Читать книгу The Follow - Paul Grzegorzek - Страница 11

I dropped the car back without getting grilled for my part in the earlier arrest, Kev understanding that you don’t ignore an assistance shout, no matter what.

I faffed around the office for the rest of the day getting no real work done, and studiously avoiding looking at any kind of intelligence that related to Davey or his business. I didn’t want anyone thinking that I was going to go out looking for revenge, and I was fairly sure that at least one person in the office would have been tasked to keep an eye on me.

I was more than a little nervous about my plan for that evening, especially on the back of the evidence being swapped. It would take very little for someone to decide that it was me who had done the fiddling and haul me in for questioning. If anyone saw or even suspected that I was going to have a chat with some of Davey’s boys, I would be for it.

Four o’clock rolled around with agonizing slowness and the moment the hands hit the right position I barrelled out of the office and down into the car park.

Fifteen minutes later I was home and getting changed, selecting my wardrobe with care. I chose a pair of faded blue jeans, an old beige jacket that I never wore but was currently vaguely in fashion and a plain blue T-shirt.

I drove across town to The Avenue, the day still warm enough that I began to wish I hadn’t worn the jacket. Late afternoon sunlight streamed in through the windscreen, a golden glow suffusing the air and making me feel as if I were trapped in amber. All too soon I was parked up outside Moulsecoomb Library, facing the end of The Avenue with a clear view of Ludlow’s house. When I say Ludlow’s, I mean the council’s, as God forbid should a drug dealer pay unsubsidized rent, that just wouldn’t be on. Instead, our taxes go towards paying for their umpteen kids and their bloated wives, getting fat off the fruits of our labour while hubby is out peddling death to desperate addicts. And my friends wonder why I’m so cynical.

As I sat there waiting patiently and trying to look as if I belonged, the nerves hit me again, far stronger than they had that morning at court. My palms were sweaty enough that I couldn’t have turned the wheel had I needed to and I had a lump in my throat the size of a melon. Part of me – a small part I might add – was telling me that I wasn’t going to achieve anything by doing this. I had a sudden fear that they would just laugh at me and tell me to piss off and that I should just drive back home and get on with my evening. I buried the nagging voice, concentrating instead on what I could say that would make them worried enough to stop dealing without actually threatening them. I couldn’t think of anything, but I’ve always done my best work on the fly and I was fairly confident that I would find something at the right moment.

Besides, if it all went wrong, I figured, I could book myself on duty. That’s the great thing about being a police officer. If you see something illegal while you’re off duty, you can deal with it and, technically, it puts you on duty. I’ll give you an example:

Say I’m down the pub with some mates and I bang into some bloke and spill his pint, so he takes a swing at me. At that point, I’m still off duty. If I swing back at him, I’m still off duty. But if I decide to arrest him instead, or if I identify myself as a police officer, I’m instantly on duty and covered by all the insurance and regulations that come with it.

So if it all went bent that night, I knew I would just tell the powers that be that I was out for a walk when I saw a suspicious vehicle and went to stop check it. They might not like it, but it was all legal and they wouldn’t be able to touch me. Hopefully.

An hour or so later, just as I was beginning to think about going home and eating something to calm my rumbling stomach, a green Nissan estate pulled up outside Ludlow’s house and beeped the horn. Subtle. I wrote down the registration, or the index as we call it in the police, for later use and sat up slightly straighter as tubby George waddled out of the house and up to the car, whereupon the passenger handed over a large package and took a roll of notes in exchange.

You might think that it’s a little unbelievable, being that blatant, but doing it in plain sight like that makes them more invisible than meeting in remote locations or taking Ludlow around the block in the car. Just another shady deal in Moulsecoomb.

The car pulled away, and I knew that the only way out of the estate was back past my position or down one of two side roads that I also had covered from where I sat. In a few moments my quarry drove back past me, heading north on the Lewes Road. I pulled out and followed, leaving two cars for cover between myself and the target vehicle.

