Force Of Habit v5 (32 page)

‘He knew she was in that hospital because he was right behind her when she broke through the tree line, maybe even out of his grasp, clambered over a set of railings and went pelting out onto a road and into the path of an oncoming car. He was probably watching, praying it had finished what he had started. He would have seen her go into the ambulance and would have known she could be alive. He would have traced the hospital she was taken to and found that she was in a coma and the likelihood of her dying. He couldn’t get near her and he left his number to be kept informed. He was carrying all that the stress, praying for the call pronouncing her dead, when Rawlins called him up from the Pond House with some more good news – Lumsden was dead.’

North paused to let it all sink in.

The Chief had gone pale.

‘We will never be able to match his DNA to Shannon Evans because the evidence has vanished. All of it. I want a warrant to search Mason's house, car, locker, everything. He also has a car he keeps in a lock-up across town. The car he used to pick up Donna Ward.’

‘But Mason was abducted with DC James. He was attacked!’

‘He made it look like he was attacked and that is why Rawlins went on the run from us and them. He must have heard Mason ordering his demise, out at that abandoned industrial unit and recognised his voice from the phone. He had probably seen him arrive with James. He knew the main drug dealer was a cop. He couldn’t trust anyone.’ North turned and hollered at the door. ‘Dave!’

The door opened and Dave the Desk came in.

‘Dave, on the night I got sent out to an OD that turned out to be the Denise Lumsden murder, have you asked around and checked all the records for the hours following that?’

‘Just as you asked, Guv.’

‘What did you find?’

‘We got a call from a Mrs Renwick at five-fifteen p.m.. The recording is of an elderly voice clearly in shock. All we could make out was that there was a woman lying with a syringe in her. We despatched PC Winter and PCW Deacon and an ambulance was called. PCW Deacon radioed that the woman had been pronounced dead, had multiple syringes and had lost a lot of blood from wounds that were probably inflicted by a third party and that CID would want to take a gander. Operation Orange was in full flow, we were severely undermanned and it was a bit chaotic. The CID request was mistakenly forwarded with the initial information, that an addict had OD’d, and the officers in situ wanted someone to take a look. There was no one available and I thought of you. I must confess that when I saw you go out I felt pretty bad because you looked like shit and so when DC James came back into the station I asked her to go out after you.’

‘Anything happen after I got there?’

‘PC Winter rang whinging about being left out in the cold and was told ‘tough’. He did give a detailed description of the scene in an attempt to speed things up but we had already despatched yourself and DC James and so we left it at that.’

‘What is the point of all this?’

North ignored the Chief.

‘Anything else?’

‘I got a call from DCI Mason who said he was just checking in before checking out for the day.’

‘You told him about the OD and me?’

‘Yes.’

‘And James.’

‘Yes.’

‘Any signs that anyone assigned him to the Lumsden case at any time before the Chief here told him he was lead detective the following morning here at the station?’

‘No, Guv.’

‘Thanks, Dave. Could you relieve DC James and send her in, please?’ Dave left.

North turned to the Chief.

‘After Mason had received the call from Rawlins he needed to know if anyone else had found Denise Lumsden and called it in. When he was told that someone had and that we were already on it he had to get involved. He had to take control. He had to stop us finding out about his involvement with Lumsden. He was now not only having to prevent us connecting him to the attempted murder of Donna Ward, but to the drug outfit Denise Lumsden was working for – as well as trying to work out who had bumped her off and why.’

James strode in.

‘DC James, how did you get assigned to the Lumsden case?’

‘Dave sent me after you.’

‘You went straight to Denise Lumsden’s flat looking for me?’

‘Initially.’

‘Initially?’

James nodded. ‘When I got to the flat you were with the witness, next door. I went in to take a look around and got a call from DCI Mason who advised that he had been assigned to head up what was now a murder investigation and he told me that DI North was on light duties as a result of an injury that prevented him taking further part and that he was no longer involved. I told him what I had found. He told me to wait for him.’

