The Rave: A gritty crime drama you won't want to put down (Valley Park Series Book 2)

by Nicky Black

  ‘And hey,’ Jed dug into his bag and brought out a chunky black handset about the size of Tommy’s foot. ‘Mobile phones,’ he said, ‘they’re mint, look.’ He passed it to Tommy who turned it over in his hands. He’d seen them on TV, on news items about yuppies and the rise of wealth he wouldn’t ever get a sniff at.

  ‘Where you supposed to put it?’ Frankie had snatched the phone and was trying to shove it into one of his pockets. Not so mobile after all.

  Jed retrieved the handset from Frankie and tucked it into the back of his jeans. Ta-dah! his free arms said.

  Tommy’s smile was as false as Freddie Laker’s. Jed could phone all the personnel he liked, but Tommy didn’t have the money to pay them, and now he had to tell Jed he didn’t have the flyers either.

  ‘Here’s wor lass.’ Jed was putting the phone back into his man-bag, staring up the hill towards the towering Monument of Earl Grey, where a long line of young women, headed up by Shona, were marching towards them. They were a motley crew, some dressed androgynously in baggy joggers and long T-shirts, others in skimpy skirts and tops, one or two Goths thrown in for good measure. Two things they all had in common was a rucksack thrown over their backs and white trainers with lightening streaks up the side on their feet. ‘Our flyer distribution team.’ Jed folded his arms and grinned like a man who loved being Jed.

  Tommy gave him a thwarted look and shook his head, Jed’s satisfied expression turning into a frown of disbelief. But Shona was already beckoning three of the girls forward. Marie, she said, would be responsible for Newcastle; Emma, County Durham; Lisa, Carlisle and Whitehaven. The girls chose their teams as they would a school netball squad and assembled into three eager groups while Shona stood like Cleopatra, hands clutching bangled biceps.

  Tommy took Shona to one side. The team would have to wait while he tried to find another printer in the next half an hour who would do the job quickly on the promise of three of four times the payment. He found himself looking into Shona’s sunflower eyes – they glittered and twirled in spellbinding flashes, a deep amber, round, and unblinking. He couldn’t speak, and he felt himself float from the ground.

  The click of Jed’s fingers brought him back down again with an almost audible thud.

  ‘Told you she could hypnotise anyone,’ smirked Jed.

  Tommy held onto Jed’s arm to steady himself and smiled at Shona. ‘Follow me,’ he said.

  ***

  A few minutes later, Macca sat on his stool at the counter of the printers reciting the alphabet forwards and backwards on Shona’s command while a chattering bunch of girls loaded their rucksacks with flyers.

  ‘Belter,’ said Tommy, slapping Jed on the back. ‘She’s a keeper.’

  Jed looked on, proudly, while Frankie stared at the arses of the girls as they bent over the boxes to fill their bags.

  The niggling fear was beginning to abate, and Tommy thought that maybe, just maybe, the universe and the aliens that inhabited it were sending cosmic stardust his way. He looked up at the ceiling and prayed silently to them.

  ‘What do you think my chances are with that Emma?’ he heard.

  Tommy brought his attention back to the shop where Emma, catching Frankie leering at her, was drawing her eyes over him with open disgust.

  ‘Bit of a long shot,’ Tommy replied.

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Frankie, shooting a glance at Shona who still held Macca’s wide eyes with hers.

  ‘Don’t even think about it.’ Tommy slapped him on the arm and pulled him out of the shop before Shona brought Macca out of his stupor.

  ***

  The Haymarket bus station was packed with hobos, shoppers, and commuters.

  ‘That’s me out of cash.’ Jed turned out his empty pockets, Betty’s hundred pounds now in the hands of the flyer distribution team for their fares and their drinks.

  ‘Aye, me an’all,’ said Frankie. ‘Had to pay the coach deposits out the petty cash. I’m sacked if Jim finds out.’

  ‘You can’t get sacked from a fiddle job,’ said Tommy.

  ‘Oh,’ said Frankie, thinking.

  Jed regarded Frankie with a mind-boggled face that made Tommy smile. Hearing the low drone of Jed’s mobile phone, he drew in a long breath. Jed winked at him – the personnel – and Tommy felt the zing of positivity once more. They might pull something off, even without the drugs. He looked around him at the hustle and bustle of the bus station as Jed walked away to take the call. He closed his eyes, his mind transforming the queues of passengers into long lines of people waiting in anticipation at the entrance of the club that would one day be his.

