by Lisa Cutts
Stan left it there. He knew I didn’t want to say any more about it. He was the one who had rescued us all those years ago, had been the one I’d looked up to ever since, and had guided me down the best paths in life. He’d always kept updated on my sister’s progress, from her initial ambulance ride to hospital all those years ago, to the fifteen days in a coma, to the months she spent in one hospital after another being retaught to walk and talk before finally going home to our parents, where she’d lived ever since. She’d made a great deal of progress over the years but her life would never be what it had once promised. Did I have feelings of anger that her life shouldn’t be this way, coupled with a deep-down sense of shame that I was relieved it wasn’t me? Yes, and that was why I would always feel so guilty. The man responsible for our kidnapping was currently locked in prison and justice seemed to be done, but I had to live with my own selfishness.
However, once again, I buried those thoughts and acted as normally as I could in front of the world.
We chatted for a while about his cruise and why he was now feeding a cat called Miriam that wasn’t his. Eventually I sought his advice on work matters. I did this often and usually just talking the matter over was enough to resolve the issue.
By the end of our meal I’d explained about the shooting, my visit to see Joe Bring, and the information he’d given me about the Rumbly family. Stan asked me a couple of questions to fill in any details I’d skated over. When I’d finished, Stan pushed his plate away and sat back in his chair, arms folded across his chest.
‘The name Leonard Rumbly rings a bell,’ he began. ‘If he’s the same one I’m thinking of, he’s a particularly unpleasant individual. A couple of colleagues of mine when we were all still in uniform had to travel down from the Met to an estate on the outskirts of Wickerstead Valley to nick him. Rumbly had bitten someone’s thumb off in a fight in New Cross.’
‘How can you possibly remember that?’ I asked. ‘You haven’t been in uniform for decades.’ I was impressed, but also a bit worried Stan was losing his mind.
‘Well, it would have been some time in the Sixties. I remember it because Rumbly tried to bribe them. They had to nick him for that too, of course. He seemed to think that he was outside the law and could buy whatever he wanted. I also remember it because some of their equipment went missing – a truncheon, that sort of thing. There was always a big fuss when stuff like that happened, in case officers were selling them to make a few bob.’
‘Police corruption was more of a problem in the Sixties, though, wasn’t it?’ I asked. There was no hint of accusation in my question: not for one moment did I think Stan himself would have been involved in anything untoward, and he knew that.
‘Yes, that’s true.’ He uncrossed his arms and picked up the half-full bottle of Côtes du Rhône, moving to top up my glass.
‘No, thanks, Stan,’ I said. ‘I’d better be getting home. Bill will be in soon. We’ve got a row scheduled for about half an hour’s time.’
I pushed my chair away from the table as I stood up, gathering plates and bowls as I went. The two of us cleared the table, filled the dishwasher and removed the debris from the meal in a contented silence. The only sound was of plates being scraped, and a noisy, attention-seeking cat.
When I couldn’t put it off any longer, I said my goodbyes and drove home to Bill’s house, defences on full alert.
18
When I got home, the row I had been expecting was waiting for me.
Bill was sitting in the armchair in his dressing gown, fingertips drumming on the side of his coffee cup.
‘Hello,’ I said, coming into the room, coat still on.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were giving your parents money?’
‘You’d have been annoyed.’
‘Not as annoyed as I am now.’
I wasn’t about to get tearful twice in one evening, so I got angry.
‘Who the hell are you to tell me what to do with my money, Bill?’
‘Please understand me, I’m not trying to tell you what to do. But you didn’t tell me the truth.’ He put his cup down and stood up. ‘We’re in this together. You won’t talk to me about your sister. You’ve never even told me what’s actually happened to her. I can accept that you’ll tell me when you’re good and ready, but I don’t want you to feel you have to keep things from me. I’ve got to be up at four for a drugs warrant so I’ll sleep in the spare room. Goodnight.’
He walked past me, pausing to kiss the side of my face. I wanted to stop him, go with him, tell him that I didn’t mind that he’d wake me in only a few hours when his alarm went off. I did none of those things, but remained where I was until I heard him close the spare room door.
