I could imagine the entire scene in front of me, even all these years later, and a strange sense gripped tight my throat and took away the breath that resided there. Ghosts of the pasts weaved eerily out of the window like mirages, capturing the attention of my wandering thoughts.
Who knew how many hours I had stood there for? I’d lasted longer than the bout of lashing rain itself. Just thinking, from an entirely different perspective to the one I had back then.
1
“Two rights and a left.”
“Could you slow down with the instructions? They’re hard to remember whilst trying to drive past all the bloody idiots in the way.” I zigzagged through incoming queues of traffic, much to the annoyance of many drivers with road rage. A few beeped and honked frustratedly, whilst some even tried to cut us up.
We were speeding as fast as possible for the road we were stuck on, but even that didn’t seem extreme enough. Although, I was an extremely impatient man. Every red light possible had stopped us along our journey.
“I shouldn’t have offered to be in charge of the instructions. Your driving’s making me feel sick. I’d rather keep my breakfast firmly down,” McCall held her stomach nervously, auburn waves scraped back into a neat ponytail.
“You were being greedy by choosing both porridge and toast.” We naturally swayed to the left as the car swerved around the street corner.
“Hey,” McCall grumbled defensively and then sighed. “My eyes were bigger than my stomach,” she admitted after pausing for thought.
“Sarge?” DC Taylor’s voice cracked through to our radio. “Shit’s going down on the streets. Armed response has been called out. These guys are going crazy and threatening to shoot one of the PCs. Guv said to be careful.”
Things must’ve gone downhill for the big boys to get involved. CID had received an anonymous tip-off that a turquoise van, suspected of carrying shipments of drugs, would pass through early this morning. By the sounds of things, our source was correct. Good thing too, as half the station was out there waiting for them.
We’d had a surge of drugs users overdosing in the bay, a thing we’d tried hard to tackle. However, arresting the dealers didn’t help our growing problem. When we’d arrested one, two more would pop up on the streets the very next day. These things were being made readily available for anyone to get hold of; kids involved with the wrong sorts of gangs, or people exploiting those dependent on substances for some fast, illegal cash in hand.
The problem lies at the core. Those growing the plants, and those transporting them past the borders and into the country. Even with all the new restrictions being put into place there, drugs were still getting in and the criminals were notoriously tricky to catch in the act. Slippery would be a better way of describing them.
“Threatening to shoot?” I said, indicating and rounding the corner. We’d barely had any incidents that required armed response. The criminals transporting the loads were obviously hoping to go down fighting.
“Thanks for the update, DC Taylor. When did you arrive?” McCall replied on our own radio, waiting patiently for an answer. Adrenaline coursed in my veins, glad to have an exciting case at last. Recently, there’d been a few drab robberies and not much else.
At last, DC Taylor answered. From the amount of interference in the background, things didn’t sound simple. “Uh, just. Me and Cillian. The Guv was already here,” he politely replied, but sounded increasingly distracted.
“We’re five minutes out,” she said, checking our surroundings. We didn’t want to miss out on all the action, not when we’d been waiting for these guys to show their faces for a while now. She turned off the microphone and looked at me. “We’re the last of ‘em. Late as usual.”
“I’m going as fast as I can! You’re the one threatening to be sick all over the interior,” I defended, and a flash of colour in the street made me hit the brakes suddenly. We lunged forward unexpectedly, nearly hitting our noses on the dash. Neither of us had braced ourselves for the halt.
“Woah,” McCall exhaled shakily, watching the elderly woman hobbling across the zebra crossing. “That didn’t exactly help.”
I placed a quivering hand to my beating heart, having missed the lady by mere inches. The elderly woman barely noticed and squinted at the pathway ahead of her. As soon as it was safe to do so, I swung the car back into gear and stepped onto the accelerator. The last thing we wanted was a murder charge on our hands, especially when the guys we’d searched months for were this close.
“It’ll be nice to finally put a face to these guys. We’ve seen too many people die from the bastards,” McCall continued, checking her appearance in the mirror attached to the sun visor.
“It’s not a fashion show, McCall,” I said dryly and looked into the wing mirror at the car behind. “They’re only one of many more to come.”
I earned myself a tut. “Positivity. It’s something, at least. We cut the chain--”
“We stop the strain,” I repeated our police saying, whereby halting all drug transportation meant less chance of the addicted gaining their lethal supplies. “I wonder who tipped us off?”
I recalled the moment when McCall burst into our canteen that same morning, distracting me from a wee bit of breakfast. She had practically carried me out, ranting and raving about a tipoff for our most exhausting case. I learned never to relent against an excited McCall.
“Guv said they were an anonymous source. No clue. Couldn’t trace it back to anywhere.” McCall shrugged. “LEFT,” she shouted and turned the steering wheel of her
