Force Of Habit v5 (26 page)

THIRTY-TWO

An almighty crash had North wide awake, out of bed and up against the wall in a split second. His head and heart were banging and interfering with his ability to listen to what was going on, on the other side of the door, inside his flat. Had the Choirboys been taking too much of what they were selling, had a change of heart and come for him too? Maybe the whole complaint-lawyer thing had stuck in their craw – or maybe the boss man had told them to forget their little YouTube plan and that North had to go, and that you got just as hung for two dead coppers as you did for one.

And only if you got caught.

His pulse had dropped some after the initial excitement and he moved his ear close to the gap between door and frame. They weren't making any attempt at silence. He could hear voices but couldn't make out what they were saying. North was conscious that the wall was drywall partition. He could punch through it. If they decided to spray it with gunfire the bullets wouldn't even notice as they passed through. He hoped they would make an attempt to take him, tie him up real good and then set the place alight. Stick to the Mason modus operandi. They liked fire. If they got him he hoped James could find a way to get the fuckers and nail them by their testicles to the most prominent landmark in town. Trouble was that they liked fire because it cleansed so well. Erased evidence. Forensics had better be at the top of their game.

The handle moved and the door swept in. North dragged the first one into the room and threw him across it. He slammed the door into the face of the next in line and was about to go kick the first one when he stopped. He opened the door and looked at the two men still in the hall. One was rubbing his head. The other held up his hands, palms out.

‘We're sorry about this, Guv.’

‘We didn't want to come but he insisted.’

North looked away from the two uniformed PC's at the man getting to his feet behind him.

‘Scanlan?’ North couldn't believe what he was seeing. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

‘You are under arrest,’ said Scanlan.

North stared at him. Scanlan wasn't too sure about the look and stayed put.

‘Cuff him,’ Scanlan said to the officers.

‘You've got to be shitting me,’ said North.

‘I said cuff him!’

‘But he's starkers,’ said one.

‘Cuff him!’

The two PC's shuffled forward.

‘Sorry, Guv,’ one said to North. ‘We don't really need the cuffs, do we?’ he said to Scanlan.

‘Fucking cuff him and get him in the car, now!’ Scanlan lost his rag. ‘And stop with the fucking ‘sorrying’, he's a fucking criminal for chrissakes!’

They cuffed the naked North, hands in front, bracelets not too tight, mumbling apologies, body language announcing their wish to be anywhere but here. Scanlan lifted the strides North had dropped onto the floor a few hours earlier.

‘Put these on.’

‘What is this all about Scanlan?’

Those Choirboy fuckers had really gone and lodged a complaint? North lifted his wallet and keys and a PC helped him put them into his pockets.

‘Your trip to the ‘Tonic For The Troops’ charity this evening. You finally fucked up like I told you, you would,’ Scanlan smirked. He was enjoying this and made sure he kept a safe enough distance from North to keep on enjoying it as they marched him out. The battering ram used to smash their way in was leaning against the edge of the sofa.

‘What about your door, Guv? Do you want one of us to stay and secure the place until you get back?’

‘He’s not coming back and you are both escorting him in.’

‘We were going to knock but he ordered us to use force.’

Scanlan was riled by the respect they kept showing North and the lack of it shown to him. That would all change. North would soon be banged up in a cell at the station with the next stop being magistrates’ court first thing Monday morning and then onward to the nearest prison until the trial date. He couldn't see him getting bail. Scanlan grinned. Fuck them all. He would show them.

On the way out of the flats a couple of faces peered from doors that cracked open, checking out the commotion. They disappeared the moment North returned their stares.

***

They put him in an interview room. He waived his right to legal representation. They set the audio and video rolling and served up the formalities.

‘Where were you yesterday at ten o’clock, Detective Inspector North?’ Scanlan was all smug efficiency.

‘A.m. or p.m.?’ North wasn't going to make it easy for him. He couldn’t believe that those little punks had had the gall to go and make an official complaint against him. He thought that they had been fucking with him, the fuckers.

‘P.m.’

