by Deborah Lucy
‘I’ll take that.’ Harker’s customary guttural growl was at its menacing best as he held out his hand for the mobile. ‘If I were you, I’d start looking for a new job, Temple,’ Harker continued in a low voice. ‘There’s no way back for you now. You can kiss goodbye to the next ten years as a police officer.’ Temple handed over the phone.
It had been a long time coming but at last Clive Harker felt he had Temple over a barrel. He’d managed to choreograph a set of circumstances that had led to a disciplinary hearing and now there was a further charge to add to the sheet. Harker would have known that any mention of discontinuing Op Acre would see Temple disobeying an order to leave the enquiry alone and he’d been right. Suggesting this course of action to Buller had been clever on his part, he thought. He’d known it would only be a matter of time and that had come far sooner than he’d expected.
An alleged assault in custody by a detective officer had had Harker looking at the CCTV in the custody unit. When he saw Temple in the background making off with DNA kits immediately following his meeting with Buller, it was a gift. He knew he had him. Now there was direct chief officer involvement, Harker would see to it that Temple wouldn’t survive. The hearing was scheduled for next Tuesday; by the end of that day, he’d be out. It couldn’t come soon enough. The two men eyed each other. It was a showdown of sorts between them and Harker already thought it was game over.
All Temple could think of was that they were about to take his warrant card away from him and strip him of his ability to function as an officer. How could he find Prayer and China without it? He’d be neither in the job nor out of it, but stuck in a sort of no man’s land of policing, useless without the powers and protection it gave.
They were standing close enough for Temple to see a small pulse beating in Harker’s left cheek. Temple wondered what Harker would say if he knew Gemma had been to visit him. That she had a daughter, Temple’s daughter, the only grandchild Harker was likely to have. He wondered what Harker would say if he knew that his only grandchild was now placed in danger because of the actions of his good friend Sloper and that by suspending him, Harker had just scuppered the best chance of her being found alive and well.
Even in that moment as he thought about it, Temple still wondered if it was true. The temptation to tell Harker, shock him and tell him that instead of suspending him, he needed to listen to him and work with him to get his granddaughter back, was strong. But he could hardly believe it himself, let alone convince Harker. And Temple remembered Gemma’s strict instructions not to tell him. His mind raced. Was Gemma setting him up? Was this all part of it, a drive to get him out of the job? The sooner he could get out of the building the better.
Accompanied by Harker back to Buller’s office, Temple was served disciplinary papers and was asked for his warrant card. He took it from his wallet and placed it on Buller’s desk. Buller picked it up and Temple watched as he put it in a brown envelope. Harker then accompanied Temple to his car to retrieve the DNA kits he still had in there. He hoped they hadn’t checked the inventory to see how many were missing or they’d know he’d got some elsewhere, the stash he gave to Richard.
Back in Buller’s office, Temple was told that he needed to report any journeys he wanted to make out of the county to gain permission to do so. He was told he had no access to police stations. He wasn’t permitted to wear his uniform except at the impending disciplinary hearing and contact regarding that would be made with him through his designated force ‘welfare officer’, a chief superintendent designated by Buller.
In a final act designed to humiliate Temple, Buller ensured he was escorted off the premises by a sergeant. As Temple reached the door to leave, Harker spoke.
‘Temple.’ He waited for him to turn. ‘See you next Tuesday.’
Chapter 29
In the small, rank-smelling flat in Penhill, Katya Petrenko was waiting for her mobile phone to ring. She was sitting on a stained settee in leggings and a T-shirt while her uniform from her expensive school hung on a hanger over the door in front of her, the intricate gold-embroidered school badge on the breast pocket offset against the burgundy cashmere wool blend.
In the kitchen, the drugs were being cooked to make them malleable, easy to hide. In this state, they could be put into condoms and transported inside the body, hiding them from any police search. And dressed in her uniform, her very proper uniform, Katya was the perfect foil for drug dealing.
