The Picasso Scam (20 page)

‘I’ll do it,’ I said. I had a quick look at the map to verify the street names, then rang the hospital.

‘Zulu 99 to Control, he’s heading for the right-hand block. Make that the southernmost block.’

‘Did you read that, Lima Sierra?’

‘Yes, understood. Heading that way now.’

I got straight through to Casualty, thank God.

‘We can see him. He’s seen us, doing a U-turn.’

‘Follow him but don’t give chase. Repeat, don’t give chase.’

‘Understood.’

A new voice came over the air: ‘ARV Zulu Bravo to Control. On Heckley bypass. Any instructions?’

‘Yes, Zulu Bravo. Turn on to Parkway, heading north. He may be heading back your way.’

‘Firearms unit leaving city HQ,’ said Jenny.

Another couple of cars from adjacent forces radioed in to say they were in the area. It looked as if he were panicking. If he’d managed to run into the flats we’d have lost him. They were a twenty-storey warren, named in memory of Hugh Gaitskell, one-time leader and unifier of the Labour Party. Now they stood as a monument to a social plan that had gone badly astray. They had more windows made of plywood than glass, and glue-sniffers and graffiti artists followed their pastimes unhindered.

‘Hello, Heckley Control, this is India Romeo, we’re coming out of Westland Road on to Dobgate. He’s just gone by the end, heading towards Dudley.’

‘OK, India Romeo. Follow, but don’t chase. Understood?’

‘Understood.’

‘Zulu 99 to Control. He’s turning on to the Heckley bypass. He must be doing about seventy.’

The bypass wasn’t a purpose-built road. It was just a string of existing streets that had been linked together and given priority, to ease the rush-hour traffic flow. He wasn’t going to get far at seventy miles per hour. The big question was would he kill anybody when the inevitable happened?’

‘He’s crashed! This is the helicopter. He’s just bounced off the side of a bus.’

‘What’s his status?’

‘Stationary. The car’s in someone’s garden. It wasn’t too bad, though. Standing by.’

‘India Romeo, where are you?’

‘Approaching; we can see the chopper.’

‘Zulu Bravo, where are you?’

‘About half a mile away. We can see the chopper. Should be with them in a few seconds.’

‘India Romeo; don’t approach the suspect; he’s believed to be armed. Wait for the ARV.’

‘Right, skip.’

I needed a cup of tea. I walked over to the little boiler on the wall, filled it to the MAX mark and pressed the ON button. It was a struggle stopping myself giving advice to the men in the cars, telling them to stay well out of trouble. They were big boys; they’d had the training. Let them get on with it. Gilbert didn’t look any happier than I felt.

‘Wonder how the kid on the bike is?’ he said, when I arrived back at the console. I just shook my head. Making enquiries about his health might make us feel better but wouldn’t help him; sadly, we had other priorities.

‘India Romeo to Control; we’re there. He’s standing outside the car. He looks shell-shocked.’

‘Control to Romeo, keep your distance and wait for the ARV.’

‘The passengers are getting off the bus. A woman’s giving him a bollocking.’

‘Does he look armed?’

‘No. Now he’s walking towards us.’

‘Tell him to lie on the ground,’ I said to the sergeant.

‘Control to Romeo; order him to lie on the ground.’

Silence.

‘Control to Romeo; what’s happening?’

‘He’s lying on the ground.’ More silence, then: ‘India Romeo to Heckley Control, have arrested and handcuffed suspect.’ We could hear the ARV’s siren in the background. He went on: ‘Here comes the cavalry, too late as usual.’

The boiler on the wall started to whistle. Jenny and I made everybody tea while they tied up the loose ends.

We were passing the cups round when Lima Tango came back on the air.

‘Victim despatched in ambulance. Two other children were the only witnesses. Have them in the car and taking their details. We’ll, er, need the FatAcc Investigation boys over here. Will you arrange it, please.’

They were referring to the standard procedure that swings into action after a fatal accident.

‘Understood, will do,’ replied the sergeant, gravely. ‘Do you know his identity?’

‘Yes, from these other two.’

‘How old was he?’

‘Thirteen

‘Do his parents live nearby?’

‘Yes, in the maisonettes.’

‘Sorry to ask you this, lads; but how do you feel about …’

‘No!’ Gilbert held his hand out and interrupted the sergeant. ‘Tell them to stand by. I’ll be there in a few minutes. It’s about time I made myself useful.’

None of us said anything. We were all afraid he’d ask us to go with him.

The heroes of the chase began filtering back to the station. The India Romeo crew were from City, so they were doubly pleased at making a good arrest on our territory. Their euphoria soon subsided when news of the young boy was given to them. We handed out tea and thank yous and wondered what Gilbert was finding to say. A constable brought me a big handgun in a plastic bag, found in the offender’s car. It was at least a foot long. I held it up to feel the weight; its lightness told me it was obviously a replica. The others gathered round to gawp at it – it was a
fearsome-looking
brute. You could almost hear ‘The Call of the Faraway Hills’ welling up in the background. I looked at a constable who I knew to be an authority on such things.

