The Follow

by Paul Grzegorzek

  Nothing particularly interesting came out of the meeting except for a series of sex attacks around St Nicholas’s Church, just west of the town centre on Dyke Road. A lone male had been busy the night before and had grabbed three separate women on their way back from clubbing in the town centre. We threw that around the table for a while, trying to work out how he could avoid the first two area searches to strike again, and the favourite theory was that he lived in the area and could duck into a house between attacks. Eddie, whose main job was sex offences and violent crime, said that he’d look into it and offered to jack up an operation by the end of the week if he hadn’t been caught by then.

  I asked for the description again and this time memorised it. A white male, about forty years old with dark hair in a widow’s peak. A few days’ worth of stubble, medium build and wearing a black jacket and combat trousers. It didn’t sound like anyone I knew, but it was always worth remembering a description like that in case you saw them while you were out and about. I hoped that he did get caught before he struck again but, if not, I was more than happy to volunteer for the operation that Eddie was talking about. Even if it did involve hanging around a graveyard for hours.

  I was still thinking about it when a pencil hit me in the face, making me shout in surprise, which in turn brought peals of laughter from everybody. Looking up with a face red from embarrassment, I saw Kev waiting with his arms folded. ‘Morning Ding, anything to report on drugs?’

  I nodded and went through the list, mostly sightings of known drug users or members of the public calling in to complain about dealing in their area.

  ‘Thanks Gareth. After the meeting, you and Tate go and swear out a warrant at the court for the Pankhurst address and we’ll see what you turn up. Anything else from anybody? No? Okay, thank you.’

  We all filed out and back down to the office where I busied myself with digging out all the reports we had on 109 Pankhurst Avenue. There were about a dozen and I picked the most recent and most relevant, printing off hard copies to take to the court.

  Tate went down to the typing pool and got a drugs warrant typed up. It was about the only thing that typewriters were still used for and they had one sitting at the back of the station just for warrants. Despite the fact that it was electronic, it was old enough that only two of the ladies in the typing pool knew how to use it.

  I then dug through my SharePoint (my intranet storage space on the computer) and found the form that I needed to get signed by an inspector so that I could go and get the warrant signed.

  I wandered through into the CID office and found DI Jones sitting behind her desk. It was the first time I had seen her since the court case and I knocked on the door with no little trepidation. I needn’t have worried as she looked up with a smile when she saw me. ‘Ah, Gareth, how are you?’

  ‘I’m good thanks ma’am. You okay after the whole Davey thing?’

  She shook her head, a frown marring her face. ‘Not really, but what can you do when security here is like a leaky sieve?’

  I shrugged. ‘Go out and get drunk?’

  She laughed at that. ‘Come on you reprobate, I’m sure you didn’t come to chat. Is that a warrant request in your hand?’

  I nodded and passed it over. I then showed her the intel and she made a note of all of it in her investigator’s notebook. Everything had to have an audit trail nowadays and she needed to show that she had considered all the intelligence for its accuracy and relevance before she signed the warrant, or she would be in as much shit as we would if it all went wrong. Intelligence is graded in a ‘5 x 5 x 5’ system, depending on where it comes from, how much you trust them and what you are allowed to do with the information. So me seeing Quentin Davey sitting in a car would be an A-1-1 report. I’m a trusted source, the information is known to be true without reservation and it can be disseminated to anyone with clearance that it may be relevant to.

  Most of the intelligence on 109 Pankhurst was C-2-1, but there were a few As and Bs as well, so there was more than enough for a warrant.

  You may ask why, if we had enough, we hadn’t just knocked the door down ages ago so I’ll explain. It’s a bit like a game, you see. We need to catch them with their pants down. There’s no point, usually, knocking a door in if we don’t know for sure who is inside or whether or not they have any drugs on the premises. We need to watch it for a while, covertly of course, to see when deliveries are made and when, if ever, it opens for business.