A local drug gang had recruited an older girl at her school, whom they had supplied with ecstasy and cocaine. She in turn had been threatened and forced to recruit more runners. She’d made it sound easy and exciting, which was what had lured Katya. Katya had all the money she wanted but it was excitement her life lacked. She lived her life through watching others on social media, and she wanted to have a piece of the action. This didn’t seem particularly difficult, but it was the fact that it was illegal that attracted her. And there was such demand.
Suppliers were flooding the more rural communities with drugs; there was a healthy appetite for cocaine and it needed to be transported and delivered quickly and easily. There was a need to recruit younger, more respectable-looking kids; kids from good backgrounds, rich even. Posh kids who wouldn’t readily come to notice. They could be used to deliver to the more well-heeled clientele as they would blend in easily.
And it worked. They were getting more and more drugs across the country with fewer losses. And kids were easy to frighten. It was quick and easy to make them feel responsible, scare them shitless with threats of reprisals against their families so that, in the end, they were doing it to keep anything bad from happening.
The trap house was known to be where local addicts could buy their gear and where Katya and the other runners could be replenished. The door opened with a key and another young boy came in. He was small for his age, with the added benefit that he therefore looked much younger than his fourteen years.
‘Lordon? Lordon?’ he shouted.
‘In here,’ came a voice from the kitchen. Lordon was ‘cooking’.
The boy was holding his arm and Katya could see his coat was torn. He walked straight past her to the kitchen. He was in pain and he was scared.
‘I’ve been cut. They’ve sliced me. Some other dealers attacked me.’ The boy went into the kitchen clutching his arm across his chest.
Lordon stopped what he was doing and went to the boy. The boy’s face was ashen and he’d obviously been frightened by the attack. But at least he was here; he’d made it back. He was alive. He gestured to the boy, his hands still in blue latex gloves from handling drugs.
‘Take your coat off and let me see.’
The boy did as instructed and revealed a long livid cut and blood dripping from along the inside of his left arm and onto the floor. He winced as he revealed it, peeling his coat away, looking at Lordon’s face.
‘He had a fucking knife and suddenly sliced me as they asked me for my drugs and money.’
‘They stopped you and asked you?’
‘Yes, I didn’t have any on me. I told them.’
‘If you had and they’d taken it, you would pay for it.’ It was important to get that message across, for the future. ‘Oi,’ Lordon shouted out to Katya. ‘Come in here and help me.’
Katya got up from the settee and went into the kitchen. She was enthralled by her situation, which still felt like a game. A game where she was surrounded by young people going about their clandestine business, which was now her business. In the short time she had been involved in this, a whole new world had opened up to her. For the most part she was silent and wide-eyed, taking it in, doing as she was asked.
Lordon had the boy’s arm across the kitchen table and it was bleeding heavily. The boy looked at his injury and felt sick.
‘Am I going to die? I’ll have to go to hospital.’
‘You’re going nowhere. I’ll deal with this.’ Lordon knew he had to do all he could to keep the boy away from hospital. Hospitals wer
e to be avoided at all costs. Too many eyes looking, too many questions asked.
He looked across at Katya. ‘Right, that’s better. You hold the cut together and I’ll close it. Now, stay still. It could have been a lot worse. You were lucky it was only your arm. They could have just done you in the street, man. Finished you.’
Lordon went to a drawer and brought out a sealed bag. From inside he took out a plastic bottle with a nozzle. Unscrewing the lid from the nozzle, he then squeezed the liquid. He had to stop the wound from bleeding and the sooner he got this done, the better.
‘Right, hold the cut together,’ he instructed Katya, and as the boy winced and groaned, Lordon dripped the contents lengthways into the cut and then in a criss-cross, anointing the wound. He made sure the glue was applied thickly, so that it formed a hard crust.
‘There,’ he said. ‘Keep still for a minute, hold it. Hope that this works or I’ll have to stitch you myself.’
‘What is it?’
‘Superglue. Just stay still, let it work.’
He packed the glue away and got back to business.
