Single Handed (Gareth Dawson Series Book 3)

by Nathan Burrows

  “Bloody hell, this place hasn’t changed a bit,” Jon said when Malcolm had finally managed to park the car and get out. They walked over to the arched door of the pub and stepped through, both having to duck their heads to avoid hitting the lintel. “What d’you fancy, mate?” Jon said as Malcolm looked around the interior of the pub. It was an old policeman’s habit. Before settling in for a meal or a drink in a pub, have a quick look to see who else was in there first.

  “I’ll just have a lemonade, cheers. I’ll grab us a table.”

  Malcolm walked over to the corner of the pub and sat down in a chair that looked—and felt—like it was as old as the pub itself. Jon came over with their drinks a moment later.

  “There you go, mate,” he said as he put Malcolm’s drink down in front of him. In his other hand, Jon had a pint of light brown liquid that looked like barely brewed tea.

  “What’s that?” Malcolm asked. “It looks horrible.”

  “The house beer,” Jon replied. “Called Green Dragon. Their marketing team must be quite small.” He took a sip and licked his lips appreciatively. “Tastes good, though. That’s one thing I miss down in London. Decent beer. It’s all foreign bottled muck down there.”

  Thirty minutes later, each having eaten a plate of sandwiches that would have fed a small family, their conversation turned to Philip McGuire.

  “Any news on your dead scuba diver, then?” Jon asked, sipping his pint.

  “Nothing new,” Malcolm replied. “There’s something about the whole thing that’s not quite right, but I’m not sure what.”

  “It’s case closed our end, anyway,” Jon said. “Like I said.”

  “Yeah, I know. I should probably do the same. I still think he was being blackmailed by some scrote in Indonesia.”

  “So what if he was? You can’t do anything about that now, can you? We’ve got a whole bunch of scammers we’re tracking over there, but we can’t touch them.”

  “What, the mighty NCA has no teeth?” Malcolm grinned at his friend.

  “Not there, no. We had a case a couple of weeks ago over there. Some blagger managed to convince an old boy in Kent that there was some footage of him with a prostitute. We traced it as far as the border, then couldn’t go any further. They took him for twenty grand, the poor bastard.”

  “That’s an expensive tom.”

  “That it is, my friend. Come on, your round.”

  Malcolm went to the bar to buy the drinks, and as he waited for the barman to change the barrel, he thought about what Jon had just said. If the National Crime Agency couldn’t do anything about criminals in Indonesia, it was unlikely that Norfolk Police would be able to.

  “I did wonder if the wife was involved somehow,” Malcolm said when he returned to the table.

  “What, with the blackmail?”

  “No, with matey boy going swimming with the fishes or with the kids. She works for children’s services at the council.”

  “That’s a long shot, mate,” Jon said, picking up his drink. “The kids, I mean.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time, though.”

  “No, you’re right there. Still a long shot, the procurement angle. And if she did off him, she chose a good way to do it.”

  The conversation turned inevitably to football, and a few moments later they were discussing Norwich City’s fortunes. Or more accurately, their lack of them.

  “I still keep an eye out on how they’re doing,” Jon said, “even though football’s not a proper sport.” Malcolm laughed and looked at his friend’s cauliflower ears.

  “Rugby’s just the bastard child of football, Jon. It’s a game for gentlemen, played by hooligans.”

  ”And rugby is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen,” Jon replied, completing the cliché. “But I never had the shit kicked out of me by the crowd at a rugby match when I was in uniform.”

  “Fair point, Jon,” Malcolm said. “But they were the good old days, weren’t they?”

  “A pie, a few pints, a game of footie and a good old ruck.” Jon grinned as he regarded his old friend. “And that was just the police, let alone the fans. Match days just aren’t the same anymore.”

  45

  Annette looked at her laptop screen with dismay. She had replied to the threatening e-mail with a simple reply.

  How much do you want?

  Whoever sent the e-mail had replied almost straight away, and she wondered if they had been sitting by their computer, waiting for her to respond. The reply only had three words in it.

  £20k. Text this number.

  It was followed by a long telephone number with a four digit prefix that she didn’t recognise. Annette opened up another tab on her browser and entered the first four numbers into the search bar, followed by the words dialling code. Google returned a page from a website about dialling international numbers, telling her that the number was from Indonesia. Specifically, Bali. She cast her mind back to her conversation with Kate. The policewoman had reacted when Annette had told her that Philip had been scuba diving in Bali, so they must be looking into his activities over there. Did they know he was a paedophile? They must know, but if that was the case, why hadn’t they told her?

  Annette picked up her phone and was halfway through entering the number from her laptop screen when it started vibrating in her hand. She jumped and almost dropped the phone on the table. It was Gareth. She thought for a second whether to reject the call and phone him back, but decided to answer it.

  “Gareth?” she said as she lifted the phone to her ear.

  “Whatever you do,” his voice came down the line, “do not text that number.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t text that number on your screen.”

  Instinctively, Annette looked over her shoulder to see if he was standing behind her, even though it was obvious that he wasn’t.

  “How can you see my screen?” she asked, frowning.