‘What do you reckon, Buntline Special?’ I asked him.

He examined it through the plastic bag. ‘Navy Colt,’ he declared. ‘Worth a fortune if it’d been real.’

‘I bet the poor girl in the bank wet her pants when he stuck it under her nose,’ someone said. ‘It scares me just lying there.’

The villain was called Shawn Crabb, with a couple of other, fancy names in the middle. I stood in the doorway of the charge room as he was being processed. The custody sergeant read him his rights, emptied his pockets and made him sign for the contents, then charged him with armed robbery. He complained that he was ill; said he had ‘flu and needed a doctor.

‘Were you injured in the crash?’ asked the sergeant. He shook his head.

‘I’ll ring for the doc,’ I said, and phoned Sam Evans. He could buy me a drink out of his call-out fee.

The press were soon on the phone and I found myself fending them off with the standard platitudes. ‘Further charges may follow’ usually satisfies their readers. When Sam arrived I went down to the cells with him. Crabb, wearing one of our neat paper one-piece overalls, was sitting on the bunk, wrapped in a blanket. He said he was cold. Sam gave him a comprehensive examination, mainly to ensure he hadn’t been hurt when he rammed the bus. The true cause of his sickness was plain to see: both arms were covered in needle scars and new sores.

‘You’ve got to give me something, Doc,’ he moaned.

Sam pointed to the scars. ‘What are you injecting?’ he demanded.

‘Smack,’ Crabb replied, his head lolling forward.

‘Heroin?’

He nodded.

‘How much? Do you know?’

He shook his head. ‘No, all I can get. It’s all shit nowadays.’

‘I’ll leave some pills with the sergeant,’ Sam told him. ‘They’ll make you feel better.’ Upstairs he rummaged in his bag and put a few white tablets in a container. ‘Give him two of these every four hours,’ he instructed.

I picked them up. ‘What are they?’ I asked.

‘Aspirin,’ he answered, with a bleak smile.

Cold turkey is not regarded as the ogre that it once was. It’s not pleasant, but it’s no worse than many everyday illnesses. At one time methadone was prescribed to ease devotees away from heroin, but the latest thinking is that this is a more addictive drug, with even more evil side-effects. Crabb was expecting methadone but he was in for a disappointment. I volunteered to take him his first dose.

‘These are the pills the doctor left for you,’ I told him, after I’d been let into his cell again. He reached out for them, but I clenched my fist around the bottle and pulled back from him.

‘First of all, I want same information from you. Who do you get your drugs from? A name for a tablet; that’s a fair exchange.’

He begged, pleaded and cried, but he wouldn’t give me a name. He bought them from a bloke in a pub. He wasn’t sure which pub. I thought about wiring his
testicles to the pelican crossing outside, but I doubt if it would have helped.

‘Does the name Cakebread mean anything to you?’ He swore he’d never heard of him. ‘OK,’ I said, pocketing the tablets, ‘have it your way,’ and shouted for the jailer to let me out. Upstairs I placed the unopened bottle on the custody sergeant’s desk. ‘Give him another couple in four hours,’ I told him.

It was after dark when I arrived home. It had been a long day. I had a tin of soup, then showered and shaved and drove to the General Hospital. She was propped up on her pillows. Apart from the dark shadows beneath her eyes, her face was as white as the bed linen. The ward was buzzing with visitors, but none were by her bed. She watched me approach.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Remember me?’

She gave a little nod, but seemed unsure.

‘I’m the policeman you duffed up in the New Mall a few months ago,’ I explained. She stared blankly at me. There was a cage over her legs, holding the blankets off them.

‘I, er, brought you a couple of magazines.’ I put
Just Seventeen
and
Elle
on her cabinet. ‘The man in the
newsagent’s said they were suitable. I got some funny looks, reading them on the bus. Do you mind if I sit down?’

I pulled the chair alongside the bed. ‘I haven’t come to ask you any questions, Julie. I know your mam and dad can’t make it at night, and I don’t do much on a Saturday, so I thought I’d come to see you. It was either you or the telly, so here I am.’

She didn’t say anything.

‘Is it hurting?’ I asked. She nodded. ‘Do you want me to ask the nurse to give you something?’

She shook her head. ‘No thank you,’ said a little voice.

‘Do any of your school chums come to see you?’ Another headshake. I wasn’t wording these questions very well.

‘They don’t!’ I exclaimed. ‘Why do you think that is?’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I think they don’t know what to say to me.’

‘Well, you’ve got a point. I’m not sure what to say to you myself. Mind you, I’ve no kids of my own. The only time I speak to teenagers is to say “Don’t do that” or “Put that back” or “Bugger off or I’ll nick you”.’

She gave a hint of a smile. I delved my hand into my jacket pocket and pulled out the little teddy bear. ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I nearly forgot. He said he was missing you, so I brought him along.’

