‘She just confirmed it for me. She’s not the source.’
‘And who is? A registered informant? Which one? I do need to know, Pepper. This is so fucking huge.’
‘Linda Taylor.’
There was a silence for a moment, and Pepper could hear the birds singing loudly in the hedgerow to her right.
‘She told you this before she died? But how could she possibly have known about Dixon?’
‘I don’t know how, but she did.’
‘Bollocks. You know I don’t believe you, don’t you?’
Pepper shrugged like she meant it. ‘Does it matter, either way? One of your own blokes is dirty. Isn’t that what we should be focussing on here?’
‘Of course it bloody matters, Pepper. Corruption isn’t just about taking money from criminals, is it? How do I even know that you’re not involved in all this?’
‘Come on, Keith, concentrate. For fuck’s sake, like. We’ve got the chance to nick a bent copper trying to off someone in a bloody police station. I know you’re never satisfied, but Christ, this is a huge opportunity for you. And we all know how ambitious you are.’
‘I’ll need to tell my Super, Pepper, and then there’ll be questions for you to face. There’s no way round it.’
‘No, you can’t tell anyone. It’s too dangerous. We’ve got to deal with this ourselves.’
‘You think Young’s got more spies in the camp, I take it?’
‘I do.’
‘Any evidence? Do you know something more, Pepper? You’ve fucking got to tell me if you do.’
‘No, there’s nowt. Nothing I know for sure, anyhow. And we’re taking Jarvis down tomorrow, Keith, whether you’re with us or not.’
Jones sat back in the passenger seat, and looked round briefly at the messy and worn interior of Pepper’s car. But it could have been upholstered entirely in spun gold, for all the notice he’d have taken.
‘I’m not sure. Because it’ll be the same old story. It’ll be you doing the whole lot yourself, won’t it, Pepper? Leading from the front, as always. Nothing ever gets done if you don’t do it yourself, no matter what the personal cost. You’ll just keep trucking on, regardless.’
‘Fuck you, Keith. Look, I came to you because I do know that I can trust you. And I know you’re not bent. Now either work with me, or fuck off out of it. But you’ll not be telling anyone else about this, either way, will you, Keith? After all, we’ve all got our little secrets, haven’t we?’
‘Are you blackmailing me? Are you fucking blackmailing me here, Pepper?’
‘We all know the rules, mate, so don’t come over all by-the-book on me now. You didn’t worry about quite a few of them, back in the day. So, do you want to be part of this, and have yourself a piece of the best collar of your whole career, or not?’
Jones only needed a heartbeat to decide.
‘All right, I’m in. On your terms. Of course I bloody am. But why did you choose me? I’d have thought I’d have been the last copper on earth….’ He paused, smiled tightly, and then answered his own question. ‘Of course. It’s because I can’t grass you up, isn’t it?’
‘We haven’t got all day. Now, do you want to hear how we’re going to get this done? All we have to do is make sure that you collar Jarvis yourself, because he’s bound to try to put one over on us ordinary plod when we nick him, isn’t he? He’ll just say he’s on a mission from God, or some shite like that. So we’ll need you there to put him right. It really will be a piece of piss, Keith.’
An hour later Pepper was half way to Haverigg, ignoring the scenery and thinking about Micky Thompson. On the phone she’d told the Duty Officer that it was a welfare visit, and he was just starting to say that Thompson’s welfare was purely his concern now when he realised that Pepper was more than unlikely to have the slightest worry about Thompson’s welfare, or that of any other con, come to that. So he agreed without further comment, and now Thompson was waiting in one of the lawyers’ consultation rooms. The guard who was with him went outside as soon as Pepper walked in.
‘I don’t have to talk to you.’
‘That’s right, you don’t. I just popped in to make sure that you were all right, that’s all.’
Micky Thompson glanced up at her. She could see the tears welling up in his eyes.
‘Bollocks. You don’t give a shit about me, do you?’
‘You’re right, you’ve got it in one. I really don’t. You were there when my friend was killed, so I’ll be honest with you, Micky, I’m really not right bothered about how you’re feeling now.’
‘So why are you here then? Just so you can fucking gloat?’
