Four police cars and two police vans were parked on the drive, line-abreast in a fan formation, each vehicle pointing towards their front porch door. A number of dogs were jumping down from the back of one van, their excited barking quickly silenced by the louder barked commands of the dog-handlers. Three police officers, including a woman in plain clothes, were at the top of the porch steps and a dozen others were milling around, looking up at the bedroom windows for signs of a response to their presence. The twitching curtain was spotted by a couple of the officers who pointed it out to the rest. The woman walked back down the steps, looked up at the window and raised a small loud-hailer to her mouth.
“Mr Tom Brown! Home Secretary! We need to speak to you now, sir!”
“Katey!” Mags gasped. “It must be Katey!”
“It can’t be …” Tom started, going back to her and holding her again.
“Oh, God! Please no!” Mags clung closer to him.
“Mags, it can’t be anything like that. There’s half the bloody Force out there. I’ll go and see what’s going on. Probably got a call to say someone’s snooping around. It’s not about Katey; trust me.”
Tom left her again to open the window.
“Okay, I’ll be right down,” he shouted. He quickly pulled on his dressing gown and opened the bedroom door. Jack was outside in just his boxer shorts, hand raised, about to knock.
“What the hell’s going on?” he asked.
“I’m just going to find out,” said Tom.
He raced down the stairs, deactivated the house alarm and unlocked the inner front door and outer entrance door to the porch. The woman officer held up her ID badge in her right hand and a printed sheet of A4 in her left.
“Detective Inspector Cottrell, sir, Guildford CID.” She lowered her badge and thrust the other document forward. “I have a warrant to search this property with immediate effect. Please let me in.”
“Search the house! For what exactly?”
“Please let me in, sir. We have a warrant to search this property,” she repeated.
“Yes, you’ve already said that, and I’ve already said ‘for what?’”
“Please let me in, sir.”
Mags and Jack were watching and listening from the mid-stair landing. Mags had put on a long bathrobe and Jack’s arm was round her shoulders; she was still trembling with anxiety as she shouted down.
“Tom, what? Katey?”
Jo heard the question.
“Nothing to do with your daughter,” she said quietly to Tom.
“It’s not about Katey,” he shouted up to Mags, stepping back a little from the doorway. Jo edged on to the threshold.
“They want to search the house,” he added. He turned back to Jo.
“I’ll ask again,” he said, this time with the hint of a threat in his voice. “What are you looking for?”
Jo stood her ground, now just inside the porch door. Mags and Jack had descended to the hallway.
“I didn’t want to have to say this, sir, given that it might sound a bit facetious, but under Section 7 of the NJR provisions – I quote – ‘the police shall have the right of access and search in such circumstances as they think appropriate given a weight of evidence, as set out in the notes to Section 7 below’…”
“Yes, you’re right,” Tom interrupted, “it does sound facetious.”
“‘Without the requirement to disclose either the details of that evidence or the purpose or objects of their search’. I believe you wrote those words, sir, or at least you approved them. So I say again, please let me in.”
Tom sighed and stepped back.
“Very well, Inspector …?”
“Detective Inspector Cottrell, sir. Thank you.” Jo walked through the porch and into the hallway. She nodded to Mags.
“Mrs Tomlinson-Brown, I won’t take up any more of your time than is necessary, but I need to search the whole of the property, including outbuildings if necessary. And I’d like to start right away.”
Jack turned and went back up the stairs.
“Follow him, Sergeant,” said Jo. “You know where to start.”
Tom watched as she followed the sergeant up the stairs, with a dog-handler and his long-haired cocker spaniel immediately behind.
Mags turned to Tom, anger now taking over from anxiety.
“This is outrageous!” she shouted. “Don’t they even know who you are – what you are? This is the Home Secretary!” she yelled after them, and to the other officers now filling the hallway. “Your boss!”
“Let them get it over with, Mags,” said Tom. “It’s some sort of mistake, obviously,” he said loudly for all to hear. “I can’t wait to see all the red faces in a few minutes time.”
As he spoke he was heading up the stairs after Jo and the others.
“Inspector Cottrell,” he shouted, “refresh my memory. Is there anything in the provisions that prevents me accompanying you on your search? Perhaps I could help by pointing out the most likely places where the arms and explosives are stashed.”
Jo ignored him. She and her two colleagues were focused on following Jack, who turned off the upstairs corridor into his room, locking himself in. The dog sniffed enthusiastically at the bottom of the door.
“Please open the door, Mr Tomlinson-Brown,” said Jo, banging on it with the palm of her hand.
“Just a minute!” Jack’s voice from inside. “Just making myself decent.”
“Don’t worry about that. You’ll do as you are, thank you. Open up, please. Now!”
Tom had arrived at the door.
“Can’t you give him a couple of minutes, for God’s sake, just to get dressed? Here, you can start in our bedroom. The hand-grenades are in the top drawer of the dressing table and the rocket launcher is behind the wardrobe.”
“That is neither funny nor helpful, sir. We are just doing the job you gave us. Now this door is about to be opened, either by your son, or by us.”
“Jack, open this bloody door, will you. This is not helping …” Tom added his weight to the request.
