Cleaning Up

by Paul Connor-Kearns

  With regard to Bazzer Dougan they had no leads and no witnesses. They picked up a few guys who were known cottagers in the area but had drawn a blank with them. There was nobody amongst them with that kind of violence on their sheet and Bazzer would have been no easy mark either. Bazzer’s missus was sounding off a fair bit, reckoning that a rival had offed him. According to her, people were envious of Bazzer and his success!

  Darrin dropped in to see Mac towards the end of the week but the Coleshaw was still in limbo - kids milling around, the usual crew in and out of The Admiral. Mac had brought June in again to see if they could get another tickle on what was happening with the ice but he was told by steroid Johnstone that he’d heard from big bro that there was nothing doing. This time Pete had recommended rehab to Mac as an option for June. Mac thought that the guy was joking at first but then a look into those slightly frenetic teddy bear button eyes told him that the bozo was speaking in earnest, mate to mate like - Johnstone was fucking nuts.

  Mac had been told that they may have to pull the plug on the op - a couple more weeks of nothing and that would be it. There had been word of bottom squeaking sounds being made by the brass about the drain on their angst-ridden budgets.

  Friday night he was down at the Quays, leg weary after back-to-back daily workouts with the old man and the hours spent on the pavement with Johno. They’d been working down on the High Street today - the florists and the Footlocker store next door were being pulled down. The buildings had been deemed unsafe. The youngish couple who owned the flower shop were planning a move to Spain. She had family somewhere near Barcelona and was eager to make a fresh start. That news had brought his restlessness back to the surface and he’d resolved to stop fucking about and give SOCA a go this weekend. He’d check out the website again, maybe get the application going at least.

  There was a new Detective in the portakabin when he arrived, a young guy with an open face, a straw neck and jug ears who bounded over to shake his hand - a Constable Dave Kingston.

  Darrin took over from Lumb on the cans, happy to get off his aching feet for a while. Keithy Dalton was at home watching TV, only moving to refresh his glass and giving out plenty of contented yawns as the evening wore on.

  Darrin was frustrated with it all. He had that feeling of important things falling just outside his understanding and well outside his control, a sense of impotence with the whole fucking shebang. He was sure that he had most of the pieces in the jigsaw but he had no way of putting them together, as Mac had said to him, ‘suspicion ain’t knowing and knowing ain’t proving.’

  It was just before eleven and he and Dave were killing time swapping resumes when Keith’s mobile rang. Keith said a muffled hello then killed the volume on the box.

  ‘Gee man, been a while big fella. How’s tricks then chief?’

  Then there was a lengthy silence, which was broken intermittently by Keith mouthing, ‘right right.’

  ‘No man.’ Dalton further responded. ‘It’s all sorted, come on G, it’s tidied up in’t it? Nothing to worry about fella.’

  The other party didn’t appear to be mollified.

  ‘Yeah, yeah that’s fine. Come on boss, let’s let it all calm down. They’re running in circles aren’t they?’ A little urgency in the voice now, the first time in the last few months that Darrin had heard Dalton sound out of kilter.

  More silence, nearly a minute of it this time, Keith breathing heavily through his mouth, the tinkling of ice on glass then a slurp.

  ‘OK, OK, no problem. I’ll be up there in half an hour for fucks sake.’

  That was it, the click of the phone, a heavy sigh of exasperation from Dalton then he was quickly out of the lounge. He was back in there in two minutes tops and then straight out of the flat door.

  Kingston looked over at Darrin.

  ‘Interesting?’

  ‘Maybe - don’t hold your breath though. Up there with watching Eastenders this shit.’

  Dalton hurriedly came out into the pool of light that illuminated the lobby of the block, buttoning up his car coat as he did so. He put his hat on and hunched his shoulders against the cold.

  Dalton climbed into the car and he was gone - turning left, maybe heading towards the orbital.

  Darrin felt the frustration again, the op was feeling half arsed, too many gaps and the surveillance on the flat was giving them nothing. Mac looked like the best bet but that window might get snapped closed too and then they would just have to pack it all up and for fucking what?

