The Badge & the Pen Thrillers

by Roger A Price

  ‘Pain.’

  ‘I don’t mind a bit myself, as you know, but I much prefer to give. You know that, too.’

  ‘I know that,’ Babik said.

  ‘Apart from that incident of course. I hadn’t meant to go that far, but it was her fault, she’d hurt me with that whip. You should train them better. What happened next was entirely involuntary. As you know. Anyway, moving on. What exactly is it you want me to test?’ the man said, with that sick gleeful grimace back on his face.

  ‘This,’ Babik said. And before the man could react, Babik punched him hard in the face. The man had turned to face Babik whilst leaning on the railings and now rocked backwards from the blow. A look of confusion replaced his habitual smirk and Babik punched him again, harder. This time, the blow pushed the man further and Babik could see that the small of the man’s back was acting as a pivot on the handrail. He quickly squatted down and grabbed at the man’s shins, whilst the element of surprise was still on his side. He wrapped his arms around the man’s lower legs and then heaved upwards in a conventional squat thrust movement. The man’s excessive upper weight aided Babik. He let go and stood back… as he watched the man’s expression turn from questioning to terrified realisation.

  Babik felt transfixed as time slowed and he stood up to watch the man fall backwards into the roaring traffic below. He smiled, as he stared into the man’s eyes for the last time. He didn’t wait to see the impact. But he heard it, followed by the screech of brakes, followed by the sound of metal on metal.

  In the moments before the collisions, as the man sailed through the air, Babik had been amazed at the pitch of his screech. He’d never heard a human voice reach such a tone. It wasn’t a sound he would forget too soon, he was sure, but it wouldn’t bother him. He just found it interesting. Anyway, problem solved he thought, as he climbed back into his blue motor.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Vinnie and Christine finished at the wine bar and then Vinnie led the way, still using his borrowed CID car to drive to Hutton on the western fringes of Preston. They parked in the Anchor’s vast car park, which was virtually empty. He was surprised to find the pub itself quite busy. Different times when this place was built; as with many rurally-located pubs of that era, everybody drove to bars then. Not any more. Vinnie knew that a lot of rural pubs had failed, once people stopped drinking and driving. He didn’t know anyone who did it now; 15 years ago he hadn’t known anyone who didn’t.

  As they took a seat in a corner with their drinks, Vinnie took in the clientele and reckoned that a large percentage were cops from residential training courses; that was probably what kept the pub going. Though, he wasn’t sure for how long, as most courses nowadays were not residential. Budget savings and all that.

  The next couple of hours passed quickly and it was good to relax and spend some time with Christine. True to his word, when they walked across the bypass to the gatehouse he duly announced himself, warrant card in hand and introduced Christine as his boss. Fortunately, the sentry was happy enough just to see Vinnie’s card, not that he expected otherwise, due to his rank. And even though the sentry hadn’t asked to see Christine’s warrant card, he called her ‘ma’am’, which seemed to amuse her greatly.

  He felt like a naughty young cop sneaking his girlfriend back to his room, which was actually pretty accurate — apart from the ‘young’ bit. Once they found their block, he was relieved to discover that all the doors to the 10 or so rooms on their floor were open and he could see that they were not in use. They would have the entire floor to themselves.

  He showed Christine to the facilities at the end of the corridor and then waited until she returned, before he made his way to use them. That way he could afford her some privacy in getting undressed and into bed. He was starting to get excited, and for some daft reason, felt like some inexperienced adolescent.

  He had a quick shower and wrapped a large towel around his waist as he walked back to their room. When he entered he could see Christine grinning from the bed, with just her face and naked shoulders on display. His pulse raced and he knew he didn’t have long to get under the covers before his towel would start to displace itself, and that would be embarrassing.

  Quickly, he slipped his watch off, noting that it was after midnight. He was just about to get into bed when his mobile started to ring and dance around on the small desk at the foot of the bed.

