Judgement Call

by Nick Oldham

  ‘OK, we do it this way,’ he began. ‘I go to the loo, leaving you two in the car. When I get back, you can go if you need to,’ he nodded at Jo. ‘Then we’ll both take Mr Bowman. You wait outside the toilets and I’ll keep watch on him inside … if it all goes to plan and you behave,’ Henry said to Bowman, ‘then we’ll have a brew in the cafe, OK?’

  The passengers nodded.

  Henry went first, then came back to the car. Jo then went and returned a short while later. During her absence, Henry reiterated his warning to Bowman and reminded him of his threat to flatten him if he did a runner. He forced Bowman to acknowledge what was being said to him.

  ‘I heard you,’ he said sullenly to Henry’s badgering.

  ‘Well think on,’ Henry said, glancing across the car park to see Jo on her way back.

  He released the cuff encircling the elbow rest and closed it around Bowman’s free wrist so that his hands were cuffed in front of him. Then, with a cop either side of him and Henry also keeping a firm grip on Bowman’s upper arm, they walked into the services. Jo stayed outside the men’s and Henry steered the young man in.

  ‘Still want a shit?’ Henry asked.

  Bowman nodded. Henry found a vacant cubicle and reversed the prisoner into it, removing the cuffs out of sight of the other men using the facilities.

  ‘Remember what I said,’ Henry said and checked the cubicle.

  ‘Yep.’

  Henry backed out and Bowman closed the door, making Henry frown as he heard the latch slide into place. His prisoner was now behind a locked door, albeit a fairly flimsy one with a gap at the bottom and the top, although it was the gaps on the walls inside that bothered Henry. Bowman was built with a skeleton as flexible as a house mouse, able to squeeze through the tightest of gaps, and Henry knew he was easily capable of slipping under the lower gap or climbing over the higher one and making a break for freedom.

  He just didn’t trust him.

  With this in mind, Henry stepped right back across the toilets to the wall opposite so that, with not too much effort, or bending or going on tiptoes, he could see Bowman’s feet, even if what he was doing did attract a lot of peculiar stares from other men in the loo.

  The prisoner’s feet stayed where they were, firmly planted down in front of the toilet with his jeans dropped around his ankles, so although it seemed he wasn’t going to try anything, Henry stayed vigilant. Losing a prisoner was not on his agenda, not something he could ever live down.

  Henry angled his head and dipped his knees to look under the door.

  Bowman’s feet were not there.

  Henry gasped, shot across the short distance that separated him from the toilet door and crashed the whole weight of his body against it. It didn’t give, so he took a step back, lifted his right foot and flat-footed the door at the locking bolt. One very hard kick sent the door crashing back on its hinges, breaking the slim bolt and revealing the toilet cubicle. And the fact that Bowman was still there sitting on the toilet, having pulled up his jeans and then raised his feet a few inches off the floor just to make Henry believe he’d gone. He smirked at Henry, the second person to smirk at him in a matter of minutes, and making Henry start to feel paranoid, as though he was the butt of other people’s silent jokes.

  ‘What the fuck d’you think you’re playing at, shit head?’ Henry growled.

  ‘Don’t know what you mean.’ Bowman laughed in Henry’s face.

  Henry grabbed his jacket front, lifted him off the toilet seat and rammed him backwards against the cistern and back wall of the cubicle. ‘I’ll treat you right and nice, Mr Bowman, but don’t you fuck with me in return. I’m not in any mood for it, OK?’

  ‘Why? That policewoman you shagged last night givin’ you a hard time?’ Bowman’s smirk remained stuck on his face, not remotely intimidated by Henry’s show of strength. ‘I got ears, I heard what she said. Good fuck, was she?’

  Without a word Henry spun Bowman around, able to lift, turn and manipulate his light body easily, and handcuffed him again, this time with his hands behind his back. He clicked the ratchets tight on his wrists, so they dug sharply into his skin. Then he grabbed the lad’s jacket in his right fist, stepped back out of the cubicle and virtually ran him out of the toilets, Bowman’s feet tiptoeing to keep his balance. He pushed him out into the main concourse, past a startled Jo and quite a few members of the public.

