Persons of Interest

by Peter Grainger

  John Murray said, ‘DC, for a technophobe, I think you’re really starting to get the hang of it. I can see the day when we fly drones over Lake that can do all that.’

  ‘Yes, and then when we’ve got a case we’ll send robots to arrest them. Actually, thinking about, in some cases that’s what we do already.’

  Serena Butler said, ‘I really like your idea about the drone, though, DC.’

  She was smiling just the sound of that, and he thought, not so long ago you would have sat there stone-faced through all of this nonsense. They were all waiting for her to finish whatever joke she had in mind.

  ‘You could call it Gaol Bird. If you do, I want a cut for thinking of it first.’

  There were moans and groans, and another two or three minutes were wasted coming up with alternatives while Smith found in the bottom drawer of his desk an old Ordnance Survey map of Kings Lake. That’s how management would see it if he was being observed this morning – time wasted, a lack of focus and urgency resulting in poor leadership. Not that he cared about what ‘management’ thought – they could always go and look at his team’s results – but in the back of his mind was the fact that only last week Detective Inspector Reeve had passed the first element of the promotion process towards DCI. The management immediately above this particular team might look quite different in the not-too-distant future.

  ‘Right – shift your coffee mugs. My response to all that nonsense is to bring back low-tech, right here, right now. This which I am putting before you is a diagrammatic representation on paper of Kings Lake. It is, then, what used to be called a map. Here,’ pointing, ‘is where we are, this grubby little spot where many have pointed before me, and this,’ pointing again, ‘is where we are going. You will notice that we have been allocated the most salubrious and intriguing part of the city – this is where we will be spending our fortnight away from the office. Admittedly there are no waving palms and the roar of the surf as it pounds on the mud down in the estuary will not be ever-present...’

  Waters followed Smith’s finger, leaned forward a little to see and looked up at its owner.

  ‘That’s The Towers, isn’t it?’

  Where else would they put us, thought Smith. He knew that elsewhere in the building, on other floors, in other offices, teams would already be allocating officers to known suspects and particular street corners; they would have divided up their areas and have already organized the weekend shifts that had, quite miraculously, become affordable after months of no overtime at all. The latter development was so unexpected that Smith checked the local news to see if a snap by-election had been called - but no, the long, uneasy truce between the remnants of the Labour party that had once thrived in Lake along with the docks, and the Conservative hinterlands of comfortable villages was as yet unbroken; it was a constituency with a split personality, and comical as that might sound, Smith believed that it was a root cause of some of the town’s problems.

  One of which, undoubtedly, was the drugs business. He asked Murray to summarise the situation in the area that they were to concentrate on as a team – not by accessing the database but simply by talking about what he knew and about how things had changed in the past few years. When Waters and Butler saw Smith writing down names and occasional details as Murray talked, they took the hint and began to do the same thing. And because Murray had also worked on the gang issues in the same area, he knew a lot of names and a lot of the history. Once upon a time there had indeed been five gangs, each tower producing its own nucleus of boys who were prepared to dish out a beating to those who lived across the road, and to take a beating in return when necessary. It was fists and boots in those days. Then somehow there were only three gangs, and that was a rocky period a few years ago because three is a very unstable number in a context like that – a kaleidoscope of changing alliances meant that no-one really knew where they stood for eighteen months, including the Kings Lake policemen who were trying to look as if they were in charge of something, anything, rather than to admit that a form of anarchy had arrived in the north-west corner of the old Saxon kingdom.

  And then there were two. It was a sort of relief to all concerned – towers one, three and five, numerically furthest apart but geographically closest together, combined against two and four. As is the way in human affairs, the group that controlled the smaller number of towers felt that they had to compensate for this by being much the nastiest; recently it had seemed that tower three might even fall under their control which Smith thought would give a different sort of symmetry to the mathematically ordered way in which the two factions struggled for ascendancy.

  ‘Thank you, John. You two – if in doubt about who you dealing with, refer it back to John, who probably knows their mums. Obviously, I’m not suggesting anything untoward there but they do seem to take to him. I think it’s because he’s big – out in the Towerlands, a woman wants a sizeable bloke about... Anyway, down to the nitty-gritty. We don’t have much agro at the moment but what there is is usually about drugs, or I should say, about the money that is involved. I’ll admit that I might not be completely up to speed on the current situation as we’ve had one or two other matters on our minds, but that’s partly what this new thing is all about – and just in case you’re wondering, no, I don’t think it’s a complete waste of our time. So, it’s quite a novel situation really.

  ‘We’re going to begin with some low level observation of the territory and the natives. We’ll agree some locations, at least one of which per day will be near a takeaway or, if the worst comes to the worst, a burger van. We will keep some notes about any to-ing and fro-ing that seems to be connected to deals and dealers but I doubt whether we’ll actually see much changing hands on the streets – this isn’t Baltimore and mostly our lot will be indoors. Perhaps that’s just the climate. If we get spotted, it doesn’t matter much, as this is not meant to be a full-on covert operation, and I imagine that part of the intention here is deterrence anyway – if activity levels decline or become less obvious for a while, that will keep upstairs happy. Some of them. We will have a proper camera in the car, and assume that at least one occupant knows how to use it.’