‘Ten p.m., you say?’ North wrinkled his brow and fingered his chin. Gave it some pronounced deep thought. Minutes went by as he tried Scanlan's patience.

‘Well?’

Fuck it, this was ridiculous.

‘You know where I was, I was at the charity, stop pissing about.’

‘The ‘A Tonic For The Troops Charity’ off South Shore Road?’

North pulled an exasperated look.

‘Yes or no?’

‘Those little pricks!’

‘Yes or no.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I was tailing a suspect – it’s what proper police do, you miserable fuck.’ North was going to enjoy bringing the little shit down. It took some restraint to not start unloading what he already had on him but he didn’t know how deep he was involved. For all North knew Scanlan could have put the Choirboys up to this. He hoped that he had.

‘Who you suspected of what?’ said Scanlan.

‘Being involved in the Lumsden case.’

‘How so?’

‘Every fucking which way so, he is linked to every part of it, including the church where we found Matt.’

‘You suspected him of killing DCI Mason? You were going to arrest him?’

‘I was tailing him. Trying to see who he connected with to get the bigger picture. I suspect he could be involved in a lot of this including Matt’s murder. The suspect led me right into a pack of Choirboys, who I also suspect of serious involvement,’ he looked Scanlan in the eye. ‘I’m beginning to think I was set-up.’

‘What did you do when you saw them?’

‘I was taken aback. They started taking the piss. I saw red. You know the rest, look, I was out of order, but this is all bullshit, Scanlan. You could have at least waited a few more hours, until I came in, I’m a fucking wreck. I need a decent kip.’

‘Tell us what happened,’ he said.

‘Fuck’s sake.’ North was going to make sure Scanlan paid for this – with interest. He went through what he could remember.

‘My emotions were a tad high, it's all kind of a blur, look, do what you have to do but this is their word against mine and I counter charge. It was self defence. The fuckers set me up. I bet they are saying they were all there, saw it all and reported it to the police like honest to goodness citizens do. They killed Matt and now they are being allowed to take the piss out of me? They are taking the piss out of all of us.’

‘And you're not?’

‘What's that supposed to mean?’

‘I am charging you with the murder of Jed Harris.’

‘What?’

Scanlan read him his rights.

‘What's going on?’

‘Jed Harris is dead. The weapon used was still in his body. Guess whose prints are on it?’

‘I want a lawyer,’ said North.

***

North was processed and banged up downstairs. Everyone was very apologetic about it. Dave the Desk brought him a nice breakfast.

‘What happened?’ North asked.

Dave the Desk looked at him. Appraised.

‘Serious?’

‘As cancer. What the fuck is going on, Dave? I had a go at a few of them and they just took it and then gave me a bunch of bollocks about lodging a complaint. I never believed they actually would, since when did their sort lodge complaints? How did Harris die?’ Would the questions ever end?

‘He was stabbed through the eye with a pool cue. It was forced right into his brain. He was found flat on his back with the cue still standing straight up out of his peanut.’

‘Jesus.’

‘The witness said you did it right after beating seven bells out of him.’

‘A lanky streak of piss?’

‘Yes.’

‘And they believe him?’

‘Scanlan and the Chief seemed to want to believe him. They rushed through forensics.’

‘And I’m all over the lanky streak and my dabs are all over the cue,’ North recalled his use of it earlier, breaking heads down gang central. He came back to the present to find Dave looking at him. ‘I kind of waded into a bunch of them with it when I got there. It was the first thing handy.’

‘Handy for who?’ asked Dave.

‘Quite,’ said North.

THIRTY-THREE

The familiar acrid cocktail of piss and disinfectant invaded North’s nostrils, the back of the Reliance transport replicating the stairwells and elevators of the tenements and tower blocks back on the estates where the regular passengers came from. Where North came from.