I also drove in the other lane of the dual carriageway so that they wouldn’t see me unless they looked back and left, which drivers rarely do, even paranoid ones. I could see that there were two people in the car, both in the front, both male. Another bout of nerves hit me as I began to wonder if I was lying to myself and really I was looking for a fight to salve my wounded ego.

We carried on heading north for a few minutes, and I was nearly caught out as they did a sharp left turn into Wild Park and followed the gravel track that leads to the café. It was closed that time of night, so I could only assume that they were meeting someone else or picking up drugs from a stash point. I drove past and pulled up in a lay-by slightly further up the road before doubling back on foot with a choke chain held loosely in one hand.

I kept the chain in the car for emergencies, as it made a brutal weapon in close quarters but was totally legal to own and carry. It was also the perfect surveillance tool. How many people do you see walking in parks every day with a lead but no sign of a dog? Dozens, I’ll bet.

I ambled up the path, occasionally calling to my non-existent hound, and got up to the Nissan without so much as a raised eyebrow from the occupants. It was parked at the side of the café, well hidden from the main road with the engine off and both the windows wound down, while the occupants enjoyed what smelled like very good quality weed. As I drew nearer, I could see that the passenger was a man whom I knew well but who didn’t know me.

That’s the joy of my particular job: you know all the faces, places and cars, and no one recognizes you in turn unless you blow out on a surveillance job, and then you’re screwed. I’ve only done it once, but every time afterwards that my mark saw me in town he had shouted, ‘Copper!’ at the top of his voice so that everyone else would spot me. Sadly for him, he died of a heroin overdose a few weeks later, so it stopped being a problem. Had he not, I would have had to leave the unit and go back to uniform, or even change division.

So this particular chap, one Dave Budd by name, had been one of my nominal targets a few months before, which meant I knew more about him than his mother did, despite the fact we’d never met face to face.

He was known for drugs, violence, weapons and was on the sex offenders register for life after he sexually assaulted his five-year-old niece at a christening party last year. The driver was his brother, Billy, and if anything his record was worse. He was a distraction burglar, fooling old people into opening their doors so that he could check their meters and then robbing them blind.

On the odd occasion that they became suspicious, he would tie them up and beat them until they gave up their valuables. Somehow, he had only been given minor prison sentences so far, and the only reason we could think of was that he was a grass. Judges will sometimes shorten sentences if the defendant gives up useful information; although in Billy’s case it would have been more appropriate to ignore the information and throw him in the darkest hole we could find for as long as possible. He is also the father of the girl that Dave had assaulted, yet didn’t seem to care, which is apparent by their relaxed attitude to each other.

Both brothers are in their late thirties and hard to tell apart. They both have the same lank brown hair and squirrel-like faces, and are both five foot nine or so and wiry rather than skinny. The easiest way to tell them apart is that Billy’s nose has been broken so many times that it sticks out in several directions at once and he tends to grow a beard, if you can call it that. Other than that, they could be twins.

I got right up to the car, leaning into the driver’s window and smiling before Billy turned to look at me.

‘’Scuse me, lads,’ I asked in a cheerful tone, ‘you haven’t seen a springer spaniel come past, have you?’

Billy breathed a lungful of smoke into my face, and the smell of grass mixed with the odour of rotten teeth was almost enough to make me gag. ‘Police dog, is it, officer?’

So much for anonymity. I tried to bluff it instinctively, despite the fact I was about to show out anyway. ‘I’m sorry? What the hell are you talking about?’

He laughed at my miserable attempt at dissembling. ‘I saw you in the court this morning, mate, running out with your tail between your legs. Didn’t know pigs’ tails could do that!’

He and his brother both laughed, confident that I would be helpless to do anything.

As they laughed, something inside me settled, my nervousness washed away and was replaced by a cold anger that drove out all other feeling. ‘Step out of the fucking car, Billy, and don’t do anything stupid. We need to have a word.’