  Jo dropped into step at Henry’s shoulder, unquestioning and accepting immediately that something had gone on in the toilets.

  Henry frog-marched Bowman out onto the car park and forced him into the back seat of the police car, leaving his hands still tied behind his back, chucking him sprawling across the seat, then slamming the door on him. Bowman laid out on his back and started to pound the car window with the bottom of his feet and scream obscenities.

  Yanking the door open again and doing his best to avoid the kicking feet, Henry grappled with him, grabbed his jacket again and heaved him upright, held him tight and spoke into his ear.

  He was not even breathing heavily when he growled, ‘Easy or hard? Easy is as has been, hard is me sat in the back seat with you for the rest of the journey with you in a head lock which I’ll tighten as and when necessary. Your choice, little boy.’

  Bowman, gasping from the adrenaline rush and exertion, stared furiously ahead, nostrils flaring.

  ‘We can be friends or we can be enemies. I personally don’t give a rat’s arse, cos when you get back, you’ll be locked in a cell and I’ll be going home.’

  Henry waited for an answer.

  All the while, Jo watched on in open-mouthed amazement.

  ‘I want a fag,’ Bowman said.

  ‘Not the answer I was looking for. Behave or not behave – that is the question.’

  ‘Behave,’ he muttered grudgingly.

  ‘Lie down on your face,’ Henry said and pushed him across the seat. Henry then released his right hand from the cuffs, lifted him around and secured him back to the elbow rest on the car door.

  ‘Fag?’ Bowman said hopefully. ‘In my property?’

  A couple of minutes later Henry had rolled the back window down and Bowman was smoking, happily exhaling the smoke out of the window.

  Henry still hadn’t explained a thing to Jo. He straightened up and looked at her. ‘Brew? We’ll have it out here instead of in the cafe.’

  ‘Yeah, suppose so,’ she said, baffled. ‘When exactly are you going to tell me what’s going on? What happened in there?’

  ‘He lifted his feet up,’ Henry said, having now regained full control of his emotions.

  ‘He what?’ Her face screwed up with incredulity.

  ‘He lifted his feet up and he shouldn’t have done and he knows he shouldn’t have done, but now we’re both simpatico, as you might say.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Just go with it and keep an eye on the little twat while I go get us some brews. Tea? Coffee? Sugar? Milk?’

  SEVEN

  Somewhere on the M6 between junctions seventeen and eighteen they hit a traffic-stopping tailback. Because there was no radio of any description in the car, police or otherwise, they were cocooned in a tiny bubble of incommuni-cado, no way to contact the outside world and no way of telling if the hold-up was because of an accident or just a phantom traffic jam, a phenomenon that was becoming increasingly common on British motorways as the volume of traffic continued to rise.

  Whatever the cause, they were stuck in the middle of three thick lanes of motor vehicles nose-to-tail inching slowly forwards, but mostly static.

  Henry had been at the wheel for almost four hours and was beginning to feel drained. His eyes were gritty and as he sat there only three feet away from the car in front, his chin dipped forwards, but he jerked himself back awake, shook his head and rubbed his sandpaper-like eyes.

  Alongside him, Jo, having done her best to stay awake, was now gone, her head lolled forwards, her chin implanted on her chest.

  Henry glanced into the
rear-view mirror at Bowman. He sat with his head tilted back, eyes closed, apparently dozing.

  Since leaving the motorway services Henry had attempted to get Bowman to talk about himself, his offences and why he was in Dover about to board a ferry for France.

  His questions remained unanswered by a sullen prisoner.

  Henry had given up, content to wait for his time in the interview room, and silence reigned in the car, punctuated only by sidelong glances shot from Jo to him that, whilst noiseless, said many, many uncomfortable things … up until the point at which sleep overpowered her.

  ‘Shit,’ Henry breathed and rolled his window down a few inches to get some gulps of fresh air, which was not actually fresh at all, was mostly exhaust fumes. He wound the window back up, infuriated.

  The traffic had come to a complete standstill. Henry thought it must be an accident rather than just volume of cars.