The next morning, I woke with a feeling of domestic disharmony, despite the now still and peaceful house. I took myself off to Riverstone police station. The car park was packed when I pulled in a few minutes before eight. I reversed into a tricky corner space perfect for vehicles like mine that wouldn’t look any worse if another passing car left a scratch or dent.
As I opened the rear door of the station and made my way through the patrol officers’ wing, the unmistakable stench of cannabis greeted me. It was accompanied by the sound of rustling paper exhibit bags and two uniform officers wading through a couple of hundred exhibits. Mid-wave, I caught sight of Bill walking towards me with a petite blonde CSI whose name I couldn’t remember. She had a camera in her hand ready to photograph the cannabis plants seized from the latest haul.
Figuring it was safe to stop and talk to Bill, as he was too polite and professional to show his disdain for my financial predicament in front of others, I went towards them.
‘Getting up at four o’clock paid off, then?’ I asked, gesturing towards about twenty cannabis plants.
‘Yeah,’ said Bill. ‘They’re skunk plants, and we’ve got about another hundred or so still on the premises.’
‘Right, Bill,’ said the very pretty CSI, as she busied herself with her camera. ‘I’ll photograph these and put the pictures on the same disk as the ones of all the plants taken in situ, and you let me know what samples you want sending off to the lab. Get one of your officers to drop me the HOLAB form when you’re done.’
I thought it best to remain on neutral territory so asked, ‘What was the address of the drugs warrant?’
‘It was at 37 Park Road, Kilnchester,’ said Bill, with no hint of animosity. ‘Management are all patting themselves on the back, but it was as a result of information from a member of the public, apparently. Whoever it was had been on our website and read up on how to spot cannabis factories.’ He leaned closer to my ear and said, ‘From what I can gather, it was a resident in the street who noticed the lights were always on at the premises, the windows were blacked out, and the types of people coming and going with large bags of soil didn’t look as though they’d be growing tomatoes.’
‘Anyone in the bin for it?’ I asked, feeling that at least talking about work was, at the end of the day, talking.
‘Yeah, there are two in custody. Some fella called Nathan Samms and his wife. One’s being booked in now. Anyway, I’ll see you tonight, Nina.’
He strolled off to speak to the two officers on the floor bagging exhibits.
I left the area, leaving behind the aroma of drugs, and headed onwards to the cubbyhole that was the Cold Case office.
The door was open. Wingsy sat on one side and Jim Sullivan on the other. Both were engrossed in whatever was on the computer screens in front of them. Neither of them looked up as I entered the room.
‘Morning, fellas,’ I said, as I went to a desk and prepared to start work for the day.
‘Hi, Nin,’ said Wingsy. ‘Got much on today? Only asking because there’s a couple more things that we need to take care of in relation to our mate Allan Ragland, from yesterday. Then I thought that I might head off to Magistrates’ Court for his remand hearing.’
‘Course, Wings,’ I answered, taking off my coat. ‘
It’s either that or a fifty-year-old train crash. You’ve got my undivided attention.’
As we were talking, Jim got up and left the room. I watched Wingsy scowl at his back as he went out into the corridor. ‘He’s a donkey’s dangler,’ said Wingsy. ‘I’m going to get my own back.’ He got up and went over to Jim’s desk.
‘Can’t you just leave it?’ I asked. ‘He’s grassed you up once and, to be fair, he had little choice, with the chief constable involved.’
Wingsy paused with a roll of Sellotape in one hand and a pair of scissors in another. He stared at me.
‘You of all people are taking Spunk Bubble’s side in all this?’
‘In all what, Wings? You’re about to Sellotape over the mouthpiece on his phone? I want no part in “all this”.’
I ignored my friend as he carried on covering the mouthpiece of Jim’s landline with clear tape.
Firing up the laughably slow computer, I logged on to my account and checked my force email. I had the usual notifications of various servers and databases going down and then being magically restored while I’d slept, blissfully unaware that the Betterjax Matrix was experiencing problems. I had truly no idea what half of the databases used by our police force did, and was never entirely convinced that one or two weren’t made up.