‘Why, you going to hit me with a rubber baton?’ he asked, sliding his right hand down the side of his seat surreptitiously.

‘No, mate, this is a personal call. I’m not carrying. I just want a chat.’ I opened my jacket to show that I was unarmed, and he didn’t seem to register the lead in my hand. ‘Keep your hands where I can see them and get out of the car.’

I moved back to give myself what we call a reactionary gap, so was fairly unsurprised when he hurled the door open and dove at me with a knife clenched in his right fist. I’d moved back quickly enough to avoid the door and, as he came out knife first, I kicked the opening door as hard as I could, slamming it shut on his arm. He howled in pain and dropped the knife, his arm hanging at an angle that told me it was broken.

I didn’t have time to care, as his brother leapt out of the car and skidded across the bonnet towards me holding a steering lock in his hand. I stepped back again and waited until he swung the weapon at me, ducking the blow aimed at my head and whipping the chain I held across his leg, hitting the nerve point on the outside of the thigh. He dropped as if stunned, and I stamped on his wrist hard enough that I heard the bones grinding together. He screamed in pain and let go of the steering lock, which I kicked away before taking the other foot off his wrist.

Both of them were crying in pain, and Billy was fumbling for his phone with his left hand. I reached down and took it from him, then moved to the car and took the keys out of the ignition as a precaution.

Ignoring their cries, I raised my voice to be heard. ‘Right, gentlemen, now that I have your attention I would very much like to know where the drugs are.’

Billy glared up at me, his face a mask of pain. ‘You’re fucking going down for this you wanker, you’re fucking dead!’

I smiled and shook my head. ‘No, mate, I’m not. I’ve got a dozen witnesses that clearly put me at a police leaving do tonight, and you know how we all stick together.’

It was a barefaced lie but I suspected that they were too preoccupied to tell. Hopefully, they also couldn’t see the horror I was feeling at what I’d just done. This was supposed to be a warning chat, not a brutal attack that left them broken and bloody. I’d slipped across the line without thinking, and the realization was making me shake more than the adrenaline ever could. I took a deep breath and forced my voice to come out steadily. ‘So you can either tell me where the drugs are or I can shove this chain up your nose and pull out the pathetic thing you call a brain. Your choice.’

Billy began to shake as shock set in, his arm already turning a dark purple and swelling badly. ‘Get me a fucking ambulance, I’m dying!’ he blubbed, clutching the injured arm.

‘Tell me where the drugs are and you can have your phone back,’ I countered. I needed something to show for this, otherwise I would be arrested without hesitation and my career would be in tatters.

‘Under the car, they’re under the fucking car, okay?’

I nodded and bent down to check under the car just in time to avoid being brained by Dave, who had recovered enough to retrieve the steering lock and swing it at the place my head had been a moment before. I back-kicked him, landing my foot right in his nuts, and he folded like a deckchair, collapsing with an oof! and a clatter before curling into a ball with both hands clutching his groin.

Once I was sure he was down and staying there, I rolled onto my side and looked under the car. Sure enough, there was a box welded onto the chassis with a combination lock on it. They were becoming more and more popular, as not many officers would look under a car on a stop check or even if the vehicle was taken away to be examined.

‘Code?’ I snapped at Billy, who was watching me with hatred stamped all over his skinny face.

‘Three one five,’ he replied, and I clicked the rollers into position. The side fell open instantly and I whistled as I pulled out a couple of bags of heroin about the size of a hen’s egg each. ‘Looks like you boys were planning to be busy for the next few days. Instead, you’ll have to spend them in a cell. Hard life.’

Billy looked down at me, confusion on his face. ‘I thought you said you was off duty. So how you gonna explain this? You’ve fucked yourself, mate!’ He managed to grin through the pain. The fear that flashed through me must have hit my face as I realized that he was right.

