No Further Action

by TL Dyer

  No Further Action

  Code Zero Police Series, Volume 1

  TL Dyer

  Published by TL Dyer, 2020.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  NO FURTHER ACTION

  First edition. August 31, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 TL Dyer.

  ISBN: 978-1393954569

  Written by TL Dyer.

  Good men and bad men alike are capable of weakness. The difference is simply that a bad man will be proud all his life of one good deed – while an honest man is hardly aware of his good acts, but remembers a single sin for years on end.

  —Vasily Grossman

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Without Consent

  Want More? For Free?

  Author’s Note

  Also By TL Dyer

  About The Author

  Prologue

  I’m covered in blood again.

  Not my own. Rarely my own. And not just my hands, but on my face, in my hair, imprinted on my stomach and chest where it soaked through my shirt, places I wouldn’t even think it could get. I feel it on me, clinging to my skin, drying over my pores because it can’t find a way in. Though sometimes I wonder if that really is true, or whether a little more of it gets absorbed every time.

  With the stained clothes in a pile at my feet, I step naked into the thick steam from the shower, the scalding water taking my breath away. I duck my head under so it soaks my hair, and hold out my hands to wash away the blood like I’m offering up a sacrifice. Though sacrificing what and to whom, I don’t know. Maybe a better man could say.

  Streams of bloody water rush down my thighs to my legs and swirl at my feet, and as it circles the drain, I see again the lights on the vehicles, turning around and around, lights that had bathed us in blue. And the shouting. Voices meant to be calm, but edged with panic. Chaos masquerading as order. Action pushing away thought. Adrenaline rushing too fast and for too long, so that now – hours later and the threat long gone – I’m weak all over, like someone’s pulled the release valve and I’m losing air fast. My legs shake as I ease myself to the shower floor, taking the weight from them before they give way altogether.

  Water thunders against the back of my neck, but it’s not enough to flush the images from my head, or to stop replaying the things said, the things done. The steam filling my throat and robbing me of air isn’t enough to wipe away her face when my eyes close. Nor is the curling of my right hand into a fist enough to shift the sensation of her cool fingers from my palm. And I don’t think there’s any noise right now, certainly not the relentless battering of the water against the bathroom tiles, that could make me forget the way she looked at me, nor the words she spoke, and the broken voice that spoke them, as she lay dying. I hear them again now as if she were sat right here beside me in the shower, whispering them into my ear.

  ‘Please. I’m begging you. Delete messages.’

  Chapter 1

  There’s this saying that keeps coming back to me. I don’t remember where I heard it first or who said it, but it goes something like this.

  What is a good man but a bad man’s teacher? What is a bad man but a good man’s job?

  Nice and simple. So long as you know which side you fall on, that is. Over here, sat quietly in the corner, you have the good guys. And over there in that other corner, smoking spliffs and getting angry, are the bad guys. Do the right thing and you’re a good guy. Do the wrong thing and you’re... etcetera, etcetera.

  In practice, what that means is, we have law-abiding citizens over here, lawbreakers over there. Givers here, takers there. Police officers here, fuckwits there.

  But what about the ones caught up in the middle? Is there even a middle?

  ‘Careful you don’t blow out the windows with that sigh.’

  Ange’s heels clack over the bathroom tiles. She lays a cool hand on my right shoulder and props her chin on my left. I pause with the razor mid air. Tepid soapy water slides down my forearm to my elbow, then drips to the floor.

  ‘You love it really,’ she says. She means the job. This is Ange’s answer to everything job-related. A catch-all phrase to shut the conversation down, this time before I’ve even said anything.

  I get tired of waiting for her to move, and go back to the shaving, twisting my mouth to say, ‘Just thinking about that kid from the other night.’

  ‘The one you had to put in the cooler?’ Her chin digs into my shoulder bone with every word.

  ‘Twelve though. Mouth like a sewer.’ The murky water in the sink shudders as I flick the razor in to rinse it. ‘Christ, at that age I was afraid to speak to my old man and his workmates, let alone mouth off in front of them.’

  ‘Not much changed there then.’ Her fingers squeeze my shoulder, and when I catch her eye in the mirror her smile is tight-lipped and teasing.

  ‘You’re in a good mood,’ I say.

  She drops her hand to my waist where she gives it a light tap before going out to the bedroom without closing the door. There’s a window open somewhere. Its draught cools my back and sends goosebumps up my spine. I lean closer to the mirror to snag the bits I’ve missed.

  ‘Twelve though,’ I mutter at myself, remembering the look on the lad’s face when I showed him his B&B accommodation for the night. The prospect should have scared him shitless. A glare that could cut steel and a gap-toothed grin suggested otherwise. All balls, but doubtless a curl on them yet. Bet he couldn’t wait to Snapchat his mates with the news.

  What are you supposed to do with a kid like that? Educate or punish? Both easier said than done when he has no regard for either. It wouldn’t be a wild guess to say criminality and possibly incarceration ran in his family. In which case I should feel sorry for him, it’ll take some doing to break that particular mould, few do. But a screwed-up face and four-letter-word tirade don’t make sympathy all that easy.