  “I’ll explain later. Just leave the laptop where it is. Don’t do anything.” His voice was urgent, and she could hear other people talking in the background. “I’ll be round in twenty minutes or so.”

  “Okay,” Annette replied, thinking hard. How much does he know?

  “Don’t touch it, okay?”

  “Yes, Gareth,” she said through gritted teeth. “I heard you.”

  It took him almost thirty minutes in the end. When she heard his truck pull up, she opened her front door and waited for him with her arms crossed firmly over her chest. Gareth opened the gate and started walking up her path, with Dave a few feet behind him. He had a large laptop tucked under his arm and, as they reached her front door, Annette stepped forward and prodded the younger man firmly in the chest with her index finger.

  “You slimy little shit,” she said, ignoring Gareth completely. “What did you put on my laptop?” Dave didn’t reply, but looked to Gareth to help.

  “Annette, leave him alone,” Gareth said, stepping between the two of them. It was just as well he did, Annette thought; she had been about to slap the lad across the face. “If you want to be angry with someone, be angry with me. Dave did as he was told by me.”

  “Oh, aren’t you the big man?” she replied, glaring at him. “What gives you the right to spy on me?”

  “Annette,” Gareth said in a measured tone. “You’re my little sister, and you’re in trouble. How much yet, I don’t know, but I know you need our help.” He turned to Dave. “Mate, thinking about it, can you give me and Annette a few minutes?” With a look of relief, Dave turned and hurried back down the path. A few seconds later, Annette heard the door of Gareth’s truck closing. It wouldn’t have surprised her if she’d heard the doors locking. Dave had looked terrified.

  She walked into the lounge, closely followed by Gareth. On the table was her laptop, it’s screen open.

  “I’m still pissed off, Gareth,” Annette said. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”

  “What would you have said, Annette?” he replied. “Oh, no, ever
ything’s fine. Just like you always have done since you were a kid.”

  “Well, I’m not a kid anymore, Gareth,” she barked, “and I don’t need you charging in on a big white horse every time to save me.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Are you listening to me?”

  “No, Annette. I’m not. Now, what’s going on?”

  She stared at him, still angry, but at the same time knowing that at least this time, she did need his help. Annette crossed to an armchair, sat down heavily in it, and put her hands across her face. She knew she was about to burst into tears, but there was nothing she could do about it.

  “It was Philip, Gareth,” she said as a loud sob escaped. “He was a…a…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

  “He was a what?” Gareth asked, his voice softening. When she pulled her hands away from her face, he was kneeling in front of her.

  “A paedophile,” she whispered, “and now someone’s trying to blackmail me.”

  Gareth got to his feet and turned his back on her. Annette could see how tightly his fists were clenched. If the photograph of Philip had still been on the bookcase, she knew it would have been smashed in an instant. He took a deep breath and turned back round to face her. The look on his face was one that she had only ever seen a couple of times in her entire life. It was pure rage.

  “Seriously?” he said, his lips barely moving. Annette just nodded her head in response, tears streaming down her face. Gareth didn’t reply, but walked out of the lounge and through the kitchen into the back garden. A second later, Annette heard a loud crunch, followed by another one. When he returned a moment later, the skin on the knuckles of his right hand was raw.

  “I’ll fix the garage door,” he said, his voice almost back to normal. “Get you a new one. I just needed to…” His voice tailed away.

  “I know,” Annette replied.

  “It’s a good job that fucker’s dead,” Gareth said, nursing his hand, “because if he wasn’t, I would be back inside for murder.”

  46

  It took Gareth the best part of twenty minutes to calm down. Punching the garage door hadn’t helped, but it was better than nothing. He was torn between anger about Philip and concern for his sister. One thing he did know was that she was better off without him.

  “I know, Gareth,” Annette had said when he had told her what he thought.

  “Did you have any idea?”

  “None at all,” she had sighed. “I guess looking back I’m not surprised, but I can’t say I had any idea.”

  Gareth looked at his little sister carefully. She had always looked young for her age, and when Philip had met her she would have looked like she was a teenager. Was that what had attracted him to her in the first place? Gareth knew was academic now anyway. The pervert was dead, and wouldn’t be mourned by any of them. Especially now.

  “Can I get Dave back in?” Gareth asked Annette. “I want him to have a closer look at your computer.”

  “Sure,” she replied.

  “You’re not going to hit him?”

  “No, don’t worry,” Annette said. She looked utterly deflated. “He’ll be okay.”

  Gareth left Annette in the lounge and walked down the drive, taking his time as he did so. He decided that he would have to tell Dave, but that he would be the only one in the team to know. For Annette’s sake, not Philip’s. When he got to the truck, he opened the door and hopped up into the driver’s seat.

  “How’s it going in there?” Dave asked, looking at Gareth with a timid expression.

  “Yeah, she’s calmed down. Don’t worry.”

  “I thought she was going to punch me.”

  “She was,” Gareth replied with a grin. “That’s why I got you to wait out here.”

  “Thanks, boss,” Dave said, looking relieved.

  “Listen mate, I’ve just found out something about her husband that I need to tell you. But it absolutely can’t go any further.”

  “Okay, no problem.”

