Persons of Interest: A DC Smith Investigation

by Peter Grainger

  Waters said, ‘Where’s the nearest take-away coffee? Is there anywhere I can walk to, later on?’

  Smith looked suitably shocked.

  ‘Take-away coffee? Industrial effluent. If you get anything like that, you can stand outside and drink it. Besides, I brought a flask.’

  ‘Really? Is that what’s in the bag?’

  He turned around and looked on the back seat. Smith nodded.

  ‘What else?’

  ‘I made some sandwiches. And there’s a bit of cake.’

  ‘Brilliant – we’ve got a picnic!’

  Smith turned his head slowly to look for the sarcasm and didn’t find it. Recently, after the fitness test, he had managed to cut his three cigarettes a day down to two; he was also making an effort to reduce the number of times he said or thought ‘Dear me...’, having realised that he was saying or thinking it every two minutes these days, but there was no meaningful alternative when he saw that Waters’ delight was genuine. All he could say was, ‘Well, I’m glad you’re getting your appetite back.’

  An hour passed. The side-street ran north to south, and that was the way they were facing. The shadows from the cottages to their right, and from the pub a little further along began to lengthen and inch across the road’s surface. They watched three pigeons, two of them strutting and displaying to the third, and Smith was tempted to make interesting remarks about eternal triangles but then thought better of it, just in case. The old, old man came out of his cottage on the left and crossed the street again, making for the pub, followed by the same elderly lady, but the bag was missing this time. Sherlock Holmes would have solved the case at that point, Smith.

  ‘Thunderbird One to Thunderbird Two.’

  They both stared at the radio, and then Smith nodded to Waters. It was Wilson’s voice.

  ‘This is DC Waters. What’s up?’

  ‘Is Smith awake? He’s normally in bed by now these days, isn’t he?’

  Waters did not attempt to describe the hand gesture that his sergeant was making, saying again instead, ‘What’s up, sir?’

  ‘OK. We’ve got Routh’s boys in the street again, with a couple of new friends.’

  The hand gesture had changed – Smith was now signalling ‘More’.

  ‘Can you tell us exactly what’s going on, sir?’

  ‘It’s the same lot as last night. They pulled up and parked a bit too close for comfort but they haven’t clocked us. Before they got to the door, a couple of heavy-looking sorts came along from nowhere and started a conversation. It looks friendly – they’ve met before.’

  Waters had it now and didn’t need to check in with Smith.

  ‘Can you describe the newcomers, sir?’

  ‘Mostly wearing denim, boots. They look like a pair of skinheads who haven’t had it shaved off for a week. Mike and I don’t recognize them.’

  ‘Age, sir?’

  ‘Twenties, maybe thirties. One’s a bit older than the other. Hang on, they’re all going into the pub now. That’s it, they’ve gone in. Over and out.’

  Smith had turned the ignition key, lighting up the dashboard and ready go. Now he turned it off again. He said, ‘Might have been a bit awkward if they’d come round the corner.’

  Waters said, ‘I don’t get this. Routh was at war with these people, wasn’t he? Now they’re meeting up for drinks.’

  ‘Well, the troops are. Stuart Routh was not a happy man when I last spoke to him, for more than one reason, I’d say. I reckon it’s a case of ‘The king is dead. Long live the king.’ There’s been a hostile takeover – that’s my best guess.’

  Two contacts now, within twenty four hours; they were getting closer. Waters couldn’t go anywhere near the place but could he, Smith, risk slipping inside, finding a corner from which he could study the situation, see who was talking to whom? The chances were that someone would recognize him – that’s the price you pay for working in the same town for twenty years. But they had so little time – it might be a chance worth taking.

  He had a hand on the door-latch when the radio spoke again. It was Wilson.

  ‘You two still there? We’ve got a woman acting suspiciously. I didn’t notice but Mike saw her pull up just after Routh’s boys. She waited until they’d gone in – now she’s in the street and looking into their motor.’