  His mind drifted back to his personal predicament.

  He was coming to a very prickly conclusion.

  The fact was, and although he knew it was cheesy, when he thought of Kate, his mouth dried up and his heart raced; then when he actually, physically saw her and came into contact with her, something overcame him that he had trouble describing, something overwhelming.

  But why?

  She was a straightforward girl, as beautiful as anything, but with a little, slightly crooked nose and lovely teeth, lips to die for and a body he didn’t seem to be able to get enough of – even six months down the line. He couldn’t wait to bed her at every opportunity – and she him. So it was a mutual lust and attraction, although for the life of him he couldn’t even begin to work out what she saw in him: flaky, unreliable, immature, often stupid. A daft lad who didn’t know on which side his bread was buttered.

  His forehead furrowed deeply.

  It wasn’t just the sex, though – as wonderful as it was. It was her whole being, her aura, her personality; it seemed to lasso him and drag him in. Her bounce, her forthrightness, her simplicity and lack of guile.

  He groaned and closed his eyes, sighed deeply, as confused as hell. Why was it all so complicated and why did he still want to sleep with any female who would have him?

  ‘Can I open this window a touch?’ Bowman asked politely. Henry glanced over his shoulder. ‘Inch or two? Bit of fresh air. It’s stifling in here.’

  ‘Just a crack,’ Henry said, ‘that’s all.’

  Jo stirred and looked sleepily at him, reminding him guiltily of seeing her naked first thing this morning in a grotty bedroom in a Dover B&B. He avoided her eyes and Bowman opened his window. At first it opened slowly, just an inch as he had requested.

  Then there was a blur of movement as he wound the window down quickly, as far as he could. It would only open halfway for child-safety reasons, but if a child wanted to get out of the car and was big and savvy, even if the child locks were on he could reach out and opening the door by grabbing the outer handle – which is exactly what Bowman did.

  The window opened halfway. He twisted and reached through with his right arm, flipped up the handle, and the door was open. In a flurry he was gone, legging it across the motorway, vaulting over the crash barrier and disappearing into a field before either Henry or Jo could react.

  All Henry could see was the pair of handcuffs dangling uselessly from the elbow rest, the door open, the prisoner gone.

  And all he could feel was a terrible sense of dread and stupidity.

  Silence.

  Detective Inspector Fanshaw-Bayley’s eyes played mercilessly over the two forlorn figures parading in front of him in his office. Both had been required to change back into uniform.

  More silence.

  It was like a deadly, psychological weapon.

  FB was seated behind his desk, saying nothing. Henry and Jo were standing opposite, heads bowed in shame, waiting for the storm that would surely come. The fourth in a series of off-the-scale bollockings that the two had endured. One from a sergeant, one from a uniformed inspector, one from the sub-divisional chief inspector. They had been brow-beaten to death.

  FB spoke at last. ‘So let me get this right … You allowed … allowed … a prisoner to escape from your lawful custody? Somehow, this prisoner, who you had handcuffed to a car door, managed to get his hand out of the cuff, open a window – which you said he could do, PC Christie – reach through and open the door and escape across a busy motorway. Hm. And on top of that, neither one of you even bothered to chase him. Is that about the long and short of it?’

  ‘It would have been too dangerous to chase …’ Henry began, but was stopped by FB’s instantly raised hand.

  ‘Don’t want to hear crap … Is that the long and short of it, is what I asked?’

  ‘Pretty much, sir,’ Henry mumbled, demoralized.

  A clacking sound came from FB’s mouth as his tongue moved around, like he tasted something bitter in there.

  More silence then. Just the sound of FB’s breathing.

  ‘So how did it happen?’ he asked.

  Neither offender had an answer to that.

  But FB did. ‘Gross negligence is how.’ Henry opened his mouth to protest. FB held up a warning finger. ‘Gross negligence,’ he restated, twisting the skewer. ‘A complete disregard for procedure. How, tell me, how come you were both sitting in the front of the car? Did you think this was a fucking day trip to Blackpool? Some bloody social outing?’

  FB’s rising rage was visible in the way his large body was starting to tremble and audible in the intensifying tone of his voice.

