The Follow

by Paul Grzegorzek

  I entered the house with the intention of calling Sally and telling her what had happened but instead found myself slumped on the sofa with half a bottle of Scotch, mulling over the events of the last few days as the room began to blur and the bottle emptied.

  20

  I LIMPED into work the next day with a head that hurt even more than the hole in my leg. I’d woken on the sofa that morning with a full bladder and a taste like dead ferrets in my mouth, then staggered around the house plying myself with water and painkillers until I could see straight. Heads turned to watch me the moment I entered the office and I lowered my gaze so I didn’t have to tell and retell the story a dozen times before I got to my desk.

  As I got to our pod, Sally gave me a look that promised me yet more trouble but I was in no state to try and deal with it now. Tate and Rudd were already at their desks, despite the fact that Tate had been in until God only knows what time, working on the sex attacker.

  ‘Any joy last night?’ I asked him, acting as if he hadn’t thrown his teddy out last night when he’d seen me.

  ‘No, it was completely dead.’ He didn’t look at me but at least we were speaking.

  ‘What time did you get off?’

  He rubbed his face and for the first time I saw how tired he looked. ‘About three. I almost slept under my desk but I had to go home and feed the dog.’

  I glanced instinctively at the clock as he spoke. A lot of officers will tack an extra hour onto whatever time they finished in the retelling to make you think they have a harder job than you. Don’t get me wrong, I do it too, but Tate was one of the few who always told it straight. He lived in Ovingdean, just outside Brighton so, doing the math, I worked out that he had probably managed about three hours’ sleep. ‘Christ mate, couldn’t you have come in late?’

  He shook his head wearily and reached for his coffee. ‘I’ve got a RIPA I need to complete by midday; I haven’t got the time to spare.’

  I nodded, understanding. RIPA, or the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, was the bane of our life in the intelligence world. Since the Human Rights Act came in, instead of just following someone we had to complete from scratch a seven-page document explaining why it was necessary to use covert surveillance on someone, including all the other factors that had been tried and the reason we felt that being sneaky was the best option. We also had to do it all word perfect, without a single mistake, or it would come back from CAB (the Covert Authorities Bureau) with notes all over it and we would have to iron out the mistakes. I’d always wondered but never asked why they couldn’t just fix it themselves. It would be far faster than emailing it back and forth but every department in the force suffers from a dose of ‘it’s not my job’, and I suppose this was theirs.

  A wave of giddiness swept over me as I sat down and I managed to hide it by wincing and holding my leg. Having an injury was fair enough, but if Sally found out that I had spent last night sitting on the sofa getting blotto, I was worried that our fling might get flung. As it was, she looked over at me with concern on her face that I almost felt I deserved. ‘How’s the leg, are you okay?’

  ‘It’s all right, it looks worse than it is. The doctors were pretty efficient actually.’

  She smiled and went back to her work, still not having entirely forgiven me.

  I woke up my protesting computer and forced it into action, going through the previous day’s reports. I had about half a dozen emails from various people of differing ranks, ranging from a stern ‘well done, be more careful’ from Derek Pearson, to a chirpy ‘who’s the twat that got stabbed then?’ from Andy Coucher.

  Curious to know what had happened to my attacker, I looked at his custody record and scrolled down to the interview log. As I was expecting, he had answered ‘no comment’ to all questions and was back in a cell awaiting CPS advice. Except in extreme cases we weren’t allowed to make charging decisions on prisoners anymore and instead had a CPS lawyer permanently stationed at custody. It slowed the system down but it did mean that we were often more successful at court.

  Kev called everyone for the morning meeting, but as I limped out of our pod he put a restraining hand on my chest. ‘Not you, Ding, you’ve got a far more pressing engagement.’

  I looked at him in confusion. ‘What?’

  Kev grinned and I began to worry what he had in store for me. ‘There’s a young lady upstairs from the Argus and she wants to take your trousers off!’