  Kingston asked him if he fancied a pint, he did, he was well in the mood. In fact he felt like getting hammered and if they got a shufty on he could still do it.

  It was a clear sunny day for Mick’s funeral, almost shirtsleeve warm in the late morning sun. The hearse arrived just before eleven and he, Johnny Buck, Nev, Jimbo and his cousin Dale - Uncle John’s boy who he hadn’t seen for nearly twenty years all climbed into the following car. A funeral director with a top hat and the necessary solemn bearing and gait walked the cortege down the road for a hundred yards or so, stopping, probably not by design, just next to the Farriers. After a brief pause and a nod to Mick’s coffin he climbed in to the leading hearse to ride shotgun with his pal taking off his top hat as he climbed into the seat. As soon as he buckled up, the cortege smoothly made tracks to the crematorium.

  Predictably, there was a good turn out for the old man; friends, drinking buddies, plenty of old work mates. A number of his own friends were there too, including Lee and Bernie up from London. Pauline and some of the Centre staff were there and Sonny and Estelle had made it, she with a little bairn in her arms. It was a full house inside the chapel.

  Drink Gorman was press-ganged in and the six of them lifted the box that housed the old man’s body onto their shoulders, he and Johnny Buck at the back, as they were the two tallest. Steely Dan’s Do It Again played as they walked the coffin down in between the pews, his left hand gripping Johnny’s right shoulder tightly as they made their way to the front of the chapel.

  It was a nice enough service, JB got up and spoke until he no longer could, his twinkle eyed anecdote about him and Mick afloat on the Norfolk Broads truncated and terminated with an unbridled, choking emotion. Nev said a few words too, simple but affecting. Nev told the congregation that Mick was the straightest bloke he’d ever known and a bloody true mate too. They had asked him if he wanted to say something, read out a poem or do a eulogy but he didn’t think that there was any way that he would have kept it together and he wasn’t going to break down in front of all those people - he’d continue his crying when he was alone.

  Half an hour and it was done and dusted. They filed out past the coffin and turned left out of the building. The next lot of mourners were already crowding the entrance ready to take their turn at the heartfelt goodbyes.

  The wake was held at the Crown - butties, pies and booze, there were some tears but plenty more smiles. Everybody was easily slipping into the dictates of the familiar environment. Within a couple of hours it was wrapped up, he thanked Paul the landlord and told him that he’d see him soon, maybe band night. On leaving the pub, he walked the few hundred yards up the slope to his old man’s place and let himself in through the now boarded up front door, a few shards of broken glass still littered the vestibule. He’d come back and clean them up in a couple of days time.

  Tommy had a little look around the front room but there wasn’t that much to take in, his old man had been a minimalist. Just his recliner, a sofa that kind of matched the chair and an open display cabinet that was home to some dusty nicotine stained bric a brac - the moraine of family and personal history. He would take the set of Caxton encyclopaedias and, something with a lot more emotional clout to it, a small clog that Mick and his two brothers had worn as infants. The clog had three distinct holes punched into the stiff leather, which denoted the brothers’ different foot sizes.

  Linda had been in from next door to do a bit of a clean up. She’d emptied the ashtray and give
n the chair a good wipe down, he could still smell the disinfectant. There was a betting slip on Mick’s side table just next to the telephone. He’d had a couple of bets on for races that had been run over a fortnight ago now. Tommy put the slip into his pocket and walked the couple of hundred yards back towards the Crown to drop into the nearby bookies. Mick had won thirty-five quid! He folded the winnings put them in his pocket and went straight to his car. He’d come back at the weekend to see what else needed sorting out. He was done for this day.

  Darrin had taken the weekend off and he took a long deliberate walk on the Saturday, all the way out to Rosetta Park in order to make the point of checking out the final resting place of Bazzer Dougan. He’d been found by a golden retriever in a little copse of bushes and trees that were some thirty odd yards from the gent’s toilet block. He still didn’t buy the consensus, it was still too pat and still too fucking convenient in its timing. There had been ramifications all right. Moz had been bang on about that.