  So there’s no point hitting it on a Wednesday when they don’t re-stock until Thursday night. We’re better off hitting it Friday morning, early, while they’re all still asleep and dreaming about how rich they’ll be when they finally get out of the racket. If we hit them while they’re empty, they all get away, move house, and we spend another month trying to track them down while they keep peddling death on our streets.

  Except in situations like this, where we need to shake them up and see what falls out. Then we don’t really care if they move on or don’t have anything, because all we’re interested in is the information they have. Unless of course we get lucky and the house is full of drugs.

  I took back my signed form and gave her a cheery wave as I left, walking back through the CID office that was a carbon copy of ours, except that everyone wore suits and had mountains of crime files to investigate.

  Back in DIU, Tate was sitting there with the warrant, almost bouncing in his chair with his need to go. He was always like this; cool, calm and efficient until it was time to strike, and then he acted like a kid on Christmas Eve.

  We walked over to the magistrate’s court, being let in the back door by a solicitor that I knew and headed around to the front reception desk. Sitting behind the desk was a man in his fifties with a smart white shirt, black tie, and oversize glasses that made his eyes seem ten times too big.

  I showed my badge subtly over the counter, not wanting the dross coming in through the metal detector at the front to know who I was. ‘We need a magistrate for an urgent warrant, are there any free?’ I asked, keeping my voice low.

  ‘Hang on, let me look,’ he said in a faint Scottish accent, poring over a list in front of him.

  He didn’t seem to find what he was looking for and shouted over instead to the usher, who was signing people in and searching their bags by the metal detector. ‘Hey, Rory! These officers want a warrant sworn out. Is court six going to be the best one?’

  All heads in the place swivelled to look at us and I could have cheerfully strangled the man behind the desk.

  ‘Yeah, they’re doing fines today; the magistrates should be free if they get in quick,’ Rory called back as Tate and I hurried up the stairs to find the court, both fuming at the usher having blown us out to the assembling throng.

  We followed the stairs and twisting corridors, finally fetching up outside court six with another usher, this one a bald chap with a hoop earring and a friendly manner. ‘Morning, Officer,’ he said cheerfully in a northern accent. ‘A warrant again is it?’

  ‘Yes mate. Any chance we can pop in and chat up the clerk? It’s kind of urgent.’

  He nodded and held the door open for us. The magistrate’s court is much smaller than crown and nowhere near as imposing. There was no jury stand, no public spectators’ area and just a few rows of benches with a box on either side, one for the witnesses and another for the accused. A small table in front of the judges’ bench had an electronic typewriter and the Clerk of the Court was already there, leafing through some papers on the desk.

  Tate showed his badge and introduced us, explaining what we needed. For some reason the request threw the clerk into a flat spin and she rushed around in a bit of a panic as she tried to work out the court schedule. She then disappeared into the judges’ waiting room and came out a few minutes later leading a tired-looking man in his mid-forties wearing a sharp suit and a sleepy expression. I felt sorry for magistrates; unlike crown or county judges they don’t get paid for their work, other than expenses. I kn
ew this one, his name was John Crick and he was a nurse at the Royal Sussex, for some reason volunteering to be a magistrate in what little spare time he had.

  As he sat he gave us a brief smile. ‘Good morning gentlemen, I understand that you have a warrant to be authorised. Would you like to tell me the intelligence you have and the grading please?’

  Tate went through the material we had, never actually lying but dressing it up in such a way that it sounded far more urgent than it was. I was impressed, I would have struggled and I was known for my ability to get warrants even the old sergeant, Karl Darney, wouldn’t have been able to get through, despite being the biggest bullshitter to ever be given a badge.

  ‘Any children in the address or any risk of firearms?’ Crick asked, showing that despite his tiredness he was still on the ball.

  ‘No sir,’ Tate replied, handing the warrant over to the magistrate.

  ‘Fine, well you go out and get them. Best of luck!’ he said as he signed the warrant, tore off the rear copy and handed the rest back to us.

