Force Of Habit v5 (33 page)

He’d helped her out of a jam and she had returned the favour by getting him into a bigger one. One he couldn’t escape from unscathed. She was young, fit, flawless and up for anything likely to be in her own best interest. He was too busy not believing his luck to realise the only luck heading his way was all bad. She’d lured him into bed and had been blackmailing him since that first time. Any arrests for prostitution were handled in that first phone call to Arnie. She was raking in almost two grand every weekend working for an escort agency and trawling bars for footballers and celebrities in the week. She had an iPhone 4, just like Harris, and she had been using it to make movies, just like Harris. HD ones. You could easily tell who it was inside her. She had sent Scanlan an excerpt as proof. It was still on his password protected phone. He had probably been using it at home for a spot of DIY in between his visits.

Once he had helped her out that first time she had taken the opportunity to get him on a retainer. She had fucked him and filmed it. He was hers. She had sweetened things by keeping on letting him in but she had still charged him, all be it at a discount rate. He was only a copper after all and couldn’t afford her, not on a regular basis. She had kept Scanlan on a leash just in case she got in any kind of trouble he might be able to help her or her brother out of. North didn’t think he was involved in the drugs.

‘Oh my God,’ said the Chief. ‘Drug addicts, traffickers, murderers and paedophiles. What kind of force have I been running?’

‘A force of habits,’ said North. ‘Bad ones.’

‘I’m going to get nailed to a tree for this.’

‘By the nads,’ said North.

FORTY

‘I don't envy him his next press conference for this lot. ‘Hi, you know we have two dead cops? Well, as it turns out, one was kind of responsible for the death of Denise Lumsden, you see he killed a girl some years back, fitted up another to take the fall and the patsy’s mother killed Lumsden in a revenge plot. The other dead cop was a junkie who OD'd on dope that he stole from the Lumsden murder scene, dope that the other dead cop had supplied and who was murdered by the drug cartel he was working for. Oh, and there is growing evidence that he got sexual gratification from the infliction of terror, humiliation and pain and so enjoyed a spot of rape, torture and murder in his spare time. You are all welcome to join the pool to guess how many bodies we finally pin on him.’ And that’s just for openers.’

‘You think that Mason was definitely our big fish?’ said the Super. North had told him everything.

‘He was probably the big fish inside the force at this time,’ North nodded, ‘but I think he inherited it. I think he became a part of something when he was found over Shannon Evans’ body. And I think our fish took to it like a fish to water.’

‘Any sniff of minnows?’

North shook his head.

‘Not even Scanlan?’

‘I don't think he was involved in this but you never know. I'll have someone go turn over his place, his car, take look into his accounts, but we already have enough to sweat him dry. If he is involved he'll talk.’

‘What are you going to do now?’

‘I’m going over to Mason’s place with a JCB and a fine tooth comb.’

‘And then?’

‘Go wherever it takes it me,’ they said together.

***

Bee didn’t look best pleased to see him. She said nothing but left the door ajar and walked away. As soon as the first kid clapped eyes on him she started crying and that started the second off.

‘What do you want?’

Another woman appeared. She looked as chuffed as Bee. She shepherded the kids back upstairs.

‘You going to your sisters?’

He was pleased to see her nod. That meant she would be out of here for the search. He could wait until she was gone.

‘I don’t want to see you anymore.’

He had been dreading this moment and now here he was getting perfect news. Every scenario he had dreamed up had him in her future plans now that they could openly be together. A weight should have been lifted from him but North’s ego kicked in.

‘Why? I thought we had something special going.’ He wanted her out of his life but it hurt his pride coming so easily from her.

She laughed. She’d just buried her husband, her kids were howling upstairs and she actually laughed.
At
him.

‘I don’t understand.’

He didn’t.

She came close, voice low.