At last I got to an email of interest from HMP Pensworth. Slightly aghast that a burglar could email me on my police account from the comfort of his incarceration, I hesitated for only a second before opening it. I told myself Joe Bring was the man who had saved my life first and a burglar second – or something like that.
Detective Nina, Miss,
Thank you for coming to see us in here. Got a few other things to tell you. I know I am no angle but can you come see us again.
Ta very much
Joe
PS I did twat that fella with a plant pot for you.
That made me smile, especially the part about being ‘no angle’. I must still have been smiling when I looked up at Wingsy. He was holding the phone and staring at me.
‘What’s up with you?’ he asked.
‘I’ve had an email from Joe Bring,’ I said. ‘And put that phone down before Jim comes back. What are we going to do today after court?’
‘Did a bit of digging and spoke to Mac in the Intel unit. He seems to think that the stolen jewellery from the artifice burglaries is being sold on at the Noël Coward estate gold shop.’
‘That came from Intel, did it?’ I asked, stacking my forearms on the desk in front of me. ‘I worked that out about twenty-four hours ago.’
‘Yeah, but what you don’t know, smart arse, is that someone saw them going in with a load of stuff that looked moody and they’re supposed to be going back today with more. They’re due in there at midday.’
This grabbed my attention. ‘You and I won’t be sent, though, will we?’ I said. ‘We’re Cold Case. We’ve got other stuff to do. They’ll send a couple of DCs from the main CID office, surely?’
‘You’re totally correct, DC Foster,’ said Wingsy. ‘Doesn’t stop us being in one of the shops opposite, though, to see who turns up. At least we know it won’t be the bloke arrested yesterday, Allan Ragland, as he’s still in the cells, then on his way to court. You must be at least a bit curious as to who it is. I know I am.’
I weighed up what he was saying. Mac really shouldn’t have given Wingsy the information he had, but, for a detective constable, the chance to watch the arrest of a burglar without being left with hours of paperwork was too tempting an opportunity to pass up. Even so, we’d have to write a statement and provide an innocent explanation as to why we were there in the first place.
Wingsy then said the words that were most likely to entice me into trouble, whatever the outcome.
‘Thing is,’ he said twirling the phone cord in his fingers, ‘we may well get Walter McRay’s wife’s wedding ring back.’
19
Unable to resist dropping in at the Magistrates’ Court en route, we left feeling pleased, as Ragland’s bail was refused by the Bench.
Cheered by this, we made our way to the Noël Coward estate. Wingsy and I discussed in which one of the shops in the parade we were least likely to appear conspicuous. I tried to persuade him to eat at the Golden Goose café. He shook his head from side to side for about thirty seconds at this suggestion.
‘Are you having some sort of fit?’ I asked, leaning across to steady the wheel.
‘No. Mel’s told me to cut down on fat and not to eat processed food. I had porridge for breakfast and that will see me through to lunch.’
‘Don’t talk crap,’ I said. ‘Porridge is processed.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s a natural product.’
‘Well, you don’t have porridge fields or porridge trees, do you, so it must be processed. Have a fry-up and don’t tell her.’
‘She’ll know and then there’ll be hell to pay. It’s just not worth it for a sausage.’
When I’d finished laughing at Wingsy’s comment, he added, ‘That was very childish. You know what I mean.’
‘Yeah, I do know what you mean, and the real reason that Mel will know is that the last time we went for a late breakfast you dropped egg yolk on your navy tie and she didn’t talk to you for three days.’
‘That’s true.’ He pulled the car over around the corner from the shops and looked off into the distance as if mulling over good times. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he lost himself in the memory of his wife sending him to Coventry.
A short while later we were trying our best not to look like two detectives in the hardware shop opposite the gold shop. Wingsy got himself into a blokey conversation with the man in overalls behind the counter and they seemed to be comparing hammers. I found it most amusing, but played the part of the bored female in tow and spent most of the time looking out of the window at the gold shop.