“Just a couple of minutes …”
“Now!” Tom and Jo shouted in unison. They could hear a shuffling inside, like things being moved around.
“Okay in there,” Jo shouted, “stand away from the door; we’re coming through it now!”
She signalled to one of the officers further back along the corridor. He stepped forward carrying a two-handled battering ram and positioned himself ready to swing it at the door. Tom stepped across it facing the officer and shouting over his shoulder.
“Jack, open this fucking door!”
The movement inside ceased and the door opened. Jack was still dressed in just his boxer shorts. Jo looked him up and down.
“Why, Jack. You must be the slowest dresser in the world,” she said.
She looked around the room. A wardrobe door was open and in front of it was a sports holdall into which had been stuffed a large number of magazines. There were a few more of the same still inside at the bottom of the wardrobe. It was clear that Jack had been removing them from there.
“What exactly were you doing?” asked Jo.
“Nothing,” said Jack, “just tidying up …” His voice tailed off.
All eyes were on the spaniel, which was half into the wardrobe giving little yelps and vigorously wagging its stubby tail. Its front legs were scraping at the pile of papers as if trying to dig through them.
“Easy, Jilly; good girl; sit.”
The dog handler pulled her gently back. One of the other officers knelt and peered into the wardrobe. He turned to Jo.
“SOCOs, ma’am?”
Jo nodded, removing her radio from her pocket.
“Andy, bring them up, please.”
Tom looked across at his son who was sitting on the bed, elbows on his knees and head in hands staring unfocussed at the floor a couple of feet in front of him. Tom turned to Jo who looked back at him with eyes full of sadness.
“Home Secretar
y, we’ll need to spend some time in here. In the meantime, I suggest that you and Mrs Tomlinson-Brown and Jack get dressed. I can’t allow anything to be touched in this room. I’m sure you can find Jack some clothes from somewhere. Constable Marsh, here, will accompany you.” She nodded towards one of her officers. Her voice was suddenly gentle and kind.
He and Mags dressed and went downstairs to the front sitting room off the large hall, Constable Marsh remaining outside the door.
“This is unbelievable!” Mags was shouting. “Can’t you just throw them out, for God’s sake? Charge them with trespassing or something!”
“They’re just doing their job, Mags.”
“Oh, of course! Their bloody job! Trampling all over people; abusing their new powers!”
Tom sighed, recognising the old barriers being raised. Jack entered the room, looking sheepish and avoiding their eyes.
“Well, Jack,” said Tom. “Anything to say at this stage?”
Jack looked at him briefly and then turned away again.
“Sorry,” barely audible.
“Sorry!” shouted Tom. “You wouldn’t like to tell us sorry for what, would you?”
Mags turned on him.
“There’s no point in shouting at Jack!”
“No point in …! Have you any idea what this is about? Would you like to enlighten us, please, Jack, or would you rather we just listened in when you explain it to the police?”
“Explain what to the police?” Mags stared at Tom, eyes blazing in anger.
“Look, I’m really sorry,” said Jack, the calmest of the three by a long way. “I was going to get rid of them.”
Tom wrinkled his brow.
“Get rid of them? Get rid of what, exactly?”
“The magazines. The porno mags, for God’s sake. It’s not like they’re hardcore or anything. I can’t believe …”
“For Christ’s sake, Jack! How long have you lived on the planet Earth? This isn’t about bloody lads’ mags. They don’t send trained dogs to sniff out pornography – hard or soft. But can you think of something they do use sniffer dogs for? I’ll have to rush you on this one, I’m afraid!”
Mags gasped. “Drugs!” Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “Jack?” She turned to her son.
Jack laughed mirthlessly. “Drugs! There are no drugs in there. I had the last of the paracetamol on the morning after the party …!”
“You think this is a joke?” shouted Tom. “Perhaps the dog’s mistaken!”
“It is if it thinks there are any drugs in there,” Jack shouted back, losing his cool. “I can’t believe you think that of me. Thanks a lot, Dad.”
Mags began to cry. Both Tom and Jack went immediately to console her. Jo Cottrell appeared in the doorway. They all turned towards her.
“I’d like you all to come with me, please,” she said.
Jo led them up the stairs and along the corridor to Jack’s room. She stepped aside to let them through the door.
Half a dozen officers in white hooded overalls and surgical gloves were gently searching through drawers and picking items from shelves. The wardrobe door was still open and the police sergeant waved his arm in a gesture inviting them to look in. The magazines had all been taken out and the base panel removed, revealing a cavity about four inches deep below it. In the space, about three feet long and two feet wide, there were forty-eight clear plastic bags of white powder.
The phone rang in Tom and Mags’s bedroom further along the corridor, but no-one seemed to hear it.
*
Jack sat alone, ashen-faced, in the rear of the police car staring in front of him at the back of the driver’s head. Tom was talking to Jo at the bottom of the steps up to the front porch entrance.
“You do realise this is a big mistake, don’t you, Inspector? Trust me, my son had no idea that stuff was there. All that locking the door and such – he was worried about the magazines.”
“I’m sure the truth will come out very soon,” said Jo, with the merest smile.