Seeing that the boy’s wound was fastened by the glue, Katya retreated back to the settee.
Lordon addressed the boy, who was still sitting at the kitchen table, examining his handiwork. He was lucky he hadn’t had to take a needle and thread to it. He had the means and he had been taught what to do by learning from another dealer stitching up his own injuries. It was a good way of swerving hospitals, especially for some of the younger kids.
‘Don’t go picking at it.’ The boy winced. ‘You’ll get used to it. See it as a battle scar. It won’t be the last you’ll have – if you want to be like me in a couple of years’ time, dishing the stuff out, you’ll get a few more scars before then.’ Lordon pulled up his top to reveal a raised scar across his left side.
‘I survived that, see? And a few others.’ He pulled up his trouser leg to reveal a scar on his shin. ‘This one I stitched myself, learnt how to do it. Good thing you didn’t have any gear or money on you, man. Now tomorrow, get some of this stashed on you and get back on the train. I’ll give you a knife to carry, to defend yourself. And you,’ he shouted out to Katya, ‘get your uniform ready. He’s going to wear the jacket.’
Chapter 30
Temple drove home, having first stopped to buy a pay-as-you-go mobile. He should have seen this coming and there was no way Harker wasn’t going to capitalise on the situation. What were the chances of Harker seeing a clip of CCTV where Temple could be seen in the background picking up DNA kits? He sat in his car, his mind racing, going over it all. He was in a mess and it was of his own making.
Of course they must have been expecting him to do something; Harker knew he would react in some way when they told him Op Acre would be closed down. He’d handed himself to them, to Harker and then Buller. It would have been Harker’s decision not to pursue Op Acre and he would have advised Buller. He had to hand it to Harker, he was good. And there was no way he was going to survive next week’s disciplinary hearing now. Harker had already told him that. He didn’t quite know what he was going to do but somehow he had to fight back.
He met Ana at the front door, who’d been wondering why she had received so many telephone number notifications. He explained the position to her, that he was now no longer a warranted police officer.
‘What does it mean?’ she asked.
‘It means, Ana, that I need to do something to sort the situation out or I’ll lose my job next week. They’ve taken my work mobile. I’ll need to borrow your mobile phone, that’s why I sent you the numbers. I’ve bought you a pay-as-you-go which will need charging; I’d use it but I haven’t got time to wait for that.’
Ana tentatively handed over her mobile and Temple sat in the kitchen and put the numbers he’d sent by text into Ana’s contacts, texting his new number to Amy and Paul Wallace. He then went into the small back garden and called Gary Lewis. He was impatient now.
‘I haven’t heard back from you yet, Gary. What’s happening?’
Lewis wasn’t taking orders from Temple. He was in no rush. ‘I’m trying to fix a meet for tomorrow night.’
‘Why not tonight? Tomorrow night’s too late.’
‘You got the money?’
‘I can get the money, don’t worry about that. All I need is the meet set up. Ring me back on this mobile. This is the number you reach me on now.’
He then used Ana’s phone to make contact with his office. He wanted the others to hear of his suspension from him. DS Sam Mendoza answered and listened as Temple explained his exchange in Buller’s office. As Temple spoke, Mendoza abruptly cut short their conversation. So that was the effect suspension had. He texted his friend DC Paul Wright, who rang him back immediately.
‘The bastards have got you then, mate? I’ll call round at the weekend, see if there’s anything I can do.’
‘No, I don’t want you dragged into this, you’ve helped enough already. If I could ask you to help on another matter though, while I’ve got you.’
‘Anything. What can I do?’
‘I need the DNA profile from the blue T-shirt.’ Paul Wright understood immediately without any further explanation.
‘Leave it with me. I’ll be in touch. Are you sure there’s nothing I can help you with regarding the suspension?’
‘No. One way or another it’ll be over soon; the disciplinary hearing’s scheduled for next Tuesday. Besides, I’m not giving up yet, there still might be a way I can turn it round.’ He didn’t want to say anything more on the phone as his paranoia was telling him that they could already be monitoring Wright’s conversations with him.