  I yank out the plug. It drains quick, leaving a scum I attempt to rinse with handfuls of cold water. In the bedroom, Ange is whistling Viva España, the novelty of which wore off about six months ago, right after the first time she did it. The towel from the radiator is warm and I dry my face, holding it over my eyes for a second. Just a second.

  ‘It’s still there,’ she announces, as I come out of the bathroom. She’s sat in the rattan chair by the dressing table with her laptop on her thighs and her ankles propped up and crossed on the bed. Nylon tights crackle where she rubs her toes against each other while I wait patiently for her to move so I can pass. Her feet land on the carpet with a soft thud, her eyes still hooked by the
screen.

  I pick up the fresh polo shirt I’ve laid out on the duvet and pull it over my head. At the mirror, I undo the top button on the cargo trousers to tuck the shirt in, and when it’s tidy enough, I redo the button and brush off the towel lint clinging to the polyester. Taking my boots from the floor by the wardrobe where I left them after polishing them earlier, I sit on the bed to put them on. All this is done with a concentrated effort. And with good reason. It keeps my mind from wandering ahead to what’s waiting for me.

  This is everyone’s favourite game at the station except mine. They make a meal out of speculating what’s to come, as if by voicing the worst possible outcome they can have some influence over it; tell themselves enough times that tonight will be shit, and perhaps it’ll be a breeze instead. I tug at the laces on my boot, starting from the bottom and working my way up.

  Superstitions and obsessions. There’s a surprising amount of them around these days. The old man would spin in his grave. Though maybe with twelve-year-old’s gobbing at your feet and calling you a fuck-faced twat, you need all the help you can get. And if that comes in the form of some hippy woo woo nonsense, then so be it.

  ‘Still there,’ Ange sings, before resuming the whistling.

  I yank on the laces of the other boot, tutting when I notice a spot of polish I’ve failed to wipe off. I rub my thumb over it, but it smudges.

  ‘It’s a sign, Steve. It must be.’

  Christ, not her as well.

  ‘I’m telling you, that finca is ours. Told you, didn’t I? Every time we passed it, it just caught my eye.’

  Plenty of things catch my eye. Doesn’t mean I can have them.

  I don’t bother saying this. Never start a shift on an argument. The job’s hard enough as it is.

  ‘Thought any more about The Lobster Pot?’ she asks, fingernails tapping lightly on the laptop’s keys, a sound that goes through me.

  ‘Not really had a chance.’

  I get up from the bed and pull open the drawer, shove aside socks and pants, finding an unopened packet of new black socks at the back I’d forgotten about and moving them to the front to remind me. Ange is still talking, but I’m not sure what she’s saying because I can’t find my bloody—

  ‘Thing is, Steve, leave it too long and I guarantee this finca will be gone. I really think we should jump in now.’

  ‘Have you seen my belt?’

  ‘Behind you on the bed.’

  I turn and tut. Right where I left it.

  ‘The Lobster would be a lovely holiday home for someone,’ she goes on. ‘An old couple or a young family.’

  ‘It’s lovely for us,’ I say, looking in the mirror as I thread the belt through the trouser loops, trying to remember when we last spent more than a few days at the cottage. Who needs Spain when you’ve got the south-west coast of Wales and a view across the English Channel to Devon on a sunny day?

  ‘Of course it’s been lovely,’ Ange says, enunciating her words in that way I imagine she does for customers at the building society when she’s upselling to them. ‘And we’ve had a lot of use out of it over the years. But we’ve outgrown it now.’

  ‘Have we?’

  ‘I mean it’s not like when Dan was small and a couple of seagulls and some rocks would entertain him for days.’

  ‘Before long, Dan won’t want to come with us anywhere.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I repeat, taking my warrant card and keys from the bedside drawer. ‘We’ll have the cottage to ourselves.’

  The chair she’s sat on is next to the door, which means I can’t avoid her on the way out. Ange is older than me by seven years, though has kept her smouldering looks remarkably well for the latter end of forties. She’s also kept her habit of pulling faces like a child. Like now. Her top lip curls up enough to skew up her nose and render one eye half closed. This is how she feels about Mum and Dad’s coastal bolthole, the one I inherited after they passed.

  ‘It’s peaceful,’ I say. ‘It’s a beautiful spot. No one knows us there. No one bothers us there.’

  She points a neatly French-manicured fingernail at the laptop, then taps at the screen until I’m forced to relent and look at it.

  ‘Peaceful,’ she says, as for the hundredth time I gaze upon the image of the red-bricked Spanish finca with a perfect artificial front lawn and a painted sky. ‘Beautiful spot. No one knows us. No one bothers us.’ Her fingernail moves to the digitally enhanced blue. ‘Guaranteed good weather. A better return on investment. A desired spot, and a lucrative extra income during high season. A nest egg until you retire.’

