“Of what?” he croaked, from his familiar, bone dry, morningmouth.
“Of stale beer and whatever you had to eat on the way home.Not only did I have to put up with your snoring all night, but you were fartingfor England as well. You’ve been at those dodgy kebabs again, haven’t you?”
“No, I don’t think so,” offered Kent, genuinely not remembering.That wasn’t down to his hangover but because all of this had happened fiveyears ago. He couldn’t recall the details of any individual Friday night atsuch a distance. The memories all tended to blend into each other, one long successionof boozy nights, every one different, but ultimately all the same.
“Don’t bother trying to deny it,” she retorted. “I’ve seenthe empty box in the kitchen bin. I’m guessing doner kebab by the smell of it.Still, I suppose it’s an improvement on last week when you left it on the coffeetable, stinking out the living room.”
“Any chance of a cup of tea, love?” asked Kent,pathetically.
“You must be joking. You can get your own tea. I’ve gotenough to do sorting out the kids.”
As if on cue he heard one of the boys call rather rudely fromdownstairs. “Mum! I want a drink.”
She turned and headed back out of the room and down thestairs.
“You won’t be getting anything if you talk to me like that,”she yelled as she went. “What’s the magic word?”
“Pleeeee-eeaaase,” replied Luke, his younger son, completelyinsincerely.
He could hear both the kids making a lot of noise downstairsand again vowed that he must spend some time with them. Kent may not havechanged much in five years but they certainly had. He did a quick mentalcalculation and worked out that they would be ten and eight in April 2013. Itwas before adolescence had arrived, when their dad was still their hero andthey thought everything he did was cool.
He mustn’t miss the chance to spend some time with them thisday, but it would have to wait until the evening. He had come back to thisparticular date for two very good reasons. He was a man on a mission, or twomissions, to be precise.
Or rather he would be, once he had got over the after-effectsof the previous evening’s gallon of beer and the kebab. Doubtless he had goneto the shop next to the bus station where he had been quite partial to the “HouseSpecial”. It had been his favourite late-night eatery at the time, but by 2018it no longer existed.
There had been all sorts of rumours circulating about thecleanliness of the place. Even Kent had begun to have his doubts when hesuggested to his junior, P.C. Adrian Johnson, that they stop off to get lunchthere one day. The young officer had pointed out that it was the only fast-foodoutlet in the town that didn’t display its hygiene certificate on the door, andwent on to inform Kent of a number of unsavoury stories he had heard about theplace. In his sober state Kent had vowed to stop using it. Unfortunately those intentionssoon went out of the window once he’d had a skinful.
Eventually the rumours were proved to be true after a healthinspection discovered out-of-date meat, a plague of maggots in the bins, andrats freely running around in the kitchens. The business was closed down forseveral weeks. After reopening it quickly went bust when even the drunkestweekend boozers still retained enough sense not to go in there. By 2018 it hadbeen bought out and reopened as yet another coffee shop.
When Kent came back into the bedroom, Debs had clearly relentedas there was a cup of tea sitting on the bedside table along with the daily newspaper.“Free 8-Page Grand National Guide Inside” was emblazoned across the top of the frontpage, above a ridiculous headline about some popstar’s false tits exploding.
He sat back down on the bed, picked up the paper and thoughtabout his plans for the day ahead.
It was Grand National Day, 2013. The day that the town hadseen its biggest crime in over a decade take place, one that Kent had miserablyfailed to solve.
An hour or so before the start of the race, armed robbershad burst into a busy bookmaker’s shop in the town centre and demanded that thestaff hand over all of the cash. Not content with taking what was in the tills,they then held a gun to a terrified cashier’s head, ordering the manager toopen the safe.
He had told them that it was on a time lock and he couldn’topen it, but one of the robbers clearly had knowledge of how the system worked.He knew that it was set to open at 3.00pm, just a few seconds away, and starteda countdown.
The gang had planned everything in great detail. With thegun held to the terrified girl’s head, the manager had no choice but to comply.Everyone else had been ordered to lie on the floor, and with another gunman atthe front door no one was able to come in and out.
This had attracted attention from outside but the gang werenot bothered. They hadn’t had any intention of hanging about. The whole thingwas over and done with in less than five minutes. By the time people in thestreet outside were calling the police on their mobiles, the gang were already outof the back door with over £30,000 in cash. They hadn’t picked Grand National Dayat random. They knew it was the busiest day of the year for the bookies andthat the shop would be stashed with more cash than at any other time.
By the time the alarm was raised the robbers were well and trulygone. The first Kent knew about it was when he heard the police sirens wailingas they raced past The Red Lion, where he’d stopped off for a couple of lunchtimepints with the regulars. Checking his mobile, which he’d left on silent toavoid being bothered, he discovered several missed calls and texts from Adrianwho was on duty at the station.
By the time he got to the betting shop it was far too latefor him to do anything about it. The place was already swarming with officers.They had been