  Who the hell could this be? He was going to leave it, but decided to check the display first. Then he would turn it off and call whoever it was back in the morning. That was until he saw Harry’s name on the screen. ‘So sorry, I’ll have to take it, it’s Harry. Whatever he wants shouldn’t take long,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve waited this long, I can wait a couple of more minutes,’ Christine replied.

  Vinnie pressed the green icon and Harry spoke first.

  ‘You at training school?’

  ‘Yes, J block.’

  ‘Been drinking?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘I’ll send a car, there’s been another murder,’ Harry said, and then the line went dead.

  Vinnie felt his towel start to droop.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  It was nearing one o’clock by the time Vinnie approached the scene. The local roads were full of HGVs, no doubt displaced from the motorway. Harry had asked to meet him on the bridge. Both the road below and the bridge were sealed off as crime scenes. Vinnie could only get to a spot 30 metres prior to the bridge before he had to pull over. There was blue and white tape across the road and a PC with a clipboard looked on. Vinnie went to the boot of his vehicle to put his paper over-suit on when Harry approached, already suitably dressed.

  ‘Suicide?’ Vinnie asked.

  ‘That’s how it looked at the start, which is why we are late to the party,’ Harry said.

  ‘How late?’

  ‘Happened a few hours ago. The local DI, Jim Day got it as on-call SIO for the coroner, but soon became unhappy due to reasons I’ll let him explain.’

  ‘Hello again,’ said Jim Day as he joined Harry and Vinnie, who by now was zipping up his paper suit.

  ‘Hi,’ Vinnie replied.

  ‘I hope you weren’t enjoying your evening too much?’ Jim said.

  Vinnie didn’t reply, and all three of them looked at their respective wrist watches.

  ‘Sorry, I should have said sleep; forgot how late it’s become.’

  ‘What have we got?’ Vinnie asked.

  Jim then gave him a quick appraisal of the known facts. A middle-aged man had apparently leapt to his death, causing a seven vehicle pile-up.

  ‘Anyone else hurt?’ Vinnie asked.

  ‘Fortunately not, but I’m not sure how. Though, the couple whose car the aggrieved hit will have some psychological issues, no doubt. They saw him fall but couldn’t get out of the way; not that it would have helped anyone.’

  ‘They saw him fall?’ Vinnie asked.

  ‘Yes, and it was after they had been spoken to that my suspicions were aroused.’

  Neither Vinnie nor Harry spoke as Jim continued. ‘He fell from the bridge backwards. I’ve never known a jumper go that way before.’

  ‘Nor me,’ Vinnie agreed.

  ‘Then, I had some initial house-to-house enquiries done.’

  ‘Where?’ Vinnie asked, looking around.

  ‘Behind that copse is a row of newly-built houses whose gardens back up to the trees, and with it being a warm summer evening and all that,’ Jim said.

  ‘Any luck?’ Vinnie asked.

  ‘Yes, in or far as there was one couple sitting out at the time, but no, in that they didn’t see anything.’

  ‘So that’s the end of that then.’

  ‘Not quite and here’s where my suspicions were further raised,’ Jim said. Vinnie nodded for him to continue. ‘They heard what they thought was the sound of swifts screeching, which the man of the house thought strange.’

  Vinnie asked why, and Jim explained that the man was a fa
n of the swifts and would often sit out of an evening and watch them feed and screech, and their remarkable aerial displays. But he was certain that they had all fled their nests two to three weeks ago to migrate. And, when he’d looked up from the noise, the sky was empty.

  ‘Relevance?’ Vinnie asked.

  ‘It got me thinking,’ Jim said. ‘So I checked with the witnesses and fortunately, one of the vehicles involved was a convertible with its roof down. The driver heard it too.’

  ‘Heard what?’ Vinnie asked.

  ‘“The most unearthly screech I’ve ever heard. It pierced the traffic noise”, is how the convertible driver described it. The deceased was screaming his head off. Most jumpers are silent; they know they are jumping to their death, and why,’ Jim said.

