillow.
After another ten minutes of avoiding the inevitable, Mike reluctantly mustered the will to get up and took his turn in the shower. Rebecca called Munroe and without going into much detail, managed to wrangle a day away from the office for both of them. By the time Mike was out and dressed, she had already made breakfast.
“Do we have time to eat here?” Mike enquired looking at the unusual site of a cooked midweek breakfast.
“Yup, get it while it’s hot,” Rebecca ordered as she placed some grilled bacon on his plate.
Mike smiled as she finished dishing up the food.
“You’ve come a long way from your microwave days, Miss Hollister.”
“Anything to keep ya quiet,” she said, sticking out her tongue. “I’ve cleared the day with Munroe, so you can call Meadowcroft when you’re finished.”
“Oh great! Anywhere in particular you’d prefer to meet him?”
“Up to you. You’re taking the lead on this one, although his place might be a good idea. He’s bound to have all the materials there.”
Mike nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. What do you think, the full works?”
“Yeah, I put fresh batteries in the recorder yesterday and the laptop is fully charged,” Rebecca replied with a confident smile.”
“You seem up for this,” Mike said with a grin.
Rebecca nodded as she bit into a piece of overdone toast.
“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it now. It could be interesting. I’ve even got my can of pepper spray in case things get heavy.”
Mike laughed at the idea. “Not likely, research only remember. It could be a complete waste of time, but either way, I’m glad to get away from the office for a while. The good company is a bonus too,” he said giving her an affectionate wink.
“You’re always nicer when I cook for you,” Rebecca said with a chuckle.
“No, I’m always nicer when you cook bacon for me,” Mike said laughing.
As soon as they finished up with breakfast, Mike called Simon and arranged to call over to his apartment.
Chapter 3
Simon Meadowcroft was a forty-eight-year-old man with rugged good looks, despite a weathered complexion brought on by a penchant for whiskey and sleep depriving company. He had been a member of the Metropolitan Police Force for twenty years, but due to a flagging reputation, was advised to take early retirement by his seniors.
He had started off as well as any young officer, hungry and keen to impress. His aggressive interview techniques with suspects yielded good results and he climbed the promotion ladder quickly. His sudden rise through the ranks raised some eyebrows among his fellow officers and some held resentment towards him
for many years afterwards. The friends he did make, however, were friends with influence, a fact not lost on him when he first made their acquaintance. He became somewhat of a golden boy with the higher ranking officers due to his high conviction rate and over time, he became a regular at the many dinner parties and highbrow social gatherings normally reserved for the senior officers. He was a man on the up and up, but as the nighttime social scene became a more prevalent feature in his life, the same could not be said for his career prospects.
Eventually, his enthusiasm for the job waned and he began spending more time in brothels and late night bars than he did on his casework. The arrest numbers fell and his performances in the courtroom became less assertive. A steady run of substandard investigations, an accusation of police misconduct from a female witness and a refusal to follow correct police protocol, soon caught the attention of his peers. The enemies he had acquired on his way up were only too happy to hang him out to dry on his demise. Despite his friends advising him to straighten out and get back to normal, his drinking and womanising only increased. The last straw was the morning he attended an important court hearing, still drunk from an all night session. His slurred speech and untidy appearance would have almost certainly landed him in contempt of court, but for a barrister friend of his who called for an adjournment as soon as she saw that he was in no fit state to be on the stand.
With his twenty-year mark approaching, he was brought into a meeting with his superiors. They explained why he was no longer an effective member of the police force and offered him a substantial golden handshake. After taking some time to consider his alternatives, he reluctantly elected to take the offer. He knew he was slipping and he knew why. He had become distracted by several cases he had investigated over the years, cases that he had been unable to close. He knew it was not unusual for a detective to have unsolved cases, but he had let them get to him and as the number grew, so did his obsession. Soon after his retirement, he received a disturbing photograph in the post. This led him to begin his own solo investigations, but his drinking had dulled his once sharp mind and he was going around in circles with no break in sight.
One Sunday morning, he went to his local newsagents to pick up his standard hangover supplies of headache pills, a large bottle of drinking yogurt and the morning papers. As he walked out of the shop, he glanced over the newspaper headlines and spotted a story detailing the heroics of a young Irish police officer by the name of Michael Wesley. He read Rebecca Hollister’s story and couldn’t help but be impressed. His drinking continued for a further two months and he was eventually admitted to hospital after passing out on the street outside an off license. Following the advice of his doctors, he joined an addiction program and began to put his life back together. With sobriety, came the memories of his past, the memories that led him down the path he found himself on, but it also brought clarity and motivation. With this renewed drive, he decided to pick up where he left off and return to the cases that had been plaguing his existence for the latter half of his working life.
Searching online, he came across a documentary about the same Irish police officer and found out that he was now working in London alongside the journalist Rebecca Hollister. Once he found out where they worked, he took a stroll into the city and waited outside the paper’s offices. He didn’t have to wait long and saw Ray Phillips as he left for lunch which subsequently led to his conversation with Rebecca. The prospect of working with the former Garda seemed unlikely, given Rebecca’s reaction to his call and he began considering other options. The problem was that during his time on the force, he had some unpleasant dealings with many of London’s private investigators and, as a result, most of them had little or no time for him. By the time Mike called him back, he was out of options and bordering on a return to the bottle.