  I heard muffled laughter from the other officers and frowned at them to no avail. ‘But I can’t get my picture in the paper Kev, it’ll screw my job!’

  His grin got wider. ‘And that’s why, my boy, you get to have a picture taken of the terrible wound you suffered in the line of duty. I can’t think of many criminals who will look at a picture of your chicken thighs and say, “Hang on, I know that man!” Do you?’

  I shook my head wearily. There was no point in arguing with Kev when he was like this. He had obviously arranged this as a punishment for my idiocy last night, knowing full well that I had the surveillance officer’s usual aversion to the press. ‘Good job I put clean undies on. Git.’ I muttered, as I limped down the office and towards the press room.

  The trip took me almost five minutes due to it being two floors and four flights of stairs above our office. Trust me to get stabbed in the leg when the lift wasn’t working. I finally got there to see an impatient-looking reporter sitting in the small room with a photographer and our press liaison officer, Debbie Price.

  I smiled at Debbie then nodded at the reporter and shook hands with the photographer. I’d known him for years but he was another one whose bloody name I could never remember, so settled for calling him ‘mate’ whenever we met up. Annoyingly, he always remembered mine. I sat without being asked, easing my injured leg out in front of me as Debbie introduced the reporter. ‘Gareth, this is Claire Morgan. She’s the new crime reporter for the Argus. Claire, this is Gareth Bell.’

  Claire threw a smile at me, one of those professional ones that snap on and off. ‘Gareth, hi. Do you mind if we get going on the interview?’

  I looked up sharply at Debbie. ‘Interview? I thought this was a photo shoot?’

  The press officer looked a little confused. ‘Um, Kev said that you would be giving a full interview on the condition that no photographs are taken of your face. If that’s not the case…’ She left it hanging with just the hint of a frown.

  I sighed. ‘No, no that’s fine. I’m just a little sore from yesterday and it’s making me cranky. Let’s get on with it then.’

  For the next thirty minutes I had to relate what had happened over and over until they were satisfied that it sounded suitably heroic and violent. When that was done I was cajoled into removing my trousers and allowing them to take photographs of the stitched wound in my leg. Just as I thought we were done and I was buckling up the trousers that I had struggled to get back on, the final coup de grace came in the form of the two officers that had assisted me yesterday along with the brick of heroin.

  The photographer managed to get all three of us in such a way that my face was hidden behind the drugs, so he said, but I insisted on seeing the shot on the small view-screen on the back of his camera before I would allow it to get printed. There followed lots of handshakes and commiserations about my leg and I stumped back down to the office, determined to get my revenge on Kev – even if I did deserve what had just happened.

  My mood lifted slightly as I got back to the office and found that Sally was the person who had been designated to staff the office during the morning meeting. It meant that we could clear the air between us without anyone else catching on. She looked up as I approached and smiled at me. ‘Did you enjoy the interview?’ she asked, too sweetly for my liking.

  ‘You knew as well, didn’t you?’ I made my way over to my chair as I spoke, and I like to think that I hardly played my injury up for sympathy as I did so.

  ‘You deserve far worse Gareth. I thought you were a smart bloke bu
t what you did last night was stupid and dangerous, and you didn’t even bother to call me and let me know, so I had to find out from Tate this morning and try not to look too upset! You do know that if we are going to see each other we need to trust each other, right? Did you not think that I might want to know that you were injured? Or am I just a bit of fun that isn’t that important?’

  She was keeping her voice low, but the tone was anything but friendly. ‘You always go on about the men that I usually go out with, but you’re really taking the biscuit, Gareth. Now I have the choice of worrying about you every time you’re not within sight or finishing it here – and having to sit next to you every day. How do you think that makes me feel?’

  I considered my answer carefully, more than a little shocked at how angry she was. I knew she would be annoyed but if I’d had any idea that she would take this as such a serious trust issue, I would have done things very differently the previous night. ‘Look, I’m really sorry. You’re not just a bit of fun, I really do like you. I’m just so used to being on my own that I’m not used to thinking about someone else when I take risks, and I was in so much pain last night that I overdid it a bit on the medication and just zonked out on the sofa. If I’d thought about it, which I obviously didn’t, I would have at least called you to let you know that I was okay.’