  It crossed Vinnie’s mind to suggest that the jumper may have had a change of heart half-way down, but knew if even plausible, it was highly unlikely. He liked Jim and respected his hunches, and he had to be honest with himself, his own suspicions were aroused now. He nodded.

  ‘Any idea who he is yet?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Just on my way to tell you,’ Jim said, adding, ‘the van over there is his, he’s a rep from Rotherham, and he has many things to live for.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Vinnie asked.

  ‘South Yorks Police have just spoken to his next of kin, and apparently, today was his last day as a rep — he’s just won £250,000 on the lottery.’

  ‘That’s a lot of reasons to live,’ Vinnie said.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Jim added.

  ‘Harry?’ Vinnie asked, as he turned to face his boss.

  ‘Ok gents, I agree this is suspicious, so let’s start off publicly that it’s an unexplained death, but run this thing from here on in as homicide. We can always downgrade things in the light of fresh information, but as we all are fully aware, we can’t reclaim what’s lost by going at it the other way around.’

  Vinnie and Jim nodded, Harry carried on. ‘I know you have other responsibilities, Jim, but unless you get dragged away elsewhere I would appreciate you co-ordinating both scenes and supervising a more formal house to house. I’ll have two DSs and a number of DCs here shortly to help you.’

  ‘Keep hold of me as long as division will allow,’ Jim said.

  Harry said that he would and Jim turned and headed off. Once he was out of earshot, Harry turned to face Vinnie. He looked serious.

  ‘Where’s your driver?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Dropped him off en route.’

  ‘You fit to drive?’

  ‘Trust me; I’m stone cold sober now.’

  ‘The latter bit better be true, and I need to know that I can rely on the former bit, too.’

  Vinnie felt a little offended, but decided to say nothing. Harry carried on. ‘I’ve decided to let the “lights and TV” thing slip for now, we’ve got too much on and I need you focused.’

  ‘Yes, Harry, sorry again.’

  Harry opened his mouth to speak, but his phone rang. He walked away as he took the call, and from what Vinnie could hear, he wasn’t too happy with the caller. He finished and returned as Vinnie was looking over the railing trying to image how someone could willingly jump over it backwards — he was struggling to do so.

  ‘That was Preston comms room,’ Harry started, and then went on to explain that there had been a change of shift and the night communications room supervisor had found an unfinished log from hours earlier. Apparently, DS Grady had called into the station early evening looking for them but left without leaving a message, or a contact number. Vinnie looked at his watch again; that had been several hours ago.

  ‘And they are just ringing you, now?’

  ‘Apparently, the operator had tried a couple of times but not got through.’

  ‘And left no message?’

  ‘Exactly, but I guess it wouldn’t have seemed so important to them.’

  ‘What did you tell them?’ Vinnie asked.

  ‘I told them that should DS Grady reappear, to make sure we are told as a priority. Then we can arrest her.’

  Vinnie wasn’t surprised. ‘Time she answered some hard questions,’ he said.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and set up the incident room and then try and grab a couple of hours of kip. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day,’ Harry said.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Babik had driven straight back to the address where Amal Sadiq was being held. She had been no trouble and was now asleep. He told his men to come back in the morning, he would bed down there for the night. But first, he fed his clothes into the brazier in the back yard, and put a fresh set on.

  Once Amal’s husband had been sentenced, he would let Susan arrange her release. But instead of having the cops call here, he would play it safe and have Susan drop her off blindfolded in the city centre. Then he would burn the house. He’d taken a call earlier from Susan, who said she couldn’t find any mention of the mill on any of the intelligence databases at the police station, and he was as reassured as he could be that he was still ahead of the game with that. He told Susan to get some rest and to see him tomorrow.

  Then his phone rang. He looked at the screen; his associate. ‘I was just about to ring you, Mr Boldo.’

  ‘Of course you were, Babik. You’ve been in that cold climate too long, you are slowing down,’ Boldo said.

  It was summer and quite warm, but he didn’t correct Boldo. He knew what he meant.