‘He had Rawlins running scared and liable to go running off at the mouth so he told Rawlins to stay put at the Pond House and got the landlord to play ball - he may even be a part of all this. I have to check everything Mason fed this investigation. He was covering his arse from the moment he took Rawlins’ call. He had him isolated at the Pond House while he checked if anyone else had found Lumsden. If not he could manage her disposal himself and work out what to do with Rawlins – but he found we were already on it so he tried to get control of the investigation. He had to contain it while he dealt with any links back to himself. He started shutting the drug communication network down – and he now had to shut Rawlins down. He would have to interview Rawlins as he’d been eyeballed at the scene. Rawlins knew his voice from the phone and could twig. He had to go. Only I went and threw another spanner into the works by going into the Pond House. He couldn’t just swing by and pick him up anymore.

‘Now he had me and Deacon effectively guarding Rawlins so he took over from us. That way Rawlins could just walk out and be escorted to a place of Mason’s choosing. James is out back so Scanlan can still waltz out the front, everyone would just think I was wrong and Rawlins hadn’t been in there in the first place, but the Super goes and complicates matters by sending Scanlan over. It was like a CID picnic out there. I'm sure Arnie will be able to tell us that Mason had to get out of the car and take a leak at some point. He had to arrange for people to come get Rawlins and stepped out to make the call. He couldn’t have him still in there when the warrant showed up. Awayday Harris was summoned. He parked up out of sight, waltzed in the front, just another punter, and legged it out the back with Rawlins. James called it in and Mason had to be seen to give chase. He got rid of Scanlan, telling him to remain in situ, just in case, and took off to deal with Rawlins, only James was in the middle of the road, round the corner, and he had to let her in. Now he had James on board pointing the way after them and he had to follow. Time for Plan C. He probably decided to lose them during the pursuit. He knew Rawlins would then be tucked away nice and safe and could wait.’

‘They did get too far ahead a few times. I was a bit vocal about it,’ said James.

North smiled. She must have just about twisted Mason's melon clean off.

‘So they get to the old industrial park, Mason coshes James, ties her up, has a chat to Harris about doing Rawlins and then gets himself done over to make it look good. They probably stashed Rawlins out of the way but somehow he sees all this, sees Mason for who he really is, and has it on his toes. That's what Rawlins meant on the bridge when he said
we
killed his girlfriend. He meant the police. He thought Mason had done it and he wasn't to know who else on the force was involved.’

‘Let's get the warrant,’ said the Super. ‘Keep it as low key as we can for now.’

‘Low key,’ said the Chief. ‘Let's get this business over with. You're still to be held to account for escaping from custody and the assault on several individuals in doing so - and numerous other offences, I'm sure. And if you are wrong about any of this, so help me -’

‘Let it lie, Gerald’ the Super sounded fed up with him.

The Chief glared at him. ‘And if I find out that you’ve been involved in any way with North -’

‘Give it a fucking rest!’ said North. The Chief looked like he'd had his face slapped. North liked that look. He kept on to keep it there. ‘Superintendent Egan's involvement was to bring me, someone he could trust, into a station where no one could be trusted, a station he knew had gone bad somewhere inside. Deep inside. People with some clout,’ North made damned sure that his face made it clear that this included the Chief. The Chief tried to interrupt but North steamrollered him. ‘All you ever seem to do is hinder any investigation into who these people are. At best that makes you incompetent and, at worst, one of them, either way you are part of the problem. The Super is the solution. Wake up and look at the drug crime out there - and in here! Look at Mason's drug arrest record - and everyone else’s for that matter. When was the last time anyone had a major drug bust round here?’

Silence.

‘Exactly, the odd dealer every now and then and it’s not because Dodge got cleaned up on your watch. The streets were beyond our reach and someone in here was involved. Someone who knew what was going down and when and where and was telling the main supplier. Someone was protecting them. They were always one step ahead. This place was ensuring that the largest drug organisation in this part of the country was operating unhindered. They might as well have had a licensed franchise, for fuck's sake - it’s McDrugs out there. You've become too obsessed with image, trying to create a perception through the bullshit you feed the media. Operation's like Orange may be great publicity and get all the right noises from the media but they aren't doing shit down on the streets and the streets are in a right fucking state. You are finished Harrington and you can jump up and down and scream and shout until you're sick as much as you like but when you tire yourself out and start to think, you will see that I am right. You remember that don't you, Chief? Thinking?