  I reached out to take her hand but she leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. ‘And what about your antics in the park? Am I going to spend my evenings worrying that you’re lying dead somewhere every time you’re more than a few minutes late? Because I don’t think I can live like that. Why do you think I haven’t dated coppers before?’

  I gestured helplessly, not quite sure how to explain my side of it. ‘It’s who I am, Sally. I can’t just leave things be. I joined the job to stop people like him and how could I look at myself in the mirror if I just let people like Edwards walk away and carry on doing what they’re doing? You’re right, it was stupid and dangerous, but you have to think that if he wasn’t afraid to stab a copper, who else might he have stabbed? Someone less likely to be able to defend themselves maybe. If by getting a knife in the leg I’ve stopped someone else from getting hurt then I’ve done my job. I know that work shouldn’t interfere with real life this much but I can’t just let things like that slide.’

  She looked at me with a sudden glimmer of understanding. ‘This is why Lucy left you, isn’t it?’

  I nodded, my gut churning as the old memory resurfaced.

  ‘What happened?’ She still sat with her arms folded and I couldn’t help but feel that what I said next would make her mind up about me.

  ‘We were filling up the car at the petrol station on Ditchling Road, the BP garage, when some arsehole pulled a woman out of her car and drove off with it and her baby still in the back seat. Do you remember the story in the papers?’

  She nodded and gestured for me to continue.

  ‘Well, I saw it happen and dumped Lucy out to calm the woman down, then drove off after him. I kept tabs on him right across town and managed to call in enough units to surround him and he finally got rammed by traffic, just enough to get him to stop without hurting the kid in the back. By this time, uniform were with Lucy and the mother and they heard over the radio that there had been a crash. Both of them assumed the worst and thought that the child and I were dead or seriously injured. Apparently it was just too much for Lucy to cope with. She’d already threatened to leave over the amount of overtime I was doing; she loved the money but hated the fact that I was never there. She never really understood how much the job means to me, and she thought I was either deliberately avoiding her or having an affair. The petrol station was the straw that broke the camel’s back and she moved out the next day.’

  Sally was still looking at me, the expression on her face unreadable. I resisted the urge to reach out to her again. ‘Can you put up with someone as job-pissed as I am?’ I tried a grin, weak though it was.

  ‘I don’t know Gareth, I really don’t. I need to think about it.’

  I opened my mouth to try and convince her but suddenly the office was full of noise as everyone came back from the meeting. I swung back to my desk, suddenly wishing that there had been more whisky in the bottle and that I’d taken the day off sick.

  21

  THE REST of the day passed with little of interest happening, apart from me finally being forced to stay in the office long enough to get most of my paperwork done while the others went out and shook up some more of Davey’s network.

  At about ten to four, with the team having had no real luck, Kev came into the pod to ask Rudd if he could come back in later to help out with the sex offender job that they were running again.

  ‘Sorry Kev, hot date,’ Rudd replied, picking his gear up and heading towards the door.

  Kev looked over at me. ‘Well there’s no point asking the wounded hero. I don’t think you could catch a cold at the moment, let alone a pervert.’

  ‘I could do the log?’ I offered, not wanting to go home and brood all night.

  He looked at me thoughtfully. ‘Can I trust you not to get out of the car?’

  I nodded. ‘Scouts honour.’

  ‘Okay. Be back here at eight, ready to go. Leave your fighting kit in your desk.’

  I smiled, pleased to be getting out of the office even if it did mean a lack of sleep, and tried to ignore the look that Sally was giving me. I managed to get home, showered, fed and changed in just enough time to be back at the office an hour early, but occupied my time by running through the intelligence surrounding Davey, looking for another weak spot that we could exploit.