  ‘One in, one out.’ Hadgy Dodds was on the door, dressed like a penguin and lording it over the other bouncers. Inside, the place was heaving, the hisses and low rumblings of the buses mutating into the steady beat of house music, the atmosphere electric, not an inch of the dance floor bare of feet.

  ‘Spare us some change?’ The voice brought Tommy back to the Haymarket, the tramp in front of him holding up his dirty palm like a modern-day Fagin.

  ‘I wish,’ he said, turning to Jed who was facing him now, holding the mobile phone by his side, his face one big, fat sourpuss.

  ‘No lighting, no sound,’ he said.

  ***

  The house opposite Tommy’s was still smouldering as he turned the corner onto Holly Drive, the yellow tape around it fluttering where it had come loose from the lampposts. Small clusters of youths were congregating in their usual places, sharing spliffs, their collars turned up against challenge.

  Trevor Logan stood alone, leaning against a wall, one hand down his grey jogging pants as he awaited his customers. There had been a time when you didn’t shit in your own back yard, but times were changing.

  The three friends had parted in gloomy silence. Twenty-four hours to go and all Tommy had was DJs and artists and a promise from the riggers and chippies that they’d turn up the next morning for the few hundred quid deposit Tommy didn’t have to give them. Without it, he was sure they’d turn right back around and spend their Saturday doing something else. The sound and lighting were another story all together, not a single professional willing to drive their gear all the way to Hexham on the promise of nowt.

  Tommy pushed his hands deep into his jeans pockets, fingering the loose change that lay there. He passed Trevor without a word but felt his presence behind him as he opened the gate.

  ‘Found them yet?’

  Tommy turned, tasting venom. ‘The prison?’ he spat.

  ‘Visiting my cousin,’ Trevor said, all innocent. ‘The venue?’

  Clearly there was no point, and Tommy thrust the gate into Trevor’s stomach, winding him, bending him double.

  ‘Ye knaa what’ll happen!’ Trevor squeaked through empty lungs as he backed off. ‘Bye bye, Tommy!’

  Tommy’s broken windows had been secured with plywood by the council, already obscured with black graffiti, the door patched up with the same lock. He tried the key; it still worked, and he gave the door a hefty shove to open it. He stepped inside and pushed the door closed, standing in the hallway and breathing in the familiar scent of damp and lavender furniture polish.

  Despondency settled in his chest. He could hear Sam’s cheerful banter in his mind, could hear Ashleigh’s gurgling gibberish.

  Opening the living room door, he stopped dead in his tracks. Ashleigh’s gurgling hadn’t been in his mind at all because there she was, sitting among the sofa cushions on the floor, her wide smile almost bringing tears to his eyes.

  He swooped her up into his arms, calling Sam’s name. A second later, she was at the kitchen door, her hands in the pockets of her short summer jacket, the pink one she loved so much. Her eyes brimmed, her chin quivered.

  ‘I went to the police,’ she said.

  ‘Wha? Why?’ She couldn’t let him down, not now.

  ‘He told me something,’ she said, ‘that Chief Inspector. Something about your dad and Billy Logan. And my Uncle Paul.’

  She told hi
m quickly, not mincing her words, and Tommy felt the walls of the house collapse around him. He hung his head and tried not to scream.

  ‘I know about the drugs, Tommy,’ Sam said when she’d finished.

  Unable to look her in the eye, Tommy focused on a spot just behind her knee, his heart climbing up his throat when he noticed the holdall behind her heels, open and displaying clothes he’d seen her wear a hundred times.

  ‘No, no, no,’ he said desperately. ‘Come on, Sam.’

  Tears coursed down her cheeks, the sight of them making his own eyes wet. She took her hands from her pockets and held up four tubes of Smarties.

  ‘Let’s get the hell out of here,’ she said.

  PEACH

  ‘Amphetamines, ecstasy, LSD, cocaine, crack …’

  Murphy was handing out seal bags containing pills, powder, and crystals. Around twenty officers, a mixture of uniform and detectives, sat theatre style in the room, passing the labelled bags to each other like a game of pass-the-parcel. They held them up to the light, felt the consistency of the drugs before handing them on to their neighbour.