  Serena Butler nodded.

  ‘In addition to that, John and I know a few people out there. Part of the mission is to refresh our contacts – another reason why we can’t expect the secret squirrel bit to last very long. We will be talking to them and possibly even listening. There are still a few old-fashioned sorts who disapprove of the whole drugs business, and they have been very useful in the past. Enough from me. John, can you start putting some faces up on the screen so that these two will recognize a celebrity when they see one? Let’s begin with the Routh boys, that band of brothers. I don’t know if they’re happy but I do know they aren’t few enough at the moment. Let’s see what we can do.’

  The planning and organization had taken the rest of the day. While Murray talked, Smith left the room and went down to resources, bagging two cameras before everyone else realized that there would not be enough to go round. On the way back, he was waylaid by DI Reeve, who said that as he must be thinking that this was all a waste of time, she would put his team forward as the first one out of it if there was an emergency case that required an investigation. To her surprise, he declined the offer, the reason he gave being that this was an ideal opportunity for two of his people to get to know the area and its players. She accepted that and went on her way to find Patrick Chambers, but Smith acknowledged within himself another reason for not wanting to be out of the process, and then, when he thought about it, at least two. For years they had been understaffed, and that meant that they went from case to case, always being driven forward by the latest event, the latest crisis, never doing things the other way around – getting out there first, having the chance to influence, to pick up things early, perhaps even to avoid a crisis or two. It was the old ‘Bobby on the beat’ argument all over again: the policeman walking his local streets day after day fell out of fa
shion, was seen as inefficient because most of the time there was nothing going on – he told off naughty boys for throwing stones at cats, smoking Woodbines and riding on the pavement, and had a word with their mums and dads if he thought it was needed. The clever people who took those constables off the streets and put them in cars, offices and specialist squads never seemed to grasp that the reason there was ‘nothing going on’ on those streets was precisely because the bobby on the beat was wandering up and down them every day. For these two weeks, Smith and his team would be back on the beat, and he didn’t want to miss the chance.

  The other reason? It would give him the room he needed to look into this Lucky Everett business.

  That evening he sat on the patio beyond the French doors. The garden was lit at an angle by the declining sun, shadows from the western border beginning to make their way across the lawn. It was quiet, peaceful and scented by the early-flowering rambling rose that had spread along the fence since they planted it more than ten years ago. They had spent a long time choosing that rose, poring over catalogues and visiting garden centres, telling each other that planting a rose is a major commitment, and now he could not remember the name of it. Not that it mattered, of course, because it was still the same vibrant red every year, and it still smelled as sweetly, whatever the fading label hidden deep within the tangle of stems actually said. He could hear her voice saying, well, David, the garden looks a picture – it’s time to just sit out here and enjoy it... In her will she had left him everything, but that, the ability just to sit and enjoy, whether it was the garden or the view from the top of Scafell Pike, was her most precious legacy to him.

  On the little, wrought-iron table beside him lay two piles of opened post. One contained five items of direct marketing, suggesting that he had come to the top of whatever list was in circulation at the moment but he felt no desire whatever to have his boiler serviced, his house coated in thermally insulating yellow paint, his double glazing replaced with triple glazing, his internet connection upgraded to super-fast fibre-optic or to invest in a time-share holiday in a part of the Mediterranean which, according to a recent Sunday supplement, would shortly be uninhabitable thanks to global warming. Each of these had been torn through once and was on its way to the recycling bin.

  The other pile had two items. First, a letter from Kings Lake General, confirming that in July he would have the operation on his knee that the surgeon had recommended: this had come through more quickly than expected, so perhaps Detective Superintendent Allen or Assistant Commissioner Devine had had a word with the minister responsible, explaining that the fight against crime would be seriously impaired without the presence of Smith. Or maybe they were just short of elective customers in the holiday season. Either way, he ought to look up the name of the procedure again, just to make sure that they had booked him in for the correct one – and on the correct leg, come to that.

  The final piece of mail lay on top of the appointment, waiting for him to pick it up and examine it again – he had put it there several minutes ago but it was only a matter of time before he did so. The old-fashioned first class stamp – and really, we don’t see so many of them these days – had been placed carefully, precisely even, in the top right-hand corner, an even and exact distance from the top and side borders. The post-mark was incomplete and smudged but he would have guessed that it was a Northern Ireland one even before he turned the envelope over and found the return-to-sender address, printed in neat, level capitals: PO BOX 372, BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND.

  When he saw that for the first time, he went back into the house, found the paper knife that had lain unused for months on the third bookshelf and used it to slit the envelope open carefully, holding it a little away from his face. It contained a single sheet of writing paper, white, with a water-mark but otherwise unremarkable apart from the fact that it was completely blank on both sides. He had looked then inside the envelope from corner to corner and found nothing else, and he had sniffed it, thinking that if it was a biological device they might have just got him but it would be an interesting way to go.