“When can we see him?” he asked.
Jo checked her watch.
“Give it a few hours,” she said. “We’ll need some time with him. Say ten o’clock. Bring him some spare clothes, toothbrush, that sort of thing. Just in case we keep him for a while.”
Jo went to get into the car.
“By the way, Inspector, how did you get through the gates, and past security?”
“Not my responsibility, sir,” Jo replied. “That was taken care of before we arrived. But don’t forget that your security people work for the same boss as me. Their orders came from the same source. So please don’t think they let you down or anything.”
He nodded as she slipped into the back of the vehicle next to his son. Jack turned his head towards him as it pulled away, but his eyes were glazed over and he seemed to see nothing. Tom went back to their room, where Mags was lying on the bed in a state of utter despair. The phone rang again. She picked up the handset and he could hear Katey’s voice shouting in panic.
“Mum, oh, Mum!”
Tom took the receiver gently from Mags and pressed the ‘speaker’ button so they could both share the conversation.
“Katey, what’s wrong?” he said.
“It’s Jason, Dad. The police came – about five o’clock – and raided the house. They found …they found …” She began to cry, almost out of control.
“Katey, Katey, please calm down,” said Tom. “Look, it’s all a big mistake. They’ve been here as well. They’ve found some stuff in Jack’s room.”
Katey seemed to pull herself together.
“Stuff? What sort of stuff?”
“You know… stuff.”
“Oh, God!” gasped Katey. “So it might be true?”
“What might be true?” asked Tom.
“Well, drugs, of course,” she sobbed. “That they’re doing drugs. I mean dealing.”
“Of course they’re not!” Mags almost screamed at the phone. “That’s ridiculous! Don’t you dare think that!”
“Is Jason there?” asked Tom.
“No, they took him away. And Jack? What have they done with Jack?”
Mags turned onto her side and buried her head in the pillow.
“They’ve arrested him, Katey.”
“Oh, no! Oh, God, no!”
*
Three days later
Week 4; Friday, 17 April…
Daniel Hastings, Senior Partner, and the third generation member of his family in the firm of Hastings and Medforth Associates Ltd, Solicitors, had been awaiting Jack at Guilford police station when he arrived with Jo Cottrell on the morning of his arrest. Tom had called him the moment the car taking his son away had left the house. Daniel had subsequently agreed to represent Jason as well.
It was 9.30 am and he was pacing uneasily around the front sitting room at Etherington Place, where Tom and Mags were seated separately listening to the details of the investigation which lead to the events of three days ago. Daniel was a distinguished-looking figure, tall, slim, with handsome features and slightly greying hair. He was wearing a navy suit with white shirt and red silk tie.
“The investigation got underway around two months ago,” he said. “That was after the police had received a number of phone calls from drug users – seven in all – about some dodgy crack cocaine being distributed in the Woking area. All seven, and quite a few others it seems, suffered significant side effects. They gave the names of the dealers responsible as Jake and Jasper, and their descriptions pointed to Jack and Jason, who are on record as known associates of Mickey Kadawe, following the police surveillance of Kadawe the previous year…”
“I bloody knew it!” Tom almost exploded, addressing the comment to Mags. “I’ve said it time and time again! I thought he’d be behind…”
Daniel held up his hands to stop him. “Hold on, Tom. Kadawe is not under suspicion. He was closely observed for half of last year, and the police were satisfied that he’s clean. He’s a licensed tra
der, but there was no evidence he’d strayed beyond that. So he’s out of the picture; all his previous convictions were as a minor – no point in going down that road.”
Mags glared at Tom. “Too bad. You’ll have to try and fix him up for something else.”
Daniel looked from one to the other before continuing.
“Around three weeks ago, four of the users were persuaded to come forward, and three of them actually provided samples of the substandard goods. These were analysed and confirmed as being contaminated. Also, in the opinion of the examiners, they could have produced the side effects described.
“And I’m afraid it gets worse. The fourth user who came forward claimed to have gone to the home of one of the dealers. He couldn’t remember the address, but he described it pretty accurately and picked your house out from a number of photographs he was shown of different properties. He says he had intended to confront Jack but couldn’t get in because of security. Instead he threw the bag with what was left of the stuff in it over the property wall. Can’t imagine why he did that, but during the search of the grounds here on Tuesday, they found a small packet near the boundary wall. His fingerprints were on the pack which goes a long way towards confirming his story.”
“Compelling stuff, I’m sure,” said Mags, “but he didn’t do this, Dan. I can tell you that for certain. So instead of accepting all this as gospel, you – we – need to be thinking how it was done.”
“I totally agree, Maggie, but you should hear the whole story first. No point in trying to work out alternative scenarios until we know alternatives to what.”
Mags nodded but said nothing.
“Three of the four separately identified Jack – as Jake – from photographs taken on last year’s surveillance. The other identified Jason – or Jasper, as he knew him. The three who didn’t come forward after the phone calls, by the way, had all named Jasper as their supplier. There is also CCTV footage of Jack in brief conversations with half-a-dozen known drug users, and a couple of encounters also picked up through police shadowing.”
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