Following his morning conversation with Mike, he began to gather up everything relevant to the cases he could find. He cleared out his spare room and set it up as a workstation for Mike and Rebecca. He also had a large map of London with a corkboard backing and secured it to the wall in front of a small table and two chairs. It was a medium-sized room, but the lack of a bed meant there was enough space to lay out all the case file boxes in chronological order.
For the first time in a long time, he felt hope, hope that Mike and Rebecca could piece together clues that he may have missed. By the time he had everything in place, his guests were just about due to arrive. He gave the living room a quick tidy, mainly in an attempt to remove any trace of his drinking habits. Once he was satisfied that the room was presentable, he filled his coffee maker with water, took out some cups and waited anxiously by the security monitor for the doorbell to ring.
Chapter 4
The elevator in Mike and Rebecca’s apartment building was out of action for the fourth time in two months, so much to their annoyance they had to carry their gear down the five flights of stairs.
“I’ll drive,” Mike announced, taking a deep breath as they arrived at the car park downstairs.
Rebecca opened the boot as he placed her bag inside.
“Where does he live?” she asked.
Mike opened the driver side door and pulled out his phone to double check the address Simon had given him earlier.
“42 Caliban Towers, Arden Estate. The phone says twenty-six minutes, traffic depending.” Sitting inside the car as he spoke.
“Yeah, traffic depending. That means more like an hour at this time of the morning,” Rebecca said with a sceptical tone as she put the rest of her things in the boot and slumped into the passenger side of the car.
“Well, if we’re late, we’re late. I’m sure Mr. Meadowcroft can hold on a few extra minutes, being a man of leisure and all,” Mike replied, starting the car.
They pulled out onto Penfold Street and headed towards the Marylebone Road.
“See the traffic isn’t so bad,” Mike said about ten minutes into the journey.
“Yeah, to be fair, it’s grand. So, how do you want to do this?” Rebecca asked shifting the conversation into work mode.
“How do you mean?” Mike asked, unsure of what she was referring to.
“Well, do we want this Meadowcroft sitting in with us or do we ask for the files and work solo?”
“I’d say solo, but let’s see what he has first. If it’s an art gallery heist from the 90’s, we might need his input. I know nothing about art as you well know,” Mike said laughing.
Rebecca smiled, enjoying his lighthearted approach.
“I hate to be a downer, but I got the impression from my first chat with him that whatever he has for us is a little more serious than some stolen paintings.” The traffic slowed to a halt as she spoke. “Ah, we spoke too soon on the traffic?”
Mike opened his window and saw an ambulance, blocking the road up ahead. “Looks like an accident. Guess we’ll be late after all.”
Rebecca opened her door for a better look and saw it was a collision with a cyclist. After a minute of rubbernecking, she got back in and let out a sigh of frustration.
“Bloody cyclists!”
Mike was surprised by the statement, being a cyclist himself. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Rebecca gave a dismissive wave of her hand.
“Ah, they fly around the city all day ignoring the lights. It’s no wonder they get clipped so often.”
“Wow, that’s a real humanitarian outlook you have there Becca. I bet you’ll cycle some day and see the other side of the coin.”
“Cycle in London? No thanks! Sure I get plenty of exercise at home,” she said pinching Mike’s leg with a grin as they began to move up the road.
“Oh there, take this left. It’ll bring us up towards White Lion Street and we can get around the jam.”
“Okay, you’re the local. I hope no one is badly hurt. I hate seeing those white bikes around the city,” he said, taking the turn. As Rebecca suggested, the road led them around the collision outside the Lexington Bar and they arrived at Sim
on’s apartment building only slightly later than planned. They parked up and Mike removed Rebecca’s bag from the boot while she carried the laptop and audio recorder. They approached the apartment entrance and Mike keyed in the number 42 followed by the call button on the security pad below the camera.
Upstairs, Simon had abandoned his watch of the monitor and was half way through a mug of coffee when he heard the buzzer. He rushed over to the screen and saw two people waiting at the building entrance.
“Hello,” he said with an upbeat tone.
“Hello Simon, it’s Mike and Rebecca.”
“Come on up,” he said as he buzzed them in.
They boarded the elevator to the left of the doorway, noting no problems with its functionality, contrasting with the one in their own building.
“Pretty nice place for an ex-cop,” Rebecca said as they reached the top floor.
“Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. He must be doing alright,” Mike said as the doors opened.
As they reached apartment 42, Simon appeared at the door with a welcoming smile. “Thank you both for coming. Please, come in.”
The apartment was nicely decorated with a large living area leading into a smaller but well-designed kitchen space. Rebecca couldn’t help but wonder what the rates were like as she admired the layout, as well as the impressive view.
Simon ushered them towards the kitchen.
“Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Coffee?”
Mike eyed the expensive coffee machine and jumped at the offer while Rebecca opted for a tea. They made small talk about the area and explained the reason for their delay while they waited for the drinks and once they were ready, Simon suggested they all take a seat in the living room.
“So, thanks again for coming. You’re probably both quite curious about what it is I need your help with,” Simon said as they sat and placed their drinks on the glass coffee table. “I won’t beat around the bush. I have several murder cases that I can’t shake off.” Rebecca felt a shiver running up her back as he continued. “I know every retired cop has a few that got away, but I just need to get some closure and I’m hoping you may be able to help.”