She reached out and took him from me. This time the smile reached a little further. He was the scruffiest of all her teddies, so I guessed she’d had him the longest, loved him the most.

‘I wondered about bringing you some chocolates,’ I told her, ‘but they didn’t have any for under fifty pence, so I decided you were probably on a diet and wouldn’t have appreciated them anyway; so I didn’t buy you any.’ I took a deep breath. ‘That’s my excuse.’

She looked downcast. ‘There’s no point, is there?’ she mumbled.

‘No point in what?’ I asked.

‘Being on a diet.’

‘No, not for someone as skinny as you, but I thought you girls were always on diets.’

Her eyes flickered towards the cage over her legs. ‘Nobody will want me now,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears.

‘Of course they will. There’s someone waiting for all of us, somewhere. It’s taking me a long time to find mine, but that’s another story.’

‘Not when you’ve only one leg.’

‘Rubbish,’ I told her. ‘Did you ever hear of Douglas Bader?’

She sniffed and shook her head.

‘Well, when I was a kid Douglas Bader was a big hero. He lost both his legs in a plane crash. Below the knee, like you. Both of them. He learnt to fly again and shot down umpteen German aeroplanes
in the Second World War. He played golf, learnt to ballroom dance and married Muriel Pavlow. I was upset about that – I was in love with her myself. And he refused to walk with a stick. If he could do it, anyone can.’

She didn’t look very impressed.

‘Mind you,’ I added, ‘nobody liked him – he was a complete arsehole of a bloke.’

She tried to laugh between the sobs. I think I cheered her up. I asked her if I could call again, and she said I could. Better still, I offered to send along some of the handsome young bobbies I worked with. She blushed at that prospect.

I should have eaten, but I had no appetite. I rang Gilbert to give him moral support. A chief superintendent from Huddersfield was investigating the death of the youngster on the bike. There was plenty of evidence that our car was well back, not involved in a Hollywood-style chase, and the chopper had videoed the whole incident, but no doubt we would be criticised from the usual quarters. I felt I needed a drink, so I poured myself a generous Glenfiddich. I don’t like whisky, so it couldn’t really be called succumbing to temptation. Then I fell asleep in front of the television. TV does that to me – I don’t even have to switch it on.

Next morning my mouth felt like the inside of a dead marsupial’s pouch. I ate my favourite breakfast
of double cornflakes, with six sugars and the top off the milk, with tinned grapefruit for pudding, and drove to the newsagent’s for a couple of the Sunday heavies. Two hours later, as I was trying to decide which set of patio furniture to send for, Mike Freer rang.

‘Hi, Sheepdip. Didn’t think you’d be up yet,’ he said.

‘Then why did you ring?’ I replied.

‘Too much bed is bad for you. Did you know that Fangio said he was scared to go to bed, because most people died there?’

‘He must have had a big bed. Did you ring for a reason, or are you just determined to keep me from pruning my herbaceous shrubs?’

‘No, or to put it another way, yes. Talking about herbaceous shrubs, has it been a good year for your Gloxinias?’

‘I don’t know. You’d better ask our Gloxinia.’

‘Ah, yes; wonderful girl. I tried to ring you yesterday, but you were up to the goolies in it, from what I gathered. What happened?’

It sounded as if we were talking business now, so I related the story of the chase and its consequences to him. When I’d finished he said: ‘It sounds as if Crabb has been growing desperate over the last few days. I’m not surprised. We got the analysis of that wrap you brought in, and it’s not a pretty picture. That’s what I rang to tell you about.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, for a start, it was about ten percent heroin.’

‘That doesn’t sound much.’

‘It’s not. Thirty or forty percent is the norm. Which means that your average everyday addict has to inject three times as much for a decent high.’

‘Which is bad news for them.’

‘It is. For a start, if they ever buy some of the good stuff they could accidentally overdose. Meanwhile, they’re pumping vast doses of the contaminants into their bloodstream, which is even more worrying.’

‘I see. Tell me what was in it.’

‘Well, the main constituent is milk powder. Not too dangerous in itself. Dilute milk won’t carry a lot of oxygen around your body, but it won’t poison you. Then there was flour – the stuff you make bread with; and, lastly, plaster of Paris.’

‘Plaster of Paris!’ I exclaimed.

‘Yep, or something similar, such as Polyfilla.’

‘But that could harden, couldn’t it?’

‘It tends to settle out. Actually the flour is just as bad. They both cause blockages.’

‘Jesus. What’s happening? Are the pushers growing too greedy?’ I asked.

‘Not sure. Maybe not. It could be that demand is so high that a few occasional users have decided it’s a good way to make a quick buck, by cutting their own supplies with any white powder they can find under the kitchen sink and selling it on. Kids flogging it in
the playground to finance their own habit, that sort of thing. It’s called enterprise.’

‘Market forces.’

‘Exactly.’

I thought about what he’d told me and remembered the conversation I’d had with Billy Morrison of the Fraud Squad. I asked: ‘