‘To make you an offer.’
‘I’m not saying owt. I told you. Not now, not ever.’
‘All I need is the name, Micky. Just the name of the man who was with you in your parents’ car. The one who got you to stop so he could pick up that bit of piping, the one who bashed a young mum’s head in on her own doorstep. I bet you didn’t expect that. He probably told you he was just going to warn her off, like. But he probably laughed about it all afterwards, didn’t he?’
‘I’ve told you already. Now fuck off, copper.’
‘But I’ve got a little sweetener for you. What if I could prove to you that your so-called mate Dai Young plans to have you killed? He knows that you’re going to give him up eventually, Micky, just like we all do.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘You will keep saying that, son, and I understand why you’re sceptical. But I’m being completely straight with you here, Micky. An attempt is going to be made on your life, very soon, and I know that for an absolute, God’s honest fact. And there are two ways I can deal with that knowledge. Either we can let this bloke kill you, and then we nick him afterwards. In which case we get two birds with one stone, some might say. Or, alternatively, we can nick him in the act, but before he has a chance to actually do you any damage. It’s your choice, son.’
Micky Thompson glanced down at the table. He looked like a child in a man’s world. Pepper almost felt sorry for him, just for a moment.
‘You’ve got to protect me, that’s the law. Otherwise I’ll just tell the guards in here what you’ve just said, and they’ll look after me.’
‘They’d just laugh at you, son, and I’d deny it. No-one is ever going to believe you again, Micky, because you’ve just confessed to beating a defenceless woman to death. You make a pariah look like top of the bloody pops. So here’s the deal. If the attack happens, and I save you, then you give me the name, OK?’
Thompson thought for moment.
‘I don’t have to tell you now?’
‘That’s right. You get attacked, we save you, and then you tell me.’
‘OK. Deal.’
Pepper smiled and sat back. Then she leant forward and wagged a finger in Thompson’s face. ‘Oh, no Micky. I know exactly what you’re thinking, and that just won’t fly. I’m not a total bloody idiot.’
‘What am I thinking, copper?’
‘That you agree now, and then, when we nick your attacker, you just rat on the whole deal.’
‘Oh, aye, good idea. I’d not thought of that.’
‘Well, it won’t work. Because someone will have another go, soon enough, and we’d not lift a finger then, even if you fucking begged us to help. And can you even imagine what it would even feel like, the waiting? You’d be a condemned man, but you wouldn’t even know the time and the place of your execution. Your cell door might open at any time in the dead of night, and you’d be strangled with your own bedsheets, then left dangling from the bars. It’s how they’ll do it, I expect. Slow, and pretty agonising for you, but effective. So, why not think again? Because if you do help me out then I can help you, and I will. You’re still going to prison for a lot of years, there’s no way round that, but I can make sure that you live to see the outside world again. You’ll be older than I am now, mind, but that’s not so bad, I promise.’
Micky didn’t reply,
so Pepper got up, and turned to go.
‘I’m sorry’ he said, so quietly, that she turned, just to check that he’d spoken at all. ‘I’m sorry, about your mate. But she was a fucking grass, wasn’t she?’
Micky had only just started getting up when Pepper reached him, and she pushed him over backwards, so that he fell on the floor beyond his chair. She was on him by the time the screw opened the door and came in, shouting at her to stop. She removed her hands and stood, holding up her hands.
‘You know nothing about her, or her life, you stupid little shit’ she screamed. ‘Not another word about Linda, or I’ll just let it happen, OK?’
Micky Thompson untangled himself from the chair, and got up slowly.
‘Soon, yeah? It’s soon, is it? What we talked about, like.’
‘Very soon indeed, Micky. Don’t you worry about that.’
Sunday, 21st June
Bitts Park, Carlisle, 2.30pm
Ben was on the climbing frame and proving to Pepper, if there could be any doubt, that humans are undoubtedly descended from monkeys. The boy insisted on dangling by one arm, then swinging his legs up to get them round the bars in front of him. He never missed, and he never fell, so Pepper sat on a bench at the side of the play area, feeling the sun solidifying the tense knots in her neck.