‘We fucked. It made us feel good. It’s over. You had a good thing going and you have probably been shitting yourself at the prospect of a ready made family, but its okay. I can’t be with you anymore. You’re good fun, don’t get me wrong, but you don’t want to be a father any more than I want you to be one to my kids - and I really don’t want you as a father to my kids. I’ve lived that life already. I need to move forwards not back. We need a grown up,’ she smiled. It was tender. He forced a smiled back. ‘One with a nine-to-five where we don’t have to worry about him making it home alive each day.’

North wondered if they had a box for that on match dot com.

‘So what do you want?’ she said.

‘Want?’

‘Don’t mess about, North. Wild horses wouldn’t have dragged you to my doorstep unless you needed something pretty bad. You would have stayed away and waited to see what I did, hoping I just went away quietly.’

It was scary how much she could read him from the little he had given her.

‘So what do you want?’

‘We think Matt was involved in something. I have a warrant.’

‘You bastard.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You used me.’

He had, but not in the way she meant and no more than she had used him. He hadn’t targeted her on account of Mason but could see that there was no point in trying to convince her. She believed that he had slept with her to investigate her husband. She thought he was the lowest of the low. He let her vent.

***

‘Why her,’ Deacon shot a filthy look in James direction. North was having a bad woman day. Bee had left and they were searching her property. She had left him a set of keys.

‘Why her, what?’

‘Why did you trust her and not me? Was I just another suspect to keep an eye on?’ She was steaming. ‘What did you think, that I was in on your stabbing? That it was all planned that I came to your rescue just so you would trust me and keep me in the loop so I could inform the bad guys?’ She was mad as hell. ‘You don't trust me.’

‘Of course I trust you, that was the problem, everyone knows I do. I couldn't contact you because there was a good chance they would be monitoring you. You, the Super and James were the only people I could trust here. I couldn't risk your career.’

‘So you went to James. You didn't mind risking hers.’

‘She came to me. She wanted to help and it was odds on she could do so without jeopardising herself or me. She had put in a complaint about me and made her feelings about me very clear to them, about how I was unfit for purpose - she’d bloody well as much as bugged my phone so she could get a case against me and that’s how she found me. They all thought she hated me and that was true for a while but she's a smart cop and she never let that sway her. She started to find out things that led her to come find me. To help me.’

‘She helped you? Kept you hidden and helped you?’

North nodded. ‘She worked out that there were inside people involved and she knew I couldn't be one of them. That I was their diversion.’

‘Are you and her ...?’

‘What? No. She thinks I'm a squalid.’

‘
A
squalid?’

North nodded, ‘She turned it into a noun just for me.’

Deacon smiled. They both laughed.

James hollered from the front room.

It hadn’t taken her long to find the safe. North had given her the room to check over while he and Deacon made searching sounds in the kitchen. The boys had ensured the flooring no longer fitted quite so snugly, leaving just enough to draw the eye. North called it in and they arranged to send over forensics, a man-who-can to go to work on the steel box and a PC to relieve James out front.

‘So, I guess this is your way of telling me that I’m back in uniform,’ said Deacon, still in her PCW gear from that morning. ‘Thanks for the opportunity, I owe you one.’

‘You saved my life, this doesn’t even begin to repay that. I’m the one who still owes you, and you're a good cop. You deserved it.’

‘And I was the only one you could trust.’

‘I'd pick you anytime Deacon, not just because I trust you or because you saved my life but because you are the best. It won't be long before you are out of uniform for good and your current spell isn't over yet.
This
isn't over yet.’

‘But we have Denise Lumsden’s killer and proof that Mason was involved in the drug operation she was a part of and a pretty good case that he controlled not only the cell she belonged to but the whole network.’

‘We still need whoever killed Mason, even if they were doing the world a favour.’

‘It’s going to be another of the Choirboys. You’ve got two hopes of getting them to talk,’ said James.

‘After all we have been through, still the sceptic, eh, Just James.’

‘A realist. You know that it is fact. And what proof have we of Mason’s involvement? That safe could be empty. It might not prove anything. All we have is the word of Christine Reynolds, a self-confessed murderer. Unless...’ she looked from North to the safe and back again. ‘What have you done?’

Deacon looked at her shoes. North looked James straight in the eyes but kept schtum.