  Smith raised his eyebrows to Waters as he smiled, pressed the switch and said into the radio, ‘She’s not driving a Ferrari, is she?’

  ‘Of course she’s not driving an effing Ferrari, you think I’d have failed to mention that?’

  ‘Can you check with Mike? You said you didn’t notice her arrive.’

  There was an angry silence.

  ‘No, she’s not driving a Ferrari. If you’re taking the piss, Smith...’

  ‘I wasn’t. What’s she doing now? And can you give us a description?’

  ‘She’s left their car alone. Walking along past the entrance and having a good look in... Still walking. Tall, blonde, thin, in her twenties. Jeans and a blue T shirt-top thing. You’ll see for yourself in a minute, she’s almost reached the corner.’

  They waited and watched. The woman appeared and turned into the side-street some thirty yards ahead of them. Wilson hadn’t mentioned the designer sunglasses, perhaps because every third person was wearing them in this long hot spell, but she hadn’t taken another three steps before Smith and Waters recognized her.

  Smith said under his breath, ‘Bloody hell!’

  Katherine Diver slowed her pace as she drew level with the side door of The Wrestlers; they could not see but it must be open because she finally stopped and stood looking in, as if wondering whether she should go and buy herself a long, cool drink. Waters had turned to look at Smith, and Smith was calculating quickly between the obvious questions – how on earth had she got here, to this point in the story? And what on earth would happen if she went into the pub and started asking the right people the wrong things? Or the wrong people the right things?

  ‘Chris, go and have a quiet word with her – just get her to come over to the car. I’ll tell Wilson what we’re doing.’

  He went without another word, and Smith said into the radio, ‘OK, we can see her. We know who she is, and we’re going to speak to her now.’

  Then he could hear Wilson’s voice coming back with, ‘You know who she is? Well who the hell is she? Smith? Is this a cock-up? Is she one of the RSCU mob? Smith?’

  Waters had reached her, was standing quite close, leaning in a little because she was tall but not as tall as Waters – but her body language was all wrong, Smith could see that from twenty yards away. He opened the door and got out but it was too late – he saw her step backwards, saw Waters reach out and take hold of her arm. Now Smith was walking quickly with fifteen yards to go. She reached into her bag and he began to run, the knee would just have to put up with it. Waters saw the spray and seized her wrist with his other hand, and that meant that he could not avoid her elbow when it was driven up into his face.

  We think the strangest things in these moments, and all the voice in Smith’s head could say as he crossed the final couple of yards was ‘Not the nose, please not the nose again, his dad will kill me!’

  Waters had closed his arms around her in a bear-hug, and she was shouting for help whilst simultaneously trying to bring her knee up between his. Gentle persuasion was no longer an option, and so Smith put a foot in and kicked her legs from under her. She went halfway down but would not let go of Waters, pulling him down on top of her as she fell to the pavement, still shouting that she was being attacked. Her sunglasses had fallen off in the struggle and Smith could see her eyes, as green as a cat’s and as fierce, but she hadn’t lost it – she was angry alright but she knew exactly what she was doing.

  He found the pressure point in her hand. When it opened and let go of Waters’ jacket, Smith twisted her arm up behind her back and rolled her onto her front. Holding that arm in place with his knee, he reached for the handcuffs in his inside p
ocket, praying that they were actually there – it was weeks since he had checked. As he worked her other arm round to her back, he said the customary words about resisting an arrest and assaulting a police officer, and Waters finally managed to extricate himself from beneath her.

  He said to Waters, when she had finally stopped struggling, ‘Is that your idea of a quiet word?’

  The point of her elbow had caught him under the jaw, thank goodness, and he would have a bruise, nothing more, but he looked suitably shaken up by the encounter. Smith became aware of legs standing around them a few feet away; three girls, either going in or out of the pub, were watching, mouths open, and one of them was fiddling with her phone. When she held it up to take a picture, Smith said, ‘I wouldn’t if I were you, love,’ and she put it away. Beyond the girls, a middle-aged couple turned and continued on their way as Smith looked about at the audience, and the businessman who had come up behind them on the pavement nodded to him and spoke.