Henry Armstrong was the first to arrive, as Pepper knew he would be. But she didn’t expect to see him bearing three ice creams.
‘Does Ben like a Flake in his cone?’ he asked. ‘I got two with, and one without.’
‘That was so kind. And Ben would have both Flakes, if he could.’
Henry smiled, and took the Flake out of one ice cream, leaving a void where it had been, so the cone in his right hand ended up with two.
‘That’s very generous.’
‘Not really, Pepper. That was your ice cream I took the Flake from. I don’t like chocolate very much. Hey, Ben, it’s ice cream time. Now, which one would you like?’
Rex Copeland was next to arrive, and he helped himself to the last third of Armstrong’s ice cream.
‘Very nice, cheers. Where’s Davey then? Dropping in by helicopter, is he?’
‘Parachuting, I think,’ said Pepper, laughing. ‘Him and his mates are going to do some sort of display. You know, with smoke and that.’
Copeland smiled, and offered the bottom inch of Armstrong’s cone back to him.
‘No? All right then, cheers.’
Davey Hood was in running gear, but when he sat down on the bench he didn’t seem to be breathing hard.
‘Come on, mate,’ said Copeland, looking unconvinced. ‘I bet you’ve parked your little tank round the corner.’
‘Maybe I did. Tell you what, let’s have a race, right now, just to the castle and back. I’ll give you a start, like.’
‘Why, ‘cause I’m in normal clothes?’
‘No, because your legs are so bloody short.’
Pepper smiled. ‘Boys, boys. Stop pissing about. We’ve got work to do. Has everyone brought a burner with them? Right, let’s get each other’s numbers punched in. Then we need to go through the plan for tonight, because some of use are going to have an extra job on, before the main event.’
Pepper told them all about the plan to kill Micky Thompson in Carlisle nick.
‘Jesus, that’s completely mad’, said Copeland. ‘How does Jarvis expect to get away with it?
Pepper shrugged. ‘He’s desperate, and it’s just possible he might have got away with it. The CCTV will be off, and you know how dozy old Sid Chaplin is. Jarvis will have all the time he needs to set it up to make it look like suicide, or at least he would have had.’
‘Dear old Sid’s on the custody desk tonight? If we tell him about all this he’ll have a bloody heart attack.’
‘I know, Rex, so we won’t tell him. It’s too dangerous for us to hide in one of the other cells, because Dixon is bound to check them all, so I plan to book in a couple of prisoners before Thompson lands back in Carlisle.’
‘Don’t tell me’, said Hood, ‘you want a couple of my lads. Christ, talk about stereotyping.’
‘Shut up, Davey, and aye, I do. They’ll be locked in, but they’ll have keys, and radios too. We’ll be in an office on the same floor, the one the probation officers use. It’s a right tip, so we’ll be able to keep out of sight behind all the files they’ve not got round to yet.’
‘And we nick Dixon when he goes into the cell?’ asked Armstrong, a little anxiously.
‘No. We let him have a go at the lad, and catch him at it. So he’s got no way out.’
‘That’s too risky, surely. What if Dixon’s got a blade, or something?’
‘Unlikely, but possible, I suppose. But Thompson will have to take his chances, Henry. He put himself in this situation, after all.’
Armstrong didn’t look convinced. ‘You’re not planning to, you know, let him do it?’
‘Of course, not, Henry. Christ, what do you all take me for? And anyway, I’ve come to a little arrangement with young Micky. If we save his miserable skin he gives us the name of the bloke who murdered Linda. So I’ve got a bloody big incentive to keep him alive, haven’t I?’
Copeland laughed. ‘You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you, Pepper? Except for one small point.’
‘What we’re doing at the nick, especially when we’re all off duty? I know. And that’s why we’re not making the actual arrest. Keith Jones is going to do it. He’ll be acting on a tip off, and just by chance he’ll arrive at the holding cells just as Dixon is overpowering Thompson.’
‘Very smart. But how do we get out again, without old Sid noticing?’ said Copeland. ‘Because I do think even he’ll notice us all, don’t you?’