  We smiled our way out, almost tripping over each other in our haste to pay a surprise visit on Trash and his friends.

  16

  AN HOUR later, three plain cars parked on Queens Park Road and eight of us ran in single file towards the target address. We had tried to get LST support for the entry and search but unfortunately they were tied up on another warrant, so I was wearing a PSU helmet, (like the cash-carrying ones), a headover that only showed my eyes and a long-sleeved tear-resistant PSU jacket which was also fireproof, all to stop any glass that might shatter when I went through the door.

  I was also carrying ‘Baby’, our door bosher, or ‘enforcer’ as the proper name should be, hoisted over one shoulder as we ran. The enforcer is thirty-five pounds of solid steel with a flat strike plate at the business end, capable of turning my puny swing into over a ton of force as it strikes a door, providing that the door is being braced properly. That normally involves another Method of Entry officer placing his feet against the base of the door, ensuring that the force of the strike goes through instead of dissipating as the door flexes.

  Rudd, as the other MOE officer, was to be the footer. As we reached the door to the three-bedroom semi-detached that was our target, he ran up to it and began pushing at it with both hands, checking to see where it was locked. He pointed to first the top of the door, then the middle, and lay down on the concrete path to place both feet against the wood.

  Time was of the essence here. This wasn’t the best part of Brighton and already I could see people hanging out of windows along the road and using mobile phones, so I turned the bosher upside down and leaned backwards, swinging up and attacking the top lock first with a resounding boom that echoed down the street and probably could have woken the dead.

  I felt the lock go on the first swing and used the momentum of lowering the enforcer to power my next strike at waist height, careful to avoid the safety glass window in the centre of the door. I felt the door shudder but it didn’t open so I swung once more, putting all fourteen stone behind it. The door flew open, knocking someone behind it off their feet as they tried to brace it with a bit of two-by-four.

  ‘BREACH!’ I shouted, years of training taking over as I stepped out of the way and grounded the bosher, ready to join the flood of officers running over Rudd as he made himself as small as possible. Finally, everyone was in and I followed, Rudd coming in behind me. Tate was already cuffing the guy I had knocked down. Blood seeped from a gash right in the middle of his forehead, but it didn’t look serious enough to worry about before we’d secured everyone else in the house.

  Most of the others had gone upstairs so I joined Kev and Rudd in securing the ground floor. The house wasn’t huge, just a lounge-diner and a kitchen with a small hallway between the two, but it had an amazing amount of crap stored in it. Boxes and bags were piled up against the walls and the kitchen looked like a dozen teenagers had been using it for a decade without cleaning up.

  The whole place stank of mildew, rotten food and dog shit, which should have warned me really. Gagging even through my headover, I opened the back door to get some air then closed it again hurriedly as a massive Rottweiler charged at me from the tiny garden, growling menacingly. I managed to get the door locked just as the dog slammed against it, rattling the whole house, then carefully took the key out and placed it on the windowsill. I did not want that thing getting in here.

  Eddie called down that they had two people secured upstairs and Rudd and I cleared the sofa of rubbish, mostly takeaway wrappers, so that we could keep them all in one place. We also searched it carefully, coming up with two kitchen knives, a flick knife and a rubber cosh, all hidden behind the cushions. You couldn’t be too careful in the life they’d chosen; it was all too easy to get done over if you weren’t.

  Once the sofa was cleared, all three prisoners were sat down. Aside from the man I’d knocked over, there was another man, clearly a user from the marks on his arms, and a scrawny woman with bleach blonde hair and a mouth the size of the Thames Estuary. She was shrieking and calling Eddie all sorts of names and I stepped in before it could escalate.

  ‘Look love, just shut up and this’ll be over much faster. We don’t want to be here,’ I looked around pointedly, ‘any more than you do, but we’ve got a job to do and the sooner you quieten down the sooner we’re out of your hair.’