  ‘Surely to God, one of you should have been sitting alongside the prisoner to ensure something like this didn’t happen? Would that not have been the sensible thing to do?’

  ‘Yes, boss,’ Henry said. FB’s eyes glowered chillingly at him.

  ‘Judgement,’ FB said, almost whimsically. ‘Severe lack of judgement and professionalism.’ His head sagged despairingly, then rose again, his eyes once more locking onto Henry. ‘And you, being the senior officer, shall shoulder all of the blame – do I make myself clear? You’ – he snapped, his head jerking towards Jo, who visibly jumped, ‘get out.’

  ‘Sorry, sir?’ She was unable to believe her ears.

  ‘Get out,’ he said slowly. ‘One very big lesson learned, missy.’

  ‘Yes sir, sorry sir,’ she squeaked, glanced compassionately at Henry, then turned and fled from the DI’s office.

  Leaving Henry and FB together.

  FB leaned back in his chair, exhaled long and slow, his eyes constantly playing over Henry contemptuously.

  ‘A lot of people of very high rank are going to be queuing up to shout very loudly at you, PC Christie.’

  ‘I know. It’s already started.’

  ‘How does it feel?’

  ‘Horrible.’

  ‘Good – it should. This is fucking basic stuff. You should’ve been on the ball with this lad … I mean, Christ … he was trying to get out of the country. Stands to reason he didn’t want to come back here, doesn’t it? If he got a chance he was going to do a runner, wasn’t he? Did you need that spelling out? Prisoners run away if they can.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘So how did it happen?’

  ‘I mustn’t have fastened the cuff tight enough and he managed to squeeze his left hand out of it … left some skin on the metal … must have done it when he knew we weren’t looking.’

  ‘Or were snoozing.’

  ‘No one snoozed, sir. I just got complacent. Nobody’s fault but mine.’

  ‘Very bold, PC Christie.’

  ‘Like you said, sir, down to me. WPC Wade doesn’t know anything better … She’s still new in the job. I should’ve made her sit alongside him, but I didn’t and now …’

  ‘You will be disciplined.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Now go, before I really lose my rag.’

  Ten minutes later Henry was standing in front of a bar in a pub. That was the length of time it had taken hi
m to throw his clip-on tie, epaulettes, handcuffs, staff and tunic into his locker, leave the police station – avoiding the sniggers of everyone else, because everyone knew it had been necessary to recirculate Bowman as wanted – trudge to his car and get to the pub near his house on Bacup Road.

  It irked him intensely that two other people were ahead of him to be served … but only a short time later it was his turn.

  The lady behind the bar was the one he had seen emerging naked from his housemate’s bedroom the day before, but even that image did not brighten up his thoughts.

  ‘Usual, Henry?’ she asked. A smile played on her lips as she, too, undoubtedly, relived the brief incident.

  ‘Please.’

  He watched the golden liquid fill the glass, then the fizzy head overflow as it was handed to him.

  ‘Are you all right, lovey?’ she asked, concerned by the look on his face.

  He smiled thinly and nodded. ‘Yeah, thanks.’ He took the beer and headed for a seat at the back. It was still quite early, the place had only just opened for the evening trade after the mid-afternoon break, and although Henry had been in a queue to be served, only a handful of customers were in. In an hour the pub would be packed, but for the moment he was pretty much alone, just himself, his drink and his bleak thoughts.

  Losing a prisoner from the back of a car was almost the ultimate sin and Henry knew it should not have happened. He’d been careless and it had come around to slap him on the backside and now he was going to get punished. The discipline would be inconsequential. He could hack being paraded in front of a few grizzled senior officers and bawled out, an entry made into his personal file and maybe a small fine. He would take that on the chin. It was what he deserved.

  What was far worse in his mind was the dent to his reputation and the knock-on effect it would have, not just from colleagues (he’d already been sniggered at), but in career advancement. You didn’t let a prisoner go one week, then the week after expect to get on CID. They had longer memories than that and Henry expected that FB would have his cards marked now for cocking up such a simple job. Henry seemed to be single-handedly screwing up his own chances.