  ‘Do you need any assistance, officer? I’m assuming that you are an officer – and you don’t actually look as if you do but...’

  ‘No, thanks all the same, sir. All under control – just a misunderstanding, really.’

  The man looked amused, as if to say, well, if that’s your idea of just a misunderstanding, I’d hate to see what happens when it’s serious, and then he moved on past the entrance to the pub and out of sight – fortyish, clean-shaven, a sharp, dark blue pin-stripe and a sharp, close haircut on the sides but with a ponytail hanging down the back, and carrying a briefcase as well. Smith thought, for a dull old town, we don’t lack a bit of colour on Saturday nights. Decent of him to ask, though – not many would.

  They put Katherine Diver into the back seat – she hadn’t spoken a word since her arrest – and Smith started the car. Before he drove away, he called Wilson and told him the shortest possible version of what had just taken place.

  ‘You’ve arrested her? What the hell for? What happened when she came around the corner?’

  With the girl in the back of the car, Wilson should have known better than to ask but Smith kept his response as neutral as he could.

  ‘It’s a long story, and now’s not the time. We’re taking her back to Central.’

  ‘What do you want us to do?’

  Smith glanced at Waters – and no, he hadn’t missed the significance of it either.

  ‘It’s up to you. If it were me, I’d stay on the front door, just carry on as planned. But ring the DI if you need to – not my decision.’

  It was a perfunctory attempt at an interview, just as Smith had intended; she needed to calm down and reflect a little and the best place for that was in a cell. However she had managed to blunder on in her investigation into Tina Fellowes’ disappearance - and he certainly did need to know that - it was unlikely to be of great import in the wider situation. Something about the Routh boys’ car had interested her but that must have come from what she had been told by Sandra Fellowes about Cameron. Persistent, though. It was a good thing that she had kicked off, or he might have had to let her go with a warning, and he didn’t want her roaming the badlands of Lake until he was sure that she understood how cross he would be if she did.

  Waters came home with him for a second night, and Dougie was due to pick him up from the station at ten o’clock on the Sunday morning. As they drove in to the station at half past eight, he seemed somewhat more reluctant to take the short leave than he had been initially.

  ‘What time are you going to interview her?’

  ‘As soon as I’ve had another cup of tea, I suppose. Why?’

  ‘I think I should be there. It was me she assaulted – it might bring it home to her, in the cold light of day.’

  ‘The cold light of day?’

  ‘That’s what you always say. It’s the only reason you kept her overnight, isn’t it? To teach her a lesson. We know she doesn’t have a record – she’s never been arrested before.’

  ‘Well, yes, that’s partly it. And I also want to know how long she’s been trailing the Routh lot. It’s conceivable that she has seen something useful without even realizing it.’

  Smith glanced across at Waters as he changed gear.

  ‘So you don’t want to be there just so you can have round two? Because I’ve got to be honest and say that I think she was winning.’

  Waters made the what-can-you-do gesture with his open hands.

  ‘She took me by surprise, I’ll admit it. What can you do? You can’t just hit a woman, can you, because she’s resisting arrest?’

  ‘Ah, well, was she? Were you, at that point, trying to arrest her? Had you said the magic words? Or, from her point of view and just for argument’s sake, did you just grab hold of her?’

  Waters thought it over before answering.

  ‘I had told her who I was – she knew I was a police officer.’

  ‘No. All she knew was that some tall, virile-looking young man was saying that he was a police officer, and that he had taken her arm and was trying to get her to go to a car where another, much more seedy-looking bloke was waiting. Obviously I’m just putting a hypothetical case here, the sort her lawyer might come up with...’