Even if I did book myself back on duty, I could never explain why I was in the park with a dog lead, no dog, and just happened to stumble across two of Davey’s lads. After the events of that morning in court, inference would be drawn, no matter what I said, and I would likely be out of a job and up on charges of GBH. I thought furiously for a second, trying to find a way out of the mess I had just created and finally an idea sprang to mind, stupid and dangerous as it was.

Scrambling to my feet, I carefully wiped my fingerprints off the phone and keys before handing them back. I held up the packages of drugs. ‘I’m going to hold on to this for insurance purposes. If there’s one sniff of you talking to the police, it appears in the front office with your prints all over it.’ So saying, I took hold of Billy’s injured arm and pressed his thumb firmly onto the plastic wrapping of one of the bags, ignoring the yelp of pain he produced.

‘Tell Davey that this stops or he’s going to find that every copper in Brighton will be looking for an excuse to take him down. Not that they don’t have one already.’

I put the packages in my pocket and scrambled up the roadside and into the bushes, heading back towards my car. Bad enough that I’d parked my own car nearby, but if anyone saw me walking back to it from here, I was as good as done for. Nausea hit me as I lost sight of the Nissan, and I paused for a moment, taking deep breaths to stop myself from throwing up and leaving chunks of my DNA spattered all over the grass. How could I have been so stupid? I pushed the thought to the back of my mind and focused on getting away clean. I would worry about the consequences later.

I waited in the bushes until the road was quiet, then darted to the car and pulled away quickly, turning left up Coldean Lane and losing myself on the A27 before turning off into Hove. My thoughts were churning, almost making me crash several times, but I managed to keep control. After what felt like a year of constant glances over my shoulder for blue lights, I finally parked up a few streets away from my house as the realization hit me.

What the fuck had I done? I’d assaulted two people, one of them a clear GBH, and stolen illegal drugs to the street value of, well, I wasn’t sure but it was one hell of a lot when I’d only been expecting a few wraps. I may as well hand in my warrant card now and get it over with. A feeling of sick exhaustion swept over me as I wondered what I was going to do with the packages. I pulled them out of my jacket and looked at them, trying to gauge their worth. If it was uncut heroin, it would probably be worth about ten grand, less if it had been cut already. I didn’t want to keep it, that would mean a jail sentence if I was caught, but I couldn’t just throw it away. It was my only leverage over the Budds after my ruthless attack on them.

An idea came to me and I almost ran from my car to the house and went straight through to the kitchen. I looked out the back at the garden next door, wild and unkempt where mine was neat and uncluttered. The house next door had been empty for weeks, and by the number of ‘to let’ signs clustered sadly by the front gate, I guessed that it wasn’t likely to be occupied any time soon.

I opened the back door and stepped out into my yard, looking around to make sure that none of the overlooking windows had people in them. Once I was sure it was clear, I rolled over the top of the flint stone wall into next door’s garden. The grass on the lawn came up to my knees and there was a buddleia that was threatening to dwarf the small shed in the back corner. I moved to the shed, struggling against the grass that pulled at my feet as if trying to stop me from intruding further into its domain. I eventually reached the shed, a small wooden affair perched on cracked and broken paving slabs.

With a little effort, I managed to lift one of the slabs and scoop out enough earth to hide the drugs, settling the stone back on top and scuffing the grass around the edges until I couldn’t see the result of my labours anymore. Satisfied, I climbed back over the wall and had just finished washing my hands when the doorbell rang.

I hadn’t been expecting anybody and I began to get nervous as I went to the front door. If this was a salesman, he was going to get a bloody good earful. I opened the door to a man and a woman in smart clothes standing on the top step. Everything about them said police and I took a step back in alarm.

‘Can I help you?’ I asked suspiciously.

The man stepped forward, holding up a Sussex Police warrant card. ‘Gareth?’ he asked, and the pit in my stomach yawned wide enough to swallow a battleship.

‘Yes,’ I answered, trying to stop my knees from shaking.

‘I’m sorry, there’s no easy way to say this. My name’s DC Steve Barnett from PSD Ops. I’m arresting you on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. We need you to come with us.’