The Rule of Fear

by Luke Delaney

  He sprang to his feet and went to a kitchen drawer where he had casually dumped something a few days before. Unless Sara had found it and thrown it away it should still be there. To his relief the cigarettes, papers and the small piece of cannabis resin he and Renita had taken from the youths they’d caught in the basement on the estate were all in the drawer. Even the lighter he’d taken was still there. Everything he needed.

  King grabbed the items and retreated to the table, spreading them out like they were a model or puzzle waiting to be assembled. He’d seen the odd joint being made before, but he’d never actually tried to construct one himself. He’d never even smoked a cigarette, except once in school, and it had made him feel sick enough not to try it again. A stab of pain in his back reminded him why the items were spread in front of him in the first place, encouraging him to pick up the cigarette papers.

  After a few attempts, he’d constructed something that was reasonably oblong-shaped with all the adhesive side along one edge. The addition of the tobacco from a broken cigarette was easy enough, although he suspected he’d used too much, but now came the bit he was truly unsure of – adding the cannabis itself. He considered using the Internet, but paranoia of who may one day be checking on him stopped him. Instead he rolled the resin around in his fingertips and soon realized it was too hard to crumble into the joint. He deduced that must be why he’d seen people heating the resin first – to soften it – so carefully he took the lighter and waved the flame under the resin until he felt it become more pliable, at which point he began to crumble it into the waiting tobacco – the whole procedure going better than he could have expected, although the last, larger, piece of resin fell into the construction before he could break it up properly. Never mind, he told himself and carefully lifted the entire thing, dapping his tongue along the adhesive strip and attempting to roll it into a neat cigar shape. After a few frustrating aborted attempts he had something that looked like a lumpy, oversized roll-up, but it was good enough.

  He put the flame to the end of the joint and tentatively drew the smoke into his mouth, blowing it out again without inhaling. The taste wasn’t unpleasant, but neither did it appeal to him greatly. He waited for any feeling of nausea, but when none came he decided to risk smoking it properly. He took another cautious puff, only taking a small mouthful before partially breathing it into his lungs.

  The first cough was more of a splutter before his virgin lungs started to object more violently, causing a choking fit that seemed to last for minutes until, red in the face, things calmed down. Having never used the drug before, the effects came quickly, accelerated by the coughing that speeded the cannabis through his bloodstream. He felt a little lightheaded and relaxed, although the pain was still strong. Once the stinging sensation in his throat faded he took another drag, a larger one this time, which, learning from previous experience, he took slowly and smoothly down into his lungs. As he exhaled he spluttered only slightly, the bigger hit soon having a more profound effect than the last as the pain faded considerably and his mind relaxed and calmed – a kind of peace he hadn’t had since before the incident. For the first time in a long time he felt … good.

  King rapped on the closed door in the corridor at Newham Borough headquarters where all the senior officers had their offices. As a mere inspector, Joanne Johnston should have had to share with two or three other inspectors, but somehow she’d not only managed to secure an office entirely for herself, but one of the larger ones as well. King waited for what seemed a long time before a voice finally came from the other side of the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Johnston called out in a voice that always seemed too strong and deep for its pixie-like owner. King did as he was told and entered the office that was at least three times bigger than the one he shared with the rest of the Unit.

  ‘You wanted to see me?’ he asked, making Johnston look up from the report open on her neat and tidy desk that mirrored everything else in the room. A far cry from what he was used to.

  ‘Yes, Jack,’ she told him. ‘Take a seat.’ Again he did as she asked. ‘I’m afraid the CPS have a problem with one of your cases.’

  ‘Oh?’ he asked, shaking his head slightly.

  ‘The aggravated burglary job. They’re going to drop the prosecution.’

  ‘What?’ he almost shouted. ‘Why?’

  ‘They have concerns over your grounds to arrest them in the first place and therefore the legitimacy of your power to search the address, making the evidence found inside the address inadmissible. And as the evidence from the flat is the case, they don’t believe they can prosecute without it.’

  ‘What the hell are they talking about?’ King demanded. ‘The case is solid. We did everything right.’

  Johnston leaned back in her chair and studied him for a while before leaning forward and looking at the report on her desk before looking back to King. ‘You used Section 17 as your power to enter and arrest?’

  ‘I saw a known runner coming from a known handler’s address go straight to the squat where the suspects were later arrested. While I had the flat under observation one of the suspects returned carrying a TV I recognized from the crime report, giving me more than enough grounds to enter and arrest, which is what I did. After that I had powers under Section 18 to search.’

  ‘And that’s what the CPS have the problem with,’ Johnston told him – her face expressionless. ‘This rather convenient sighting of the stolen TV. I’ve been informed they feel it pushes the boundaries of what a judge or jury would believe a little too far and as a consequence would reflect badly on the borough as a whole.’

  ‘This is all bullshit,’ King complained. ‘What the hell do the CPS want? I give them a gift-wrapped case of aggravated burglary and they want to flush it. I don’t understand what’s changed. They were OK with it before. Let us charge them.’