  ‘Her lawyer? You think that’s how it’s going to go?’

  Waters looking suitably horrified at the prospect.

  ‘Hopefully we can de-fuse the situation – we just need to consider whether your presence will help or hinder us. A lawyer would introduce some very interesting arguments about when the first assault took place because technically when you took hold of her arm without her consent, that was an assault. As a police officer, you are allowed to assault people as long as you have made a reasonable attempt to explain who you are and why you are doing it; is telling them who you are but not showing your ID a reasonable attempt? You won’t get the answers to that on a postcard. On the other hand, your lawyer – it’s alright, you don’t have to pay as long as you’re nice to Superintendent Allen – would argue that you had not done enough to justify the attempted use of the pepper spray, which is another form of assault. There have been some great cases involving that stuff. But anyway, the elbow in the face was definitely her assaulting you – no-one could argue that you were assaulting her elbow with your face. So, do you still want to come in on the interview?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK. In answer to your earlier question, yes, sometimes you might have to hit a woman in this job. It’s good that your dad taught you some old-fashioned manners but I saw an officer get stabbed once because someone else didn’t like to search a female suspect thoroughly. As soon as there is a weapon involved, a woman is just as dangerous as a man. Some cynical old sods would say even more so.’

  They went in through the main entrance. Charlie Hills was not on duty for once, and Smith would need to tell him that he was slacking, but his replacement, Olly Dennis, pointed behind them as they passed the counter. Jason Diver was there, getting up from a seat.

  ‘I wondered if it was you.’

  Smith looked backwards, as if to make sure that Diver was not addressing someone else.

  ‘If what was me, sir?’

  ‘If it was you that had my sister arrested.’

  ‘I didn’t have her arrested – I arrested her.’

  It was plain that the young man had a great deal more that he would like to say but he managed in the end to confine himself to, ‘How long are you intending to keep her here?’

  ‘That rather depends on her, and possibly on the magistrate.’

  ‘The magistrate?’

  ‘To be honest, Mr Diver, I thought you’d be up on all this, being sort of in the business. Twenty four hours is standard but we can ask for up to ninety six if we think she has been involved in a murder. Or fourteen days if it’s terrorism.’

  Diver looked from Smith to Waters to Sergeant Dennis and back again.

  ‘Murder? Terrorism? You’ve lost the plot!’

  ‘Eh? Oh, I see – a terrorist plot. Very good, sir.’
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  Smith turned and continued on his way. Waters shrugged at Jason Diver, and followed.

  They went to the custody suite where Smith was briefed on the prisoner’s overnight stay and current demeanour. There wasn’t a lot to report; she had slept and had already eaten breakfast. Smith suggested that Waters should double-check her records as she was behaving like an old hand, but then he pointed out that he was joking because there was an even chance that Waters would actually go and do it. Instead he told him to arrange for her to go to an interview room in ten minutes’ time, and then he went upstairs to inform Alison Reeve what he was doing, though inform is rather over-stating the matter – he sent her a text.

  Katherine Diver stood up when they entered the room. Afterwards, Smith never could be quite sure whether Waters had flinched as she did so, but then she did something unexpected – she held out her hand towards him, towards Waters, and he stepped forward and took it.

  She said, ‘I’m sorry about last night.’

  Waters said, ‘That’s OK – no harm done,’ rubbing his jaw, and then the two of them were smiling at each other. There you are, thought Smith – the old cold light of day has worked its wonders.

  He sat down and waited but the cold light of day was still working its wonders. Clearing his throat eventually managed to move things on. She took her seat and Waters did the same. Smith pointed out to her that the interview would be recorded and that she was still under caution – she nodded and smiled briefly in response, the nod to him and the smile to Waters. Somewhere in the dark recesses a little amber warning light came on; had he underestimated what was going on behind those pale green eyes?

  ‘Ms Diver-’

  ‘Katherine is fine. If you’re allowed to...’