I saw a couple of people come and go. The window gave me what all police officers were taught at training school to call ‘a clear and unobstructed view’ of the portly bloke in the shop across the street. He was behind the counter, weighing and pricing goods. Without thinking about it, I estimated the distance between me and the man I was watching, the amount of daylight, and any obstructions such as passing cars and pedestrians. I also made a note of the time I’d started to observe him. You didn’t do this stuff for eighteen years without it becoming part of your waking thoughts, even if there was a hilarious conversation taking place feet from you about hollow wall anchors. For a moment I thought I’d misheard and it had turned nasty.
As it was getting to the point where we would soon have to leave the shop, following Wingsy’s meagre purchase of gate hinges and brackets, I saw a male in a high-visibility jacket strut his way along the street as only those with a tiny IQ could. I liked to call it ‘the geezer walk’. They looked ridiculous but were unlikely to ever find out, as those who recognised this particular gait as belonging to a moron didn’t want their teeth knocked out for delivering constructive feedback.
The ringing of the cash register, a sound I hadn’t heard for many a long year, signalled that Wingsy was finally finishing his transaction. I heard the rustle of the bag containing his purchase as he came up behind me. Leaning close to my ear, he said, ‘Who’s that? I recognise him.’
‘Dunno,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I can’t say I know him, but he looks a likely candidate.’
The man in the high-vis jacket carried on walking past the gold shop, glancing in both directions as he did so. Continuing his bounce along the street, travelling from left to right from our point of view, he picked up speed. A small black Polo had parked about a hundred metres up the road ahead of him. Although I couldn’t see anyone inside the car, as the man got to it, he opened the front passenger door, jumped in and the car made off at speed away from us. Neither Wingsy nor I were able to get a look at the driver or anyone else in it.
Turning to Wingsy, I kept my voice low, as the ironmonger was now wondering why after
Wingsy’s heady spend of £5.99, we hadn’t left his shop.
‘What do you think, mate?’ I asked.
The sound of a police car with its siren blaring blocked out whatever his reply was. It came past us at an incredible speed, heading after the Polo. Curiosity getting the better of us both, we went outside to see whether the car making off had been stopped and what the outcome was. The ironmonger followed us and stood in the doorway, peering after the racing vehicles. I also noticed that the man from the gold shop had pressed his face up against his glass window. There were bars on the inside, presumably because Riverstone Council didn’t want them on the outside ruining the 1960s concrete ambience. As the chubby shopkeeper squeezed his face close to the glass, I had visions of his head getting stuck between the bars.
Blue lights in the distance showed that the Polo had been stopped at an angle across the road, halting the traffic in both directions. This being an estate full of community-minded people, a small, curious crowd was already gathering. Wingsy and I headed towards our uniform colleagues in case they were in need of any assistance.
By the time we got to the assembled group, one man was handcuffed in the back of the police car, and one officer was searching the Polo while the other kept his eye on two other men who had jumped out of it and seemed to be doing their best to distract him. Wingsy and I made ourselves known and offered to lead one of the men away so he could search the other one unhindered. As luck would have it, he indicated that we take the strutter with the high-visibility jacket.
‘What’s this all about?’ he shouted. ‘I’ve not done fuckall.’ While he ranted, he started to put his hands into his pockets.
Wingsy and I moved as one to stop what he was about to do. We had no idea what was in his pockets. We didn’t fancy finding out the violent or foolish way, either.
‘Hold it there,’ Wingsy said to him. Picking up on the conversation going on between our two colleagues, who were still within earshot, we got the gist of the reason for the stop-check. Strictly speaking, we weren’t adhering to PACE – you weren’t supposed to form the grounds for a search from a whispered conversation in the corridor with an old mate who was now in Intel, nor from a uniform patrol’s conversation – but these two had been stopped by our uniform colleagues, not by us. At the end of the day, we knew our reasons, and our grounds – and we knew we had the public’s best interests at heart, even though that hadn’t ever been a part of PACE.