  It was in his fingers again now. The same pen that had written the return to sender address had written the one on the front of the envelope – ‘Mr D Smith, 5 Dovehouse Row, Millfield, Kings Lake, Norfolk, KL4 6NW’ – but this side was in a neat, small hand, lower case but without the letters joined up in the traditional way. They don’t make a fuss about that they way they used to in school, so someone younger, perhaps? But he didn’t know anyone ‘younger’; he had not set foot in that country in thirty years.

  The internet has made it much easier to find people; type in a name, subscribe to the premium service and get a few credits – if you have an idea where they live in the first place, you can narrow it down pretty quickly. But in his case, there were certain difficulties for the would-be detective, as opposed to the actual one: first, even within Kings Lake there were bound to be multiple David Smiths, it being a combination of two of the most common names. Second, as a former member of the military intelligence service who had already been a target, certain protocols should still be in place, protocols which should mean that he ought to be less easy to locate than Mr Joe Public; a few years ago he had completed the forms sent to him, indicating that he wished the level of protection to be maintained. He had completed them as a matter of routine, and now he had a letter from Northern Ireland, from Belfast, in his hand.

  A movement on the lawn took his attention away from the letter for a moment. A blackbird in his prime, close enough for Smith to see the striking yellow iris of his eye, his beak full of worms still writhing. The nest was in the cherry laurel halfway down the right-hand side, and the four chicks were more than three quarters grown; Smith had stopped peering in at them a few days before, fearing that they would take fright and leave the nest too soon. He sat very still, looking at the bird, and the bird looked back at him. Anthropomorphically, it might be seen as a question of trust, but realistically it was simpler than that – it was a calculation of risk. Was it a greater one to lead a potential predator to the nest or to make the ever-more-demanding young birds wait a few extra minutes for the next feed? The bird left the lawn and flew onto the fence, closer to the nest but still making the calculation, and Smith still did not move. The bird looked like a survivor and he would make the right decision.

  The letter was a more ingenious device than it first appeared. He could return it to the PO box marked ‘Not known at this address’ but he had opened it; if the occupant’s name had been, say, Peter Brown, he would most likely have not opened it – he would have written the words and re-posted it. That, thought Smith, is what I should have done, but curiosity – or was it carelessness – had got the better of him. So returning it like that was no longer an option. But keeping it might also indicate to the sender that the letter had found its intended target. What then?

  He could, of course, press the alert button – make a call, get some new person to look at his case file and realise that this might be a serious one, for a change. But he did not want to go there again, and it was so long ago, so far upstream that he was unable to take it too seriously himself. He would be careful for a week or two, more careful than was his habit these days; they would have to be sure that it was the right David Smith, and if they were trying to get a look at him, he had the chance to do the same with them. But, he then told himself, realizing it for the first time, it was a little strange – first the old phone number turning up where it had, and now a letter from the city in which for him the word ‘troubles’ had taken on a new meaning, one that altered his perspectives on life and death forever. He would never go back but in one sense he never could, because a part of him had never left the city built on a sandbar at the mouth of the river.

  Chapter Five

  ‘What about a high-pitched whine, like a dentist’s drill?’

  Waters shook his head – no, he couldn’t do an imitation of one of those either.

  Smith shook his head
slowly, a mystified look on his face.

  ‘Good grief – what are they teaching at Hendon these days?’

  He picked up the landline, thought about the security implications at the other end, replaced it and took out his mobile.

  ‘Right. I just need to make this call and then we’ll be off into the badlands. But it might only be for this morning – depends what happens here, now. If this goes alright, we might be visiting the even-worse-lands later on.’

  Smith dialled the number written on a piece of paper, part of a page neatly torn from one of his Alwych notebooks if Waters was not mistaken – he kept meaning to go online and see if he could find them but the most likely place now would be in the crime museum of the Metropolitan Police Service, where he had been on a day out from the college. He had no idea whom Smith was about to call but by now he had a very good idea of when and when not to ask questions.

  ‘Oh, yes, good morning. My name is Smith and...’

  The voice on the other end had made some wry comment, and Smith let the conversation hang for a surprisingly long time before he continued.

  ‘Oh, do you? Unfortunately I am not calling for a laugh, as you put it. I need to speak to Senior Officer Ward if he is on duty.’

  Another response, this time apparently more business-like. Smith looked at Waters, and raised one eyebrow in the usual manner.

  ‘Yes, I appreciate that. But if that is the case, please ensure that you have made a full record of this conversation. I am returning his call after being told that he needed to see me as an emergency patient. If you are unable to-’

  Smith paused and listened – now it was the turn of Waters’ eyebrows to ascend a little.

  Smith said, ‘Yes, of course – I am his dental surgeon. Yes, I can wait on the line. Thank you.’

  Waters looked a question across the desk and Smith answered it, his mobile held away from his mouth at arm’s length.