  He had looked at the SOCA website when he’d returned home, taking his time to wade his way through the Personal Qualities Framework. After he’d done that he downloaded the application form. There were no vacancies at the moment but he’d decided to throw his hat into the ring, he filled it out and emailed it on.

  Sunday he spent with his folks, Sunday lunch followed by the taking in of a game of amateur rugby league up at the local park with the old man. Tommy Cochrane was up there with that mate of his, Jimbo, and his dad had wandered over at half-time to have a brief chat with him. The old man had gone to Mick’s funeral and whilst they had talked his dad had gripped Tommy by the upper arm and Darrin could see how much Mick’s death had meant to Dougy. There was no lightweight intent behind the exchange. Darrin mused with a palpable sadness that men like Mick and his old man were fast becoming yesterday’s warriors, a slowly eroding bridge to a past that was inevitably becoming more and more remote. Not particularly in terms of the time that had passed, he thought, but all the fucking changes and the speed of that change. He was still in his twenties and he could feel that. God knows what it must be like for people of their generation.

  Monday at the station and there was a message waiting, given to him by the new desk sergeant, the newly promoted and uniformly respected Tina Clough - he was to call DS Young as soon as possible, please.

  He did, before he did anything else in fact. Young was revved up all right, breathy and animated, struggling to maintain his standard Teflon composure.

  ‘Big news Darrin, big news.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  No fucking around with him this time, straight to it.

  ‘Yeah Dalton - he’s gone, disappeared!’

  ‘Disappeared! Fuck. You’re kidding, when?’

  ‘Never came back after Friday night. They found his car up at Stanedge, it had been there all day Saturday. It was called in by the guy with the food van, early on Sunday morning.’

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Yeah - and he’s not in it either, the mobiles off - he’s gone into fucking thin air.’

  ‘The tapes, Sarge, the tapes. Are there any indication of what may have happened on them?’

  ‘Yeah - well you heard his last conversation Darrin, he sounds a little strained, maybe even a bit agitated, but there’s not much there, is there? Usual shit, no names, no concrete information, sweet fuck-all – bloody hell.’

  ‘Come on in tomorrow,’ Young told him. ‘I’ve already cleared it with your gaffers and we’ll get everybody together - brainstorm it a bit.’

  Fucking hell, Darrin thought, for all of his permutations and musings he hadn’t seen this one coming. The next day they commandeered the detectives’ room and played the tape back and forth for nearly a tension filled frustrating hour, trying to pull something, anything, out of the ether that would help them make sense of it.

  But, the playing back and forth repeatedly served to tell them exactly fuck all, apart from what they already knew. In reality, their brainstorming meant nothing apart from a fair bit of staring into space, muttered expletives and synchronized head scratching.

  ‘Another gang?’ Lumb had theorized.

  ‘More likely the Saltt boys themselves, I reckon,’ said Mac. That sounded better to Darrin and to most of the others too, judging by the echoing group nods and mutterings.

  ‘Back to the South of France, said Mozzer, ‘missing the warm weather.’

  That one hit the ground like a lead balloon and got Mozzer nothing but a few seconds of silence and a rake of looks that confirmed he was now the office plank.

  Darrin asked for the tape to be played one more time and listened to it, again, intently, even calling for shush when Lumb and Young started yapping over the top of it.

  Darrin circled his hand when the taped hissed to a halt. ‘Again’, he said, but the others were over it. Darrin stepped up from his perch and hit the play button.

  He wasn’t sure, but, maybe, maybe there was something in the rhythm of Dalton’s sentences, a name in there maybe. ‘Gee man’ was not an expression he had ever heard Dalton use before. Perhaps it was G-Man, he thought, the fuckers loved their initials. Fucking hell, G-Man - he was sure of it.

  Darrin looked around the room - Bowden, Young, Lumb, Mac, Moz, June, Walsh and the new guy Kingston and he bit down, literally tasting blood in the inside of his mouth on the revelation of his insight

  Mac brought it to a close with a heavy shrug of his shoulders.

  ‘Ah well, if he has fucking gone, no great loss eh? It’s one for the good guys far as I’m concerned.’