He was glad it was only a ten minute ride to the courthouse. He didn’t want to think about the onward journey after his hearing. He wouldn’t have the same exclusivity then. Everyone receiving a custodial sentence plus those charged and remanded in custody until their trial at Crown Court would be crammed in for several hours as they made their way on to prison. Most would have been here before and knew the score, that there were no toilet facilities, but some would hold their bladders on purpose, pissing all over the floor en route just to see if a guard got careless when he opened the door on arrival and got a proper dousing.

North expected to be joining them, he didn’t need a brief to tell him that he was going to be refused bail. And it was long odds but one of his fellow onward travellers could recognise him, in which case it would be short odds on him ending up on that floor, bleeding into the piss as the fun got under way early. Even if they didn’t know him from Adam it would be all over the nick by the time he was processed. The Choirboys in there would know already and be heading up the welcoming committee.

Sirens surrounded the vehicle and North watched the Monday morning faces on the passing pavements as they turned towards the blue, revolving lights, every one of them wondering what kind of Hannibal Lecter must be in there to warrant all the security.

On arrival he was taken to a holding cell to await his allotted time and when it came he emerged into a buzzing courtroom, the noise quickly fading away as the packed out pews gaped at the copper up on a murder charge, accused of killing the man he suspected of having killed his colleague.

North didn’t fuck about.

It wouldn’t take long for the District Judge to offer up her verdict and then the two lardies escorting him would cuff him and take him back down to the cells. They were stood just behind and to either side of him. He brought both arms up and back, like a kid playing aeroplanes. Each connected with a lardy throat and fucked them up pretty good. He applied a knee to each groin and pushed them down the steps. Sorted.

It was a big, old court room. Nice high ceilings. No floor to ceiling barrier here. North jumped onto a grille and scaled the ten foot perspex dock wall and charged forward. There had been a delay before the first cry went up as realisation at what was happening spread. Then the place erupted. A man to his right started to rise and North simply pushed him back down. The push had some force and the guy tumbled from his seat with a clatter. This served as enough warning to the rest to stay put and not play hero. He made the rest of the way to the doors unhindered. Out on the landing two security guards were advancing. North increased his speed now he had a clear run and was on them, charging the first with his left shoulder. The guard flew off balance into the second and North kept going, aware that another two had appeared and were close behind. It had been years since he’d been in the building but little had changed to the layout. Maybe his luck was on the up. He made straight for the front door, took the steps down four at a time and crossed the plaza towards the busiest road on it, aiming for the city labyrinth beyond.

‘Get in!’

The voice took him by surprise and cost him. This time his own brain stalled and he pulled up, staring into the line of traffic. He was pushed forward and almost went down as a force piled into him. He was pulled backwards as he fought for balance and an arm came around his neck, trying to put him in a choke hold. North raised his arms and pushed himself up as high as he could before dropping all of his weight, spinning round as he did so. The guards grip was broken and North brought a fist forward with his rotating momentum and forced it into the man’s stomach. North was already turning for the next guard as the first slumped to his knees but the next one had already thought better of it and simply pointed to others coming across the concourse. North was outnumbered.

‘Stop pissing about and get in.’

He heard the voice more clearly now. There was no urgency about it, but then again there wouldn’t be. Not in that voice. It came from the rear of a silver Mondeo now sat on the part of the road closest to him.

‘Get in you prick!’ Came an urgent cry from the front of the vehicle. Another familiar voice.

North trotted over and the rear door opened. He got in and watched radios rising to ears as his pursuers fell away, the Mondeo cutting into the traffic and expertly picking its way out of town.

North grinned at the occupants.

They grinned back.

‘You had more outriders than the Queen on the way there,’ said the man in the back. ‘I honestly thought that you had gotten yourself right in the shit this time.’

‘But they all fucked off right after they dropped you off and left you to that lot,’ said the front man. ‘Its like they want everyone to escape. They’re the same poor fuckers you get guarding Asda’s and Tesco’s for fucks sake. Its not right.’

‘Maybe its all part of the cut backs,’ said North. ‘The Justice Secretary wants to keep the prison population down to save money but doesn’t want to be seen to be encouraging lenient sentencing so he makes it easy for them to have it on their toes at a convenient juncture in the judicial process.’