‘Easy. We just join one of Davey’s mates in their cell, and Keith sends old Sid off to find the doc. We’ll make sure he’s on site at the right time, don’t worry about that. And we’ll just make our exit then. Simple. What could possibly go wrong, like?’
They all laughed. Because it was a good one, was that.
‘Any questions? Any better ideas?’ said Pepper. Three heads shook. ‘All right. And you know that this is all entirely optional, don’t you? Me and Keith Jones would be more than a match for Dixon, if it came to it.’ Again, no-one spoke. ‘All right then, Davey. We’re going to need the two of your boys who most look like they’d be nicked for affray, or D&D.’
‘That doesn’t narrow the field much, like. But what happens to them, when you’ve nicked this copper, Dixon? They are needed tonight, you know.’
‘They’ll each take a caution, and be on their way. There’ll be no repercussions, don’t worry. The Station Superintendent will make sure that they’re well out of there, pronto.’
For a moment they all watched Ben, doing his human fly routine.
‘All right, that’s sorted’ said Hood, firmly. ‘So now we move on to the main attraction, like. I’ve got my house and yours under surveillance already, there’s been no movement so far, and a couple of my lads will be round at five to pick up your lad. They’ll have my mum with them. What are you going go to tell him?’
Pepper shrugged. ‘Same as always. That mum’s got to go to work.’
‘All right. And they’ll both be fine. You don’t need to worry.’
‘What if your boys are followed?’
‘Then Young will end up a few lads short for tonight, won’t he? Don’t worry, Pepper, we’ve all been trained for this. We’re not just gifted amateurs, like. And we’re used to taking care of valuable cargo.’
Pepper put an arm round Copeland’s shoulder and Armstrong’s waist, and pulled them both in close.
‘You don’t have to do this, either of you. You know what I’m saying?’
‘Bugger off, Pepper,’ said Copeland. ‘I’m not leaving you to soldier boy here and his merry mates. Who’s to say they’re not all total fantasists?’
Pepper grinned at Hood, who clearly had no problem with being wound-up, but it was Henry w
ho spoke next.
‘There’s one thing that bothers me, Pepper.’
‘Which is?’
‘What if Mary Clark chickens out and tells Young that it’s all a set-up? What then?’
‘I’ll answer that, shall I?’ said Hood. ‘It’s a possibility, obviously, so we’ve prepared with that in mind. We’ve got Young under observation, and if we see him building his capability unduly then we’ll call it off. We won’t allow ourselves to be out-matched tonight.’
‘Call it off?’ said Copeland. ‘I thought you Rambo types never backed down from a fight.’
Hood grinned. ‘You’ve been watching too many films, mate. Anyway, it looks like we’re on, all right. There aren’t many new faces about, just Young’s usual mix of yes men and muscle-bound fairies. They’ll be no trouble. They’ll all run for it, when the time comes, and we’ll let them. Young is the one we’re after. And don’t worry, Mr. Armstrong, I’ve already given Pepper an assurance that we won’t hurt the bloke, unless one of our side is in mortal danger. If that’s the case, then all bets are off, like.’
‘But we’re all in the house, waiting, are we?’ asked Henry. ‘This evening, I mean.’
‘Aye, you will be. He’s bound to set up some sort of half-arsed observation of my mum’s house eventually, but you’ll be coming in from one of the houses in the street behind. Don’t worry, you’ll not be spotted. And we’ll be monitoring all the cell phones in the area, so we’ll know when he’s going to move.’
‘How the hell…’, Copeland began.
‘Don’t ask’, said Pepper, ‘honestly, we don’t want to know. Not about that, not about any of your boys’ weapons, whether they’re still taking Her Majesty’s shilling, nothing. We nick Young, and your boys, and all your illegal firepower and technology, it vanishes. You’re the only one left, Davey, and you’re unarmed, right? Then all we have to do is connect Young to the previous attack on Davey’s mum, and we’ve got him. He’ll get remanded in custody for that, and while he’s away his little empire will crumble. His lads will be queuing up to give him up for Linda’s murder then, you watch. You mark my words, boys. Twelve hours from now, we’ll have Dai Young in the cells, and a bent copper to go with him. It’ll be happy days all round, I’m telling you.’
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