  The atmosphere chimed with anticipation and the expectation of a few extra quid overtime. Twenty more officers and dog handlers would join them the next day, along with air back up and armed response. Their aim was a simple one, Peach had explained at the start of the briefing: to prevent a large-scale, drug-fuelled acid-house party taking place in their region: the first of its kind in these parts, and the last. Operation Red Kite would pave the way for a mass crack down on illegal all-night gatherings.

  ‘The biggest threat our young people have faced in a generation,’ he’d said. They’d lapped it up, hung on his every word.

  DCI Peach stood back now, his shoulders against the wall, his thoughts entirely elsewhere. As Murphy crouched at the end of the front row, explaining the contents of a bag of drugs to a confused-looking officer, Peach caught his eye. Murphy was his only hope now of identifying the venue, all notions of a deal with Paul Smart banished. Instead, a plan was forming in his head.

  Murphy gave him a reassuring nod, the sort of gesture that would have made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in defence not so long ago. Over the last six years he’d preferred to work alone, delegating only when necessary or when ordered to by Superintendent McNally on pain of suspension. It kept him busy – more than busy; besieged. Burden had become his haven, permission to disregard his own self-loathing, his failure as a husband, as a father, as a human being capable of even the most basic of friendships. There was something about Murphy that withstood his coldness, didn’t rile against it or complain. There was something unfathomably loyal about him. He realised suddenly that Murphy might actually like him.

  ‘Listen up.’ Murphy had left the officer none the wiser and was clapping his hands, standing in front of the horseshoe of chattering officers, taking charge. ‘We’ll have three teams. You should know which team you’re in, and if you don’t, then you ’aven’t been fucking listening, ’ave you?’

  He could still lose the language, however.

  ‘Team A, you’ll target the high-rises,’ said Murphy. ‘We need to limit numbers, so there’s to be no pirate radio over the next twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Ooh arr, shiver me timbers,’ said a uniformed officer, eliciting a few sniggers. Peach noted his idiot face, red and shiny like the class fool. He recognised him, Cinderella, the young officer who’d handed him Tommy’s trainer almost a week ago. How much had changed since then. It was as if he was seeing clearly for the first time in years. He knew exactly what needed to be done.

  ‘Team B. You’ll go round the clubs tonight and confiscate as many flyers as you can, preferably from the distributors themselves. Collect information, get them while they’re pissed, and try not to look like coppers. Team C,’ Murphy extended his chest, ‘the sexy team, will be with me.’

  Cheers from half a dozen officers brought a thin smile to Peach’s lips, and after Murphy had identified team leaders, a hand shot up. Peach nodded to the owner of it, pushing himself away from the wall, back in the game.

  ‘If we don’t know where it is, sir, how do the punters?’

  ‘There’ll be a telephone number on the flyers,’ Peach replied. ‘People will ring it and get information on meeting points, then they’ll ring the number again and a new message will tell them where to go.’

  ‘Can’t we just get the phone line stopped, sir?’ said another voice from the front row.

  ‘Multiple lines into one BT answering service,’ Peach said.

  The officers furrowed their brows.

  ‘The sort used by sex lines,’ added Murphy, and enlightenment ensued in the form of nodding heads, blushes, and slaps on arms.

  ‘Jeez, they’ve got it all sussed, eh?’ said a middle-aged detective amidst the low hum of voices.

  ‘Oh, they’re not daft,’ said Peach. ‘But neither are we. We’ll have some of you ringing the numbers on the night to determine the venue.’ He glanced at Murphy and added, ‘If we don’t have it by then.’

  ‘How many are we talking about?’ he heard.

  ‘Could be five or six thousand,’ said Murphy.

  Another murmur rumbled through the room as Peach headed towards a notice board on wheels displaying headshots of Tommy, Jed, and Frankie.

  ‘Here’s who we’re looking for,’ he said, pointing to Tommy’s photograph. ‘This man is the promoter, along with his friends, here. These events are illegal, remember, so all proceeds are confiscated.’