  Nobody demurred on that one. Bowden looked at his watch, ‘OK then gents and good lady once more unto the breach - let’s wrap it up for today.’

  They stayed on the flat for a few more days. Nearly a week after the disappearance Niall O’Brien turned up and spent an hour or so in the joint, they could hear some cupboards and drawers being opened and closed but he came out of the flat apparently empty handed. That was followed by a few days of nothing and Young told the team one more week and that was it, the Quays side of it would be finished.

  Friday and he was planning for the weekend, up to Glasgow this time, for a bit of tartan salsa with Jolika and Stuart. He hadn’t danced much since he’d done his shoulder. With the injury it had been much too painful to do the lead and he was looking forward to getting back into it.

  Darrin went into the canteen at the end of the shift and the large room was surprisingly full and rowdy. Keegan and a couple of his buddies appeared to be at the focal point of the tumult. There was an empty table in the corner of the room a couple of strides away from the till and when he grabbed his tea and a pie he made his way straight to it. Trish came over to see him after a couple of minutes of his ‘Darrin no mates’ solitude and she gave him a little thrust of the hip and an arched eyebrow.

  ‘Not joining us then Dazzler?’

  He waved at his plate, ‘in and out Trish.’

  ‘Hmmm, that doesn’t sound like you.’ She gave him a smile that he could feel in his pant’s pocket.

  He nodded over at the noise, ‘what’s happening then?’ Mozzer was over there now, his arm draped around Keegan’s beefy shoulder, comrades in arms enjoying a hearty laugh together.

  ‘You not heard then?’

  Fuck, she was getting as bad as Young.

  He intimated a give it to me.

  ‘DS Keegan - he’s retiring, taking his pension, over thirty years in, the lucky sod.’

  He kept his face neutral and looked at the back of Keegan’s big head.

  Mozzer had broken off from the jollies for a moment or two and he caught Darrin’s glance and motioned for him to come over and join them.

  Darrin leaned back in his chair, he looked straight at Mozzer dead-eyed and didn’t respond.

  Mozzer gave him a shrug and Trish stepped to his right to block his view of Keegan’s table.

  ‘Well?’ she asked.

  He shook his head, ‘things to do and places to go me, Trish.’r />
  She tutted, exasperated with him, ‘fair enough misery guts - later, maybe.’

  Darrin finished what was left of his tea, returned his tray to the counter and walked out of there. He thought about turning around to give Keegan the eye but he didn’t. Out into the corridor and on past Sergeant Clough who gave him a cheery wave, his stomach churning with sour distaste and frustration. The following Tuesday, he was running late for the midday shift and had to jog from his car into the building. Sarge Thomas made a show of pointedly looking at his watch then tapped it as Darrin moved quickly past the charge desk. He went with haste down to the lift’s doors, which opened just as he arrived there. Keegan stepped out into the corridor, his frame filling up two thirds of the lift’s entrance. There was less than a metre between them but he didn’t step back to give Keegan any space and if Keegan had done so he would have been back in the lift.

  Darrin leaned in towards him. He could smell the mints, the tobacco and the clear vodka spirit. He noted the broken capillaries that leeched from the big man’s nose on across his broad cheeks.

  Keegan gave him a ‘how do’ and made to go past - Darrin touched him lightly on the arm and plastered a smile across his face.

  ‘Off I heard then Sarge, congrats, end of the month eh?’

  Keegan rocked a little on his heels, stifled something and smiled back at him. ‘That’s right Constable, more than thirty years of ball ache given to this lot, more than enough I reckon.’

  Darrin didn’t allow any gap in the conversation to develop.

  ‘Where are you off to then Sarge? Somewhere nice I hope.’

  Keegan nodded along at that, he was a little bit more engaged now - back in balance, back in control. The fucking big man.

  ‘Yeah, missus has persuaded me to open a B and B down in Bournemouth, I’ll be on fried egg duty,’ he chuckled.

  Darrin clapped him hard on the shoulder, ‘ah well, best of luck with that, G Man. Hope it all works out well for you.’