Temple made one last call to his police fed rep to tell him of his suspension. Inspector Bob May listened intently as Temple informed him of his news.
‘They’re looking at three charges now then.’ May was thinking through a worst-case scenario. That was his default position; he wasn’t there to provide a shoulder to cry on, he was there to lay it on the line. If someone was facing the sack, best they get used to the idea sooner rather than later. He didn’t offer agony aunt services.
‘Three charges means they can go for warning, final warning and terminating the contract of employment. With the line-up you’ve got, I don’t fancy your chances of coming out of it with your job. But that’s the worst case – other than that, a bit of ritual humiliation with a demotion maybe.’
‘Thanks, Bob, I knew I could rely on you to cheer me up.’
‘My pleasure. I’ll see you there then, on the day. In the meantime, I’ll get some testimonials in for you. You never know, I could be proved wrong but I doubt it. I’ll argue for you to be able to resign rather than be sacked. That’s the best scenario I can offer.’
Temple hung up. Now the phone calls were out of the way, he could concentrate on the only thing that mattered. Finding Prayer, China and Megon.
Temple thought about his interaction with Gary Lewis earlier that day. He needed Lewis to set the meeting up for later that night. If he could only find the girls, Gemma might be willing to make a statement about Sloper and he might be able to gain himself an advantage. But without the return of Prayer, Gemma was unlikely to help. He knew he couldn’t get the girls back on his own and now he was an exiled cop with no warrant card, no uniform, no radio and no backup. Nada, as Ana would say.
As he sat thinking through his options, there was a knock on the door. Ana answered it. The smallness of the cottage meant that he could hear the familiar voice of DS Sam Mendoza. He went from the kitchen to the front door.
‘I wanted to come round, mate, and offer my support. I thought it best not to speak on the phone, in the office with the others listening in. I’ve told them you’ve been suspended. And I mean it, if there’s anything I can do. . .’
Mendoza reached across the threshold and put his hand on Temple’s shoulder.
‘Come in.’ Temple reluctantly stepped aside.
‘I won’t stay long, I just wanted
to come out following your call to let you know that I sympathise.’
They went into the kitchen and stood facing each other. What was Mendoza really doing here? He could have said this on the phone. Perhaps he’d been sent to report back on how he had taken the suspension, see how angry he was. Temple knew he had to be careful not to give anything away. He tried to put on a philosophical front.
‘It is what it is. The hearing’s next week so I won’t have long to wait.’
‘Look, my own case is pretty hopeless. My putting my hand on a colleague’s knee isn’t going to bode well for me in the long term. Her word against mine, with me saying it was unintentional. Which it was. With all this #MeToo, I’m fucked. They’ve already asked me to consider resignation. The only reason I haven’t is that it’s taking them so long to bring the case, I may as well get a few more mortgage payments out of it. Here’s my mobile number. If I can do anything for you, just call.’
‘That’s good of you, Sam, thanks. Will you resign?’
‘Next month maybe. Perhaps it’s time to get out anyway. Disciplinary aside, I’ve got ten years to do if I stay, and the job doesn’t get any better. So what I’m saying is, I’ve got one foot out of the door anyway; if I can do you a good turn, just let me know. I’m out tonight, having a drink in Swindon if you want to join me?’
‘Like you, Sam, I think I’ve pretty much had it. I should have been better at seeing it coming. If I think of something though, I’ll call. I’ll pass on the drink but thanks all the same. I appreciate it. I’m going to keep my head down and prepare for the hearing.’
Temple made all the right noises even though he wasn’t sincere. He didn’t feel like socialising or drowning his sorrows. He was angry. Mostly with himself.
Mendoza left. Even before he was out of sight, Temple wondered if Mendoza had meant anything he’d said. Perhaps Mendoza was one of Harker’s spies, perhaps he’d been reporting back on their conversations in the office all along. He didn’t know if that was fair or not; he didn’t know what to think anymore.