  ‘And then?’

  Reaching up to entwine her arm around mine, she gently clutches my bicep beneath the sleeve of the polo. Emerald eyes underscored with green eyeliner widen as they look up at me.

  ‘Then, Officer Fuller, you get your reward for all these years of hard work.’

  ‘A Ferrari 812?’

  Tutting, she drops her hand, nails catching my skin. She points again at the screen. ‘You get to live in a beautiful country, carefree.’

  I can do that here.

  I don’t say this either, but I do let her have the last word for now, slipping past her and heading downstairs to the kitchen. I hit the switch on the kettle on my way through, check the clock. Just gone seven. Night shift starts at eight. It’s only a twenty-minute drive to the station, but lateness is one of those things that gets under my skin. I like to have time to brace myself. Get my head in the game before the game can get in my head.

  ‘What time will you be home in the morning?’ Ange calls, passing through the hallway to the sitting room as I’m shrugging on my jacket.

  ‘Same time as always, with any luck.’

  ‘Only I might have to leave early,’ she adds, voice muffled as she moves about the room. ‘Whitchurch are short-staffed and I’ll probably need to fill in. Waiting for Claire to let me know.’

  I zip up the jacket over the emblem on my shirt. Not that everyone round here doesn’t know what I do for a living by now, but caution pays in this job. The rest of my gear is in the locker at the station and only ever comes home if it needs washing. A little something I learned from the old man. Maintain the divide, keep things separate, home and work shouldn’t cross. Some of the others struggle with this, but it’s easy – you draw a line down the middle of the two and everything falls either on one side or the other. My father brought nothing home he didn’t need to. It was only when I joined up myself that I understood the full extent of what his job actually involved. From foot patrol right through the ranks to Chief Inspector, forty-plus years, Dad was a soldier – not once did he bring any of it to the dinner table.

  The kettle clicks off and I pour hot water into the flask I’ve already prepped with Nescafé. There’s a machine at the station, supposedly coffee, but there’s some debate over that. We used to have a kitchen once upon a time, until some jobsworth decided appliances were health and safety hazards and took everything electrical away, as if we couldn’t be trusted with anything over a couple of volts; same reason we’re still waiting on Tasers. Now if you burn yourself at the drinks machine, that’s your own fault, nothing to do with South East Wales Police so don’t even think about suing.

  ‘So you’ll take Dan?’ She comes into the kitchen as I’m screwing on the lid of the flask.

  ‘Can’t he catch the bus?’

  I reach into the fridge for my sandwich box. Tuna and mayo this week while I partner with Sacha – she doesn’t mind fish. Clayton’s the awkward one. Claims he’s got a fish allergy and can’t have the stuff anywhere near him. Clayton claims he’s got an allergy to just about everything, though the only one I’ve ever seen evidence of is his allergy to work. He’s the kind that likes to tick the least amount of boxes and that’s his day done. He’d be killing it on the production line, but makes me wonder why he signed up for the Force. It’s not for the hours, the remuneration or the holidays, that’s for sure.

  ‘Ste
ve.’

  ‘What?’ I say, as I close the fridge door and pull my kit bag over the counter.

  ‘Are you even listening? You know I don’t want him catching the school bus.’

  ‘He’s fifteen, Ange.’ I load the bag with the flask and sandwiches.

  ‘And he was fourteen when they beat the living shit out of him.’

  For having a copper for a dad, she doesn’t add. Not this time, anyway.

  ‘I’m only asking if you’ll take him to school. But if it’s too much bother...’

  ‘It’s not too much bother. I’ll take him.’

  Ten past seven. I close the door on the toilet just off the kitchen and manoeuvre around the clothes horse to get to the john. Dalston’s the sergeant on shift tonight, so the preliminaries shouldn’t go on too long. It was Roberts last night. Roberts is thorough, but with a tendency to ramble. It was almost nine by the time me and Sacha rolled out onto the street. By then, town’s already warming up and it was straight into the first bare-knuckled brawl of the evening.

  I hit the flush, grab my bag from the kitchen counter, double check my pocket for my keys and card, and pop my head round the sitting room door on the way down the hall. ‘See you later then.’

  Ange has curled her legs up on the sofa as she scrolls through something on her phone, the laptop half-open on the coffee table, finca still glaring at me. She tucks a strand of chestnut hair behind her ear. The room is already growing dark as the evening light fades, and in its shadow I notice she looks tired.

  ‘You’ll think about it though, Steve?’

  ‘Think about what?’

  ‘Getting the cottage valued.’

  ‘I don’t need to. I know how much it’s worth.’

  ‘You know what I mean. Properly valued. By an estate agent.’

  I stifle a sigh. I don’t want to say yes to this just to keep the peace, but I don’t want to leave for night shift under a cloud either.

  ‘There’s work I need to do on it first,’ I say, aware that I’ve used these same words before. And immediately it’s clear they’re not enough. Something to do with the way her chin dips and eyes are lightly scolding.