  The others came in just before eight, Eddie first, then Tate, Ralphy, Kev and Tommo. Although we all worked separate crime types normally, there simply weren’t enough of us not to all pitch in when it came to a big job. Just as we were about to start briefing there was a nervous knock at the office door and I swung around to see Bobby, the probationer that I’d had words with at my house. He was wearing plain clothes and a nervous expression and hovered in the doorway as if unsure of the welcome he would receive. ‘Uh, hi, I’m looking for Detective Sergeant Sands?’

  Kev waved lazily from his chair. ‘Come in, come in. Gents, this is Bobby. He’s from the tutor unit and he’ll be accompanying us this evening. He needs to get some proactive competencies signed off so I’ve arranged to get him out with us.’ He introduced us one by one and I took enough pity on the young officer to actually give him a smile and a wave. There’s nothing worse than being new and thinking that an experienced officer hates you, and he was nervous enough already.

  As soon as Bobby was seated, Kev got down to details. ‘Right. We’ve had no more attacks this week, but as it’s a Friday we expect a lot of through-traffic at the churchyard. Here’s a photofit of the male we’re looking for.’ He passed around a made-up photograph that could have been any one of a dozen sex offenders I knew of.

  ‘The reason we’re going out early is to try and catch him setting up. We’ll be happy with an early intervention if we’re pretty sure we have the male. We don’t want to get to the stage where he’s attacking someone before we jump him. Teams will be myself and Ralphy, Tate and Eddie, Tommo and Bobby, with Ding in the car nearby doing the log.’ He laid out a map of the area on the desk and we all crowded around to look.

  ‘Ding, I want you south-west of the plot on Upper North Street. Tate, you and Eddie on Church Street covering the main churchyard. Tommo and Bobby, you get Clifton Terrace, and Ralphy and I will be inside the graveyard on the west side of the road. One set of night sights per team. Don’t lose them, they’re bloody expensive. Radio Channel Bdiv Events Gen 6 and the overtime code is the standard DIU central one. Questions?’

  I raised a hand. ‘Yeah, why aren’t I doing the log back here where I can have computer access?’

  ‘I want to swap Bobby around so that he can see how the log works and let him soak up some of your hard-won knowledge, and I don’t want him
to have to keep leaving the plot to do it. See, there is method in my madness. Any real questions?’

  I flicked an elastic band at him in protest – which he nimbly avoided.

  ‘Right. Bobby, go with Ding there and he’ll show you the procedure for booking out a logbook and getting it all ready. Welcome to the fast-paced world of surveillance. Out on the ground by nine o’clock please gentlemen, with fighting kit but no vests.’

  I limped back over to my desk with Bobby in tow. ‘So this is your first time on a surveillance job, huh?’

  He nodded excitedly. ‘Yeah, it’s something I’ve always been interested in. Do you do a lot of jobs like this?’

  I nodded, suddenly feeling old. ‘Yup, and let me pass on a few basics. Firstly, bring a book, but when you’re reading it keep it below window level. Books, magazines and papers make you look like you’re ready for a long wait and two blokes in a car already makes you look out of place. Unless you want to snog the driver every time someone walks past.’ He began to nod before he realised that I was being sarcastic.

  ‘Next,’ I continued, ‘whenever you’re waiting somewhere, and believe me waiting is mostly what we’ll be doing out there; give yourself a reason in your head for being there. Like waiting for a friend who’s late, taking a break from work, even being a drug dealer. Thinking it makes you act like it, and body language is the biggest giveaway in this job. Have you ever spotted a criminal in a crowd for no apparent reason, but you just know they’re up to no good?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Well, that’ll be their body language. They know they’re up to no good and their body shouts it unless they’re really experienced. I normally spot our regulars by body language miles before their face is recognisable.’ I stopped burdening him with old-sweat wisdom and took him through the procedures for starting a logbook, which was as complicated as everything else in a system that had to be totally accountable. ‘Right, any questions?’