  “I mean it Dave. I don’t want Charlotte shooting her mouth off about this. You know what she’s like. You say a word to her and the whole of Norwich will know it within a day.”

  “I won’t say a word, Gareth.” Dave looked at him earnestly. Gareth regarded him carefully. He needed to tell him about Philip so he could work his magic on Annette’s computer but, once he did, then it was no longer a family matter.

  “Okay, but if you breathe a word then it won’t be Annette punching you, it’ll be me.” Gareth frowned, giving Dave a look that he reserved for rare occasions like this one. “And I can punch a lot harder.”

  Dave swallowed, and Gareth felt bad. He’d not threatened him, not really, but Dave couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag, which meant most things were a threat to him.

  “I promise.”

  “Philip, my little sister’s husband, was a paedophile.”

  “You’re joking? The dirty cu–”

  “Yeah, I know, Dave,” Gareth cut him off. “I know. If he was still about, there’d be a line of people queuing up to let him know what they think, with me at the front of it.”

  “I’d join that queue,” David replied. Looking at him, Gareth realised that he was deadly serious. “So, that’s why your sister’s being blackmailed? Someone knows about Philip?”

  “Looks that way, but I don’t know for sure. That’s where you come in. Grab your laptop, let’s go.”

  Twenty minutes later, Gareth nodded in satisfaction as Dave finished copying Annette’s hard drive.

  “So,” Dave explained, “I’ve now got a complete clone of your laptop so I can work on it without needing to access your computer.”

  “Has Philip got a computer?” Gareth asked, annoyed that he’d only just thought of that.

  “Crap, he has,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’ll go and get it. Never thought about that.”

  “You and me both, Annette,” Gareth mumbled as she left the room. “I’m losing my bloody touch, Dave.”

  “No, you’re not, boss,” Dave replied, squinting at the screen of his own computer, “but don’t forget to ask her if he’s got any hard drives or USB sticks as well when she gets back.” Gareth suppressed a grin as Dave’s fingers flew over the keyboard.

  “What’re you up to, mate?”

  “E-mail first, I guess,” Dave replied. On the screen in front of him, the home page for Gmail appeared. Dave tapped in Annette’s username and password, and her inbox flashed up on the screen. “She needs to change her password.”

  “What is it?”

  “Password, all lowercase, with a zero instead of an ‘o’,” he said.

  “Very imaginative,” Gareth replied. “What’ve you got? Can you get into the deleted items?”

  “I can, and I can do it properly this time. You sure you want me to do that?”

  Gareth thought about it for a moment. He wasn’t sure what Annette had been sent, and didn’t want Dave to see something that he would never forget. Also, he didn’t know what the law was about this sort of thing. If they retrieved an e-mail with paedophilic images, would that be breaking the law?

  “Let’s wait for Annette and ask her what’s in them.”

  “What’s in what?” It was Annette. She had walked back into the lounge with another laptop tucked under her arm.

  “Your deleted e-mails?” Gareth asked.

  “There’s only one other one, apart from the text this number one. The rest of it came in the post.”

  “Have you still got the other stuff?”

  “No,” Annette replied. “I burnt it.” She looked at Gareth. “Well, technically you burnt it.” Remembering helping her with the garden incinerator, Gareth groaned.

  “It would have been really useful to still have that, Annette,” he said.

  “It was disgusting,” she replied in a whisper. “Totally disgusting. I didn’t want anyone seeing those photographs, ever.”

  “What’s in this one?” Dave asked, po
inting at the screen. “This is the other deleted e-mail from the same address. There’s an attachment?”

  “It’s just a photo of Philip sitting with a girl. Nothing explicit,” Annette said. “Open it if you want to.”

  Dave looked at Gareth for confirmation before opening the image. Seeing him nod his head, Dave tapped on the track pad to open the image. When it opened, Gareth could feel a vein at the side of his forehead pulsing as he looked at the terror on the young girl’s face. Annette had turned away from the screen, and Gareth glanced over at her before returning his attention to the photograph.

  “Can you zoom in on that bit?” he asked, pointing at an area of the screen. It was in the photograph's background and showed a plug socket.

  Dave used his fingers to enlarge the section of the image. The section now on the screen was grainy, but still fairly clear.

  “Not a British plug, is it?” Gareth said. Dave zoomed in closer. The socket had two round holes instead of the traditional three pins that plugs in the United Kingdom have.

  “That doesn’t narrow it down much, Gareth,” Dave replied. “Most of the rest of the world use them.”

  “Okay, well, it’s a start. Annette?”

  Annette looked round at Gareth at the sound of her name being called. She fixed her eyes on his, and he realised that she was doing whatever she could not to look at the screen.

  “What?” she asked.

  “What do you want to do next?”

  “I haven’t got a sodding clue, Gareth,” Annette replied. “I was hoping you might have.”

  47

  Ronnie blinked his eyes in the bright sunshine as he stepped out of the police station. He looked around, not sure where he was. There had been no windows in the police van that had brought him here. He walked a few hundred yards down the road, zigzagging in and out of the locals who were mingling on what passed for a pavement until he found a street sign.