  ‘You can’t talk to me like that in my own house, how dare you! Anyway, I’m not the coward with his face covered up!’ I realised that I still had my helmet and headover on, so I took them off and placed them carefully on top of a search bag where they wouldn’t touch the grimy carpet.

  Kev split us into search teams and I was again paired with Rudd and given one of the bedrooms upstairs. Kev would act as exhibits officer, writing down and logging everything that we found, as well as guarding the three cuffed prisoners while the others would act as search teams and clear the other rooms.

  It was easily one of the most unpleasant searches I have ever done. I found out through a rather dated passport that the woman was called Nancy Pemble and had been born in Brighton forty-one years before. Clearly that hadn’t been enough time to attend a basic hygiene course, however, as not only were there takeaway boxes and dirty plates all over the house but under the bed was a pile of used condoms, and worse, used sanitary towels. I almost gagged when I saw them and warned Rudd about them too. Joking about and setting your mates up when you were safe was one thing, but when it involved bodily fluids, needles or anything else dangerous it didn’t happen, period, and we always warned the others about anything dangerous we found.

  There were also dozens of used needles on the floor and in every cupboard and drawer I searched, so we double-gloved and tipped out every drawer before checking the contents.

  The hours dragged by and eventually we finished, finding two small bags of heroin that Nancy admitted were hers. Unfortunately though, if they knew anything about the attack they were keeping it to themselves. Not even Kev with all his charm could get a whisper out of them.

  We had managed to convince a pair of response officers to act as transport for our lovely lady, and after leaving them in her delightful company we headed back to the Nick to book in the drugs and have a much needed cup of tea.

  I also wanted to change my clothes as I felt dirty, as if a sheen of something loathsome had stuck to me while searching the house. I’ve always hated searching in plain clothes as we don’t get an allowance, so they’re just normal clothes that we wear into work. That means you can search a shithole like that and if you forget yourself, it’s all too easy to go home and sit on your sofa, spreading the germs that you’ve picked up. Officers have contracted everything from bed bugs to scabies that way and just thinking about it makes me itch.

  The first thing I did was go down to my locker and put on a spare pair of jeans and a clean t-shirt, kept there for just this kind of moment, then I headed back up to the office, intent on getting my stateme
nt done then planning what I would do that evening. Not that I had much in the way of a social life at the moment, with Jimmy in the hospital and most of my friends outside the job married with kids.

  As I walked into the pod though, I saw Sally sitting at her desk twiddling a pencil listlessly with a tight expression on her face as if she was trying not to cry. ‘What’s up?’ I asked, keeping my tone light.

  She sighed and looked over at me, her face marred by a frown. ‘That bloody wanker cancelled on me again, and then when I complained he dumped me, the bastard!’

  Trying to make light of it I gave her a smile. ‘Well you can always go out to dinner with me instead?’

  She perked up immediately, a smile appearing as if by magic. ‘Really?’

  I hadn’t expected that. ‘Uh, yeah, sure. I’ve got no plans tonight. Jimmy’s folks are visiting him, so I’m staying away. His mum thinks I’m the devil, always leading her little boy into mischief, so I try and avoid her.’

  Happy now, she unleashed the full force of her smile at me, making me go weak at the knees. ‘Do you want to meet at about eight? Where do you want to take me?’

  I nearly swallowed my own tongue as I tried to think of an answer that wouldn’t get me slapped. ‘Errr, how about Browns on Ship Street?’ Browns was a particularly nice restaurant, one of the best I’d eaten at, and I knew I’d made the right choice as her smile got even wider. ‘Fantastic! It’s a date!’

  I smiled and turned back to my desk, struggling to believe that one of the most beautiful girls I’d ever met wanted to go for dinner with me, even if I was a substitute for the lowlife idiot that had stood her up. I’d have to put that night’s plans on hold, leaving the pot noodle and DVD that had been calling for another time, but glancing back at the now happily humming Sally, I had the feeling it was probably worth it.