‘I don't believe that you are involved. I think that you are just a bad manager, of situations and people. You've become self-important and have too much ego. Heads will roll for this. If we are lucky it may be just one. Yours is going either way so you might as well try and go out with some dignity. Hopefully it was only Mason that was involved. Even if we get a DNA match with Donna Ward only one other crime will have been solved. We still have to find Harris’ and Mason's killer and the head of the drug supply. This doesn't end with Mason. He couldn't have been running this alone. It has to be bigger than that.’

‘How big?’ asked the Chief.

North shrugged.

‘Big enough for them to kill a bent copper who was one of them.’

‘Oh God,’ said the Chief. The room was silent while the Chief thought. ‘OK, the Denise Lumsden case is closed, the rest is all new. We'll handle it. You are going home.’

‘You need all the trusted manpower you can get. Drugs aside, if Mason was involved in Shannon Evans’ death then others had to be. He couldn’t have covered it up all by himself. He couldn’t have pinned it on Dawn Ward all by himself. We need to find those who helped him. We need to talk with the detectives on that case. They are at the start of all this.’

‘Do you know who they were?’ asked the Super. He already knew. North had briefed him on the whole lot. This was all for the Chief’s benefit.

‘The lead investigator has retired, a DCI Mitch Mitchell. She had to be involved.’

‘Oh God.’

‘Do you remember her?’

He nodded.

‘She was the Chief Super before me, before she retired, but most of the North East know Mitch Mitchell.’ It was North’s turn to look perplexed. ‘She had thirty years service and left on a full pension at forty-six. Not that she needs it.’

Too right if she was part of this set-up, she must be raking it in. But North didn’t get it.

‘How does that make her famous?

‘Two years ago she became the second Mrs Eddie George.’

North exchanged looks with the Super and James. This was bigger than a bank bosses pension. The Chief started wondering if he would still get to collect his.

‘You got him!’ Arnie crashed his way in.

Things just kept getting better and better.

‘Come in, Ken,’ said the Chief. ‘There have been some new developments. You’ll be heading up a new line of enquiries.’

Scanlan came inside.

‘He’ll be heading down to the cells, is where he’ll be heading,’ said North.

The Chief had a ‘what now’ look.

Scanlan mouthed off.

‘Where did you go after Mason put you out of his car outside the Pond House?’

‘What?’

North repeated it. ‘You were meant to stay on but you buggered off. Where were you when I called asking about James and Mason?’

Scanlan went into one.

The Chief could only watch and feel the hole in his stomach grow.

‘Was it the same place that you had just been to when I called you about Darren Ward?’

Scanlan went quiet.

‘Oh no, not you too. What have you done, Ken?’ asked the Chief.

‘He was with Chelsea Ward. She has been brought up as Donna Ward’s daughter but she is her granddaughter. She is Dawn Wards’ child.’

‘Oh, God. What have you done, Ken? What have you done? Are you involved in all this?’

‘In all what? I just took her under my wing, that’s all.’

‘You took her under your scrawny bouncing arse.’

‘It wasn’t like that!’

‘Oh, it was beautiful was it? Suddenly all those soppy lovey-dovey pop song’s made sense, did they? Songs the pair of you slow danced to down her school disco - she’s fifteen, for fucks’ sake. Fifteen!’

‘Oh, my God!’

‘I didn’t know. She looks much older!’

‘Not on her birth certificate she doesn’t. You knew how old she was. She had been processed already. Cautioned. She had a record you helped disappear. A record you made sure stayed clean. How many other kids have you groomed while on juvy duty?’

‘It wasn’t like that! I hadn’t seen any records the first time - and she came on to me. She looked much older,’ his head went into his hands. He started crying. ‘By then it was too late.’

They sat him down. Read him his rights. Set the tapes running.