  ‘It’s now gone up to one of the senior solicitors and they feel it’s too risky,’ Johnston explained. ‘You need to think of yourself here too, Jack. Remember you’re on accelerated promotion. Destined for high places. You start getting black marks next to cases you’re involved with and it could be very damaging. So what if a couple of crack-heads dodge a bullet? Only a matter of time before they come around again. You need to think of yourself.’

  ‘These guys were desperate and dangerous,’ King argued. ‘Next time they commit an aggravated burglary someone could easily get hurt. What’s the point of us working our backsides off to get these people off the streets if the CPS are just going to let them back out?’

  ‘A lesson to be learnt, Jack,’ Johnston told him, looking deadly serious. ‘This isn’t the eighties or even the nineties. CPS, courts, even the good old public won’t tolerate anything other than whiter-than-white policing. Understand?’

  ‘Not really,’ he answered truthfully.

  Johnston leaned forward in her chair. ‘Let’s just say, if you want to make sure the evidence is … sufficient to justify arrests and searches, maybe something a little more subtle than seeing someone walking along the street with a widescreen TV would be a good idea. Now do you understand what I’m telling you?’

  ‘It was a clean arrest,’ he answered.

  Johnston relaxed back into her comfortable chair before answering. ‘Not clean enough, Jack,’ she told him. ‘Not clean enough.’

  ‘Jesus, Sarge,’ Davey Brown complained as he and King kept watch from their hidden vantage point on Micky Astill’s flat, ‘you look completely knackered. Last time I saw eyes like that was when I watched Night of the Living Dead. What’s the matter – that pretty little girlfriend of yours keeping you up all night, eh?’

  ‘Hardly,’ King replied, the pleasant effects of the joint having now been replaced by an increasingly intense headache, although the pain in his shoulder and back hadn’t yet fully returned. ‘Been spending too much time here, more like.’

  ‘You wanna watch that,’ Brown warned, ‘before she runs off with someone else.’

  ‘Than
ks for the advice,’ King lied.

  ‘Aye. No problem,’ Brown said in a tone that made it impossible whether to tell whether he really believed he’d been helpful or not. ‘You sure you’re all right? You sound as bad as you look.’

  ‘Just a little pissed off, that’s all,’ he admitted.

  ‘Oh aye. How come?’ Brown asked.

  ‘Had a meeting with Johnston today,’ he explained. ‘Before we came on patrol.’

  ‘Meetings with the Poisonous Pixie are rarely good,’ Brown joked.

  ‘Yeah, well – this was no exception.’

  ‘And?’ Brown pushed.

  ‘The aggravated burglary job,’ King told him. ‘The CPS are going to drop it.’

  ‘Why?’ Brown asked. ‘Thought it was as solid as a rock?’

  ‘It was,’ King assured him. ‘Apparently they think I made up the bit about one of them carrying a stolen TV into the flat to justify entry and arrest.’

  ‘And did you?’ Brown asked.

  King glanced at him warily before answering. ‘Well it doesn’t really matter now, does it? Job’s gone.’

  ‘Aye,’ Brown agreed with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘I suppose not.’ They were silent for a while before Brown changed the subject. ‘What we doing here anyway? A few poxy arrests for possession hardly seems worth the effort.’

  ‘It’s a slow day,’ King explained. ‘Looks like the local slags are keeping their heads down. Might as well keep things ticking over until they resurface.’

  ‘Aye,’ Brown only partly agreed, ‘but we could be doing better than this. Perhaps we should be trying to find this dirty bastard kiddie fiddler instead of picking off two-bob punters?’

  ‘No need to try and find him,’ King assured him. ‘I know who he is.’

  ‘Then what we waiting for?’ Brown asked excitedly.

  ‘The right opportunity,’ King answered without looking at him. ‘When we move on him, I don’t want there to be any doubt. I want him bang to rights – so the children he’s assaulted don’t even have to give evidence.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Brown laughed softly. ‘And how the fuck you going to—’

  ‘Hold up,’ King stopped him as he nodded towards Astill’s flat. ‘Looks like we have a punter.’ They both watched as the small, slim woman in her early twenties with long, lank blonde hair warily approached the flat and knocked timidly at the door.

  ‘It’s just a wee bird,’ Brown grumbled. ‘Let her go.’

  ‘Man, woman,’ King argued. ‘Makes no difference.’

  ‘Aye it does,’ Brown disagreed. ‘We can’t search a woman. We’ll have to take her back to the nick and get a WPC to do it for us. Pain in the arse.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ King told him as they watched Astill open the door and study the woman, although, as always, the metal security grid remained firmly closed. ‘We don’t have to do everything by the book.’

  ‘I’m not searching a female prisoner,’ Brown insisted. ‘Even if she is a scag head, she can still make allegations.’

  ‘I mean maybe we won’t have to search her,’ King explained quietly as they watched her shake hands with Astill – clandestinely palming him a fistful of change. Astill disappeared inside and closed the door while the woman waited outside looking increasingly agitated – like a small deer drinking from the tiger’s waterhole.

