‘Be my guest, Charlie. Nobody else is working on it.’
‘Thanks. I’ll keep you informed.’
‘That’s all we ask.’
‘How did the talk go?’
‘What talk?’
‘Friday, to the City gents.’
‘Oh, them. All right, thanks.’
In other words, not brilliant. I replaced the phone and wondered why talking to Fearnside always made me feel like Hercules couldn’t make it, so could I do his labours for him? Cleaning out the Augean stables is just a euphemism for shovelling shit.
The phone rang again, but nobody spoke. I dialled 1471, and a pleasant, if stilted, lady’s voice told me that she did not have the caller’s number. It was all the excuse I needed, so I tried Annabelle, but she wasn’t in.
Next day I took the prayer meeting and wasted the rest of the morning waiting for the CPS to come up with some answers. They eventually rang me back to say they couldn’t see any purpose in charging Mrs Eastwood, but would I still submit the paperwork? They could cocoa. I was wondering what to do about lunch when Nigel breezed into the office, smiling with a mischievous smugness, like a little boy who’d broken his best friend’s Tonka toy. When he saw me he put his hands to his head and yelled, ‘Aaargh!’
There’s a ritual to go through with Nigel. ‘So?’ I said, inviting him to explain.
‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’
‘The good, please, if it’s not too much trouble.’
‘Four years each for the Deans, with eighteen months for the driver.’
‘Great,’ I replied. ‘That should keep them out of our hair for a while. And the bad?’
‘They’re suing us.’
‘Suing us? What for?’
‘Would you believe it? Subjecting them to unnecessary danger in the form of liquids that may be of a carcinogenic nature, and exposing them to ultra-violet radiation, which is a proven carcinogen.’
‘Are they serious?’
‘Mmm. Deadly. Their brief is demanding to see any safety and health guidelines that come with the products.’
‘Silly pillocks.’
I took him across the road for a sandwich and a glass of shandy, and asked him to do some final polishing of arrangements for the rhubarb run.
‘And what about the warrant?’ he asked. ‘Does that need collecting?’
‘Warrant?’ I echoed. ‘We won’t be using a warrant, Nigel. Warrants is for cissies.’
Now he looked worried.
I left him in the pub and drove to my CADs meeting at the Civic Hall. The Community Action against Drugs committee is a new venture, meeting every month or so at the request of various concerned groups, mainly tenants’ associations on the estates. To offset unilateral action by some more militant factions, we’d decided to hold a ‘Shop a Pusher’ campaign. The Gazette would be asked to publish a pro-forma, saying something like ‘The following person has tried to sell me drugs…’ We were meeting to finalise the wording. I suggested that we add a footnote saying that the police would only take action after a person had been named six times from separate sources. The committee talked me down to four, but I didn’t mind. It was only there for reassurance; we’d ignore it if it suited us to.
Back at the office I typed up the CAD committee decisions and did a report of the previous night’s conversation with Fearnside. As an afterthought I added a note about the two silent phone calls I’d received. I looked at the mess in my office and wondered about putting everything in order, just in case I was told to stay away, after the rhubarb run, but I decided to risk it.
At home I had a frozen Christmas dinner for one, which was ghastly, and the only phone call was from Mike Freer to wish us luck. I slept like a vulture on a dead tree.
The dawn chorus on the Sylvan Fields estate is just as likely to be the police helicopter as a vocal blackbird. It’s a busy time there. Some towns have a park ‘n’ ride scheme; on the Sylvan Fields it’s park ‘n’ torch. Clattering overhead, a helicopter would arouse less interest than a three-legged dog peeing against a lamppost.
As soon as I heard it, I clicked the tit and ordered all units to stand by.
‘Sewer Rats in position,’ came back to me, followed by, ‘JCB approaching target, ready when you are,’ and, ‘Zulu Ninety-nine in position.’
‘Look at that,’ I said, nudging Sparky and nodding. The clouds had dissolved, and through the windscreen we could see Venus in the pale sky, bright as a daisy in a lawn.
‘It’s Venus,’ he confirmed.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I said.
‘Some of us see it every morning. C’mon, let’s go.’
‘It might be an omen,’ I told him. ‘Did you know that the Sioux called General Custer the Son of the Morning Star, because he always attacked at dawn?’
‘I do now. They’ll be having their breakfasts if we hang about any longer.’
I raised the radio to my lips. ‘Rhubarb to all units: Tallyho! Tallyho!’
Sparky leant across and shouted, ‘Scrag the bastards!’ into the instrument.
Instantly the air was filled with the warbling of sirens, drowning out the chopper. We screeched around the corner and saw the JCB that we’d borrowed from a nearby building site turn to point at the front door of Michael Angelo Watts’ fortress. Cars came from all directions and angled in beside it.
Police were leaping out on to the pavement, slamming doors and slamming them again just for effect. Curtains were flung back all down the street as bleary-eyed neighbours in their night attire, or lack of it, wondered what the excitement was. Sparky and I strode down the short path, the front of the building illuminated by the chopper’s searchlight.
‘What happened to him?’ Sparky said as we reached the front door.
‘Who?’ I asked, reaching through the bars.
‘General Custer.’
I glowered at him and beat the door with my fist. ‘Police! Open up!’ I yelled.
Sparky reached through and thumped harder and yelled louder. We’d have heard feet running up and down the stairs, people shouting and toilet-flushing noises if it hadn’t been for the helicopter.
He squinted up at it, saying, ‘He’s fading my jacket with that fucking light.’ He only swears when he’s nervous.
We hammered for nearly five minutes before the door opened as far as a security chain would allow it and a wide-eyed boy aged about twelve peered through the gap. He was wearing a giant-sized T-shirt with a catchy logo, and probably nothing else. ‘Hello, son,’ I said. ‘We’re the police. Is your father in?’
He shook his head.
‘Is Michael Angelo Watts in?’
‘No.’
‘Then will you please fetch whoever is in charge to the door.’
He closed it and we heard the latch being applied again. I waved at the JCB driver and he revved the engine and raised the shovel in a menacing gesture. Two minutes later a bare-chested adult with short dreadlocks was addressing us through the gap.
‘What the fuck you want?’ he demanded.
‘Are you Michael Angelo Watts?’ I asked.
‘Yeah. Whad if I am?’
‘We’re looking for a man called Moses Sitole. We believe he’s a friend of yours. Can you tell me if he’s here?’
‘I don’t know no Moses Sitole.’
‘So he’s not here.’