‘These people have been well organised. Well disciplined. They haven’t been sloppy. If Mason is involved it means he hasn’t been sloppy either. He wouldn’t have left that board showing. What did you do? Come here during the funeral? You know what’s in it don’t you? Did you pocket that twenty pound note instead of handing it over at the bookies? Have you planted it in there so they can match it to the number we put on record?’

‘Whoa, slow down, now you’re crossing the line. You can scrutinise my methods but I do not change circumstances. I do not plant evidence,’ he sounded more sad than angry. He thought James had come further than this. ‘I was stitched up and on the run. I needed to clear my name and catch those responsible and, as you said, all I had was the word of a self-confessed murderer that Mason was a wrong ‘un, you had unearthed facts that tied into her statement but we still didn’t have enough. I needed more than the word of someone trying to save her own skin. I had to try and find something concrete on Mason so the boys went in when everyone was at the funeral. Only after their visit did I believe it was safe to come in.’

‘Did they find any money in there?’ said James. ‘Will we find the same amount?’

‘So we’re going after Chief Superintendent Mitchell?’ Deacon tried to redirect proceedings.

North held James’ eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

North nodded. They were okay.

They followed him to his car. He took out a netbook that booted in fifteen seconds. He launched his internet browser.

They women exchanged questioning looks.

North tapped at the keyboard. Stars appeared as he typed a password. They moved in closer as a colour photograph filled most of the screen. To the left and right were coloured dials, bars and buttons. In between was an aerial photo showing a cluster of fields and a road with its B classification number on it. In the middle of all this was a green circle next to a large house. A mansion.

‘What is that?’

‘The Enforcer,’ said North.

‘The what?’ said Deacon and James.

‘A live map delivered from the Enforcer GPS tracking system.’

The women looked at one another again.

‘What is it tracking?’

‘The white Luton. The charity van.’

‘You bugged the charity van?’

‘The evening Jed Harris got killed, when I was on my way into the Charity building, I stuck the magnetic device to it, out of sight. I figured we couldn’t follow him for much longer without either losing him or him cottoning on to us, and we could spend days wasting our time following his actual day job all over the north east. With this I could get a log of where he had been and when and get out to him anytime I wanted.’

‘Where did you get it? I haven’t seen any paperwork and I’ve been up to my backside in your paperwork,’ said James. ‘No, wait – your friends again, right?’

North smiled. ‘You can buy these on the internet for three hundred quid.’

‘You didn’t have time, not even for next day delivery,’ said James with a disapproving look. ‘You’ll be hung out to dry one day.’

‘We don’t have to mention the Enforcer in any official capacity.’

‘Can you believe him?’ James asked Deacon. Deacon avoided eye contact. James studied her. ‘You know all about him and his friends, don’t you?’ Deacon squirmed. James circled North to get a clearer view of his face.

‘But Jed Harris is dead,’ Deacon tried to divert the line of conversation. Won’t the van just be back in the pool with anyone using it?’

‘I don’t think so. This is bigger than Awayday Harris and Matt Mason. Those above them had them killed to cover their own arses. They are clever and ruthless. That van is one of several registered to the charity. They would always have to use the same one on drug related matters. They would need anyone looking for it to be able to identify it from the others in case one happened into the wrong place at the wrong time and some do-gooder gets handed a bag full of readies and asked for a kilo of heroin in return. There is a very good chance that it is used to pick up incoming shipments, ferry smaller amounts from a central store, that kind of thing. With all the shit that’s been going on their focus has been on the people involved not some van. It might have escaped their attention. They could still be using it – especially if they are trying to keep the network running. They could have existing obligations to keep. Any incoming shipments wouldn’t be so easy to postpone. They could have paid big money up front and it must take a lot of work - it’s not like this stuff is growing as local produce. They will have to cut themselves off from the charity but a wholesale change of the entire operation couldn’t take place at the push of a button. It would take a bunch more time than a text. And they have had a lot on their minds as we have already witnessed. With their plate so full a van could have been overlooked. It could be a necessity. It’s our only hope.’