  ‘How d’you plan on arresting her,’ Brown asked, ‘if you aren’t going to search her? No drugs, no evidence, no grounds to arrest.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ King answered as the door reopened and Astill reappeared. He said something to the woman who put her hand through the grill and made momentary contact with his – the door closing quickly as she scuttled off along the walkway to the stairwell. ‘Come on,’ King ordered. They immediately sprang from where they’d been watching and made their way around to the place the woman had approached from. As they waited hidden at the end of a small path that lay between two blocks, the woman appeared, jumping with fright as they stepped out, turning even paler as she realized there was no escape. King grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to one side.

  ‘What you got?’ he asked the now trembling woman who, despite the obvious effects of the use of hard drugs, remained reasonably attractive, with sharp blue eyes set in pretty face – her skin still porcelain-like and flawless. For a second he imagined what she would have looked like before she sacrificed everything to heavy-duty drug use.

  ‘I haven’t got anything,’ she lied without any conviction.

  ‘What’s your name?’ King asked quietly, but with authority – slightly intimidatingly.

  ‘Vicky Richards,’ she answered so quietly they could hardly hear her.

  ‘Got any form?’ he asked.

  ‘Just some possession and some soliciting,’ she confessed.

  ‘A fucking Tom, eh?’ Brown barrelled in. Vicky just looked embarrassed and shrugged – as if it was the inevitable, preordained path her life would follow.

  ‘Give me what you’ve got,’ King demanded, but she just looked from him to Brown and back again, as if hoping they would suddenly disappear. ‘We’ve just witnessed you making a buy from a well-known drugs venue,’ King tried to sound formal, ‘so why don’t you just hand it over?’ Still nothing. ‘If you don’t,’ he continued, ‘we’ll have to arrest you on suspicion of possession and take you to the station and have a female officer carry out an intimate search on you and then when we find the drugs we’ll have no choice but to charge you – and you don’t want that, do you, Vicky?’

  ‘No,’ she sighed.

  ‘Then hand it over,’ King repeated, ‘and we may be able to sort something else out.’

  ‘Like what?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘The drugs first,’ King insisted, his clicking fingers hurrying her along. Finally she thrust her hand down the front of her jeans and seconds later produced a small fold of blue paper that she held out for him. King considered where the package had been pulled from and snapped on a single latex glove before taking the tiny envelope from the gutted-looking woman. Carefully he opened it enough to be able to peek inside, although he already knew it would contain heroin or cocaine – crack came wrapped in clingfilm. He looked up at Brown. ‘Heroin,’ he told him and placed it inside a small evidence bag before slipping it into his pocket.

  ‘Serious offence,’ Brown told her, ‘possession of a class A drug – especially with your form.’

  ‘You going to arrest me?’ she asked, the tears of desperation welling in her eyes.

  ‘Of course we are,’ Brown gave her the bad news before King intervened.

  ‘No,’ he told her.

  ‘What?’ Brown almost shouted.

  King ignored him. ‘D’you live on the estate?’ he asked her.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Moland Walk,’ she answered.

  ‘I do you a favour,’ he explained, ‘and one day perhaps you can do one for me?’

  ‘Sure,’ she shrugged.

  ‘Now get lost,’ he ordered and sent her scurrying away, continually checking over her shoulder that they weren’t coming after her – that it wasn’t some sort of sick police joke, until she turned a corner and was out of sight.

  ‘D’you mind telling me what the fuck that was all about?’ Brown demanded. ‘I thought the idea was to make a few easy arrests while things were slow – keep the figures ticking over.’

  ‘Change of plan,’ King told him coldly.

  ‘To what?’ Brown asked angrily.

  ‘Suddenly occurred to me,’ he explained, ‘there’s still a few main faces we haven’t taken down yet. Still a few need a wake-up call.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Everton Watson, for one,’ he replied.

  ‘Watson’s a scumbag burglar,’ Brown conceded, ‘but he’s no scag head. Don’t see how taking a half-gram bag off some scaggy tart’s gonna help us get Watson.’

  ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way,’ King told him and winked.<
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  ‘Hold on,’ Brown argued. ‘I don’t like the sound of this. Watson’s not worth getting in the shit for. He’ll come soon enough. No need to force the issue.’

  ‘You’re right,’ King gave in. ‘He can run, but he can’t hide. All in good time.’

  ‘Aye,’ Brown relaxed. ‘Only a matter of time.’

  ‘Of course,’ King agreed. ‘Only a matter of time, but all the same,’ he continued, patting the pocket containing the heroin, ‘I think I’ll hold on to this. Just in case.’

  Brown entered the Unit’s office back at Canning Town just as Renita was getting ready to go out on the late shift. Brown’s mood was reflected on his face.

  ‘You all right?’ she asked as she loaded her utility belt with weapons and cuffs.

  ‘Aye,’ Brown answered sounding glum. ‘Never better.’

  ‘Could have fooled me,’ she told him, smiling.

  ‘Aye, well,’ was all Brown could muster.

  ‘Come on,’ she laughed, to let him know he’d been holding out long enough. ‘Why so serious?’

  ‘Our beloved leader,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Notice anything different about him lately?’