  ‘Problem solved?’ Boldo asked.

  ‘Fully taken care of,’ Babik answered, and then filled him in on the new gold card vacancy.

  ‘Good. The mill?’

  ‘All good. A contact of mine has checked. She only just rang, which is why—’

  ‘Yes, yes, forget the bullshit, there is plenty enough of that where I’ve just left. But the mill, are you sure?’

  As I was saying, Babik thought, but didn’t say. He continued, ‘There is no mention of the mill on any of the police’s databases.’

  ‘Good, very good.’

  ‘I wanted to raise with you the issue of exchanging the girls. As good as they are, some of the gold card holders are asking for a change.’

  ‘I’m fully aware of their use by dates. I will arrange replacements; we lost a top one recently, but I am expecting five more, very soon.’

  ‘That’s great; maybe we can increase the subscriptions accordingly?’

  ‘Indeed. What about the other issue?’

  ‘As you know, I have a very close contact in place and it appears that Sadiq is keeping his word.’

  ‘Pity we can’t just pay an inmate to remove him,’ Boldo said.

  ‘Not as easy over here.’

  ‘But not impossible, no? If needed?’

  Babik didn’t answer, he was still hopeful of using Sadiq in the future; he had been reliable. ‘What about the current girls?’ Babik asked instead.

  ‘Their removal will have to be managed carefully and I may have to return to Preston to take control of it.’

  Babik had half expected this. He was always happier when his associate was back in his real home.

  ‘Besides, I have my own contacts now as you know.’

  ‘Maybe safer to stay away until you need to use them, reduce your exposure and therefore any risks to you?’ Babik said, as gently as he could.

  ‘How very considerate of you, Babik. But I’ll be the decider of that. Ring me with any updates,’ Boldo said, and then the line went dead.

  *

  Vinnie was in early the following morning and was being as helpful as he could in helping Harry to set up the incident room and take on the new case. Harry hadn’t mentioned the “lights and TV” thing again, so hopefully that was in the past. They had acquired an extra 10 detectives and still had DI Jim Day, for now. Harry asked Jim to act as office manager, to cover the post-mortem examination and manage the crime scenes. The motorway had been re-opened, but the bridge and road over it were still closed.

  One pair of detectives was disp
atched to Yorkshire to get as much background on the deceased as they could. A family liaison officer had already been identified and was to go with them.

  A house to house team had been actioned to re-do last night’s quick door knock properly, and a search team was about to do a fingertip search of the bridge area.

  Harry held a quick press conference — which, included Christine — but Vinnie avoided speaking to her. He knew she would just be covering the initial press liaison because she was already, coincidentally, in Preston. Someone else would take over later in the day.

  It was nearing midday before Vinnie stopped to catch his breath in their office. He had just finished a call when Harry walked in.

  ‘Any updates?’ Harry asked.

  ‘As a matter of fact, yes. Just had the intel unit on and initial background checks on the deceased have thrown up some interesting stuff.’

  Harry raised an eyebrow in reply, so Vinnie continued. ‘No previous cons, but there is plenty of intelligence courtesy of South Yorkshire, to suggest that our lottery winner was also a bit of a spender when away from home.’

  ‘Gambling?’ Harry asked.

  ‘No, prostitutes.’

  ‘Let’s stay on that as a priority,’ Harry said.

  ‘I’ve already told the DS running the Yorkshire away team.’

  ‘I also bring news,’ Harry said, and added, ‘I’ve just spoken to Jill at CPS, Sadiq’s just been sentenced.’

  Vinnie was surprised his case had been dealt with so soon. ‘How’d he get on?’

  ‘Thirty-nine months, which Jill reckons is par. He’ll be out in 18 or 19 if he behaves. Less, if he keeps his promises.’

  ‘Just up to us to bring cases against Babik, Grady and Fletcher, then.’

  ‘And we only know where one of them is — Fletcher.’

  ‘Can’t go near him until we have the other two,’ Vinnie said.