  While Tommy had been exonerated as a supplier of drugs, Peach was still determined to put a stop to any future parties. He’d kept Paul Smart’s image to himself. He had his own strategy to deal with him, one he had yet to test out with Murphy. He’d soon gauge how far his DS’s loyalty ran.

  He looked around the room. ‘They talk about freedom of expression, the right to party.’ He said the word with a flourish that brought more sniggers. ‘But what about the rights of decent, law-abiding people who just want to sleep at night and not have to clean up needles and human faeces from their gardens?’

  ‘Just go to Valley Park, sir,’ said Cinderella. ‘Standard practice.’ Peach watched Cinderella and his neighbour high-five each other. Just yesterday, he would have agreed, but something about the gesture didn’t sit well with him. Collins’s young wife had surprised him with her dignity and her obvious dedication to her child who was well cared for, happy. She was only nineteen he’d realised, just a few years older than Sally. He’d found her mature, sweet-natured, brave even - a world away from her mother who was clearly selfish to the point of delusion. Perhaps that was what Valley Park did to you; perhaps one day, there would be rescue for the place, an estate that was responsible for twenty per cent of the city’s crime.

  ‘Any more questions?’ He surveyed the room, and silence fell, some of the officers already on their feet, five minutes past the end of their shift.

  Peach dismissed them, and they filed out, dropping the seal bags into a plastic tub while Murphy unpinned the photographs from the board.

  ‘Good bunch,’ said Murphy, holding the photographs to his chest.

  ‘I’ve seen worse.’ Peach wondered whether he should divulge the plan now or wait until tomorrow when Murphy wouldn’t have time to think about the consequences – the potential for disciplinary action and the ensuing black mark on his record. He’d wait, he decided, the desire to see Paul Smart rot behind bars outweighing his concern for Murphy’s career progression.

  Murphy stood motionless, as if awaiting instructions.

  ‘Get yourself away for a couple of hours before tonight,’ Peach said. ‘And remember, all I want is the venue. If Collins has drugs on him, let him sell them. We need this rave to go ahead.’

  Murphy didn’t move, raised his eyebrows expectantly, and it took a few seconds for Peach to realise what he wanted. He thought about it, then nodded at the empty room. ‘And that was … well …’

  Murphy smiled, a warm smi
le, just a hint of cheek. 'Now, don’t be getting all mushy on me, boss,’ he said.

  ***

  In his office, Peach stared at the computer screen as he reached out a finger and pressed the button he assumed switched it on. It whirred into life, the screen turning black, lines of incomprehensible numbers and letters rolling upwards until they came to a stop and a small green rectangle flashed, asking him to do something. He pressed a few keys but heard only warning honks.

  He took the form for the computer course from his in-tray and a pen from his shirt pocket, pulling a folder towards him to lean on. It was the building society file Murphy had reviewed, and he pushed the form to one side and opened the folder. Curious to see what Murphy had come up with, he flicked through the CCTV stills – pictures he’d seen before, nothing new. On one of the stills from outside the building, however, Murphy had drawn a ring around the head of the tall robber in the coat and hat. Peach picked the print up and looked closer, focusing on the robber’s neck. He’d been so intent on the skinny one, on his need to put Collins at the scene, he’d missed it: the tip of a bird’s wing, Paul Smart’s tattoo of the dove in flight.

  Flipping over to the next image, he faced the mug-shot of a girl of about eighteen, thin and pale, the bags of an older woman under large blue eyes. Murphy had attached a Post-it note to it: “Lassie’s eyes.”

  Next was a picture of the round face of a young man, eyebrows, nose, ears, and bottom lip pierced. The face was riddled with acne, bum fluff trying to find life through the scars and yellow pimples. Another Post-it: “Our Janice’s lad.”

  Peach skipped to the transcript of the interview with Mrs Bailey and Denise Morris where Murphy had highlighted Mrs Bailey’s words in yellow. Closing the folder, Peach wondered how much Mrs Bailey knew or didn’t know, and as he pushed it to one side, he suspected the old woman had been had – another vulnerable person taken advantage of. He had a feeling that Janice and her lad wouldn’t be dropping Paul Smart in it, but the tattoo might be all the evidence he needed. On top of a conviction for drug dealing, Paul Smart wouldn’t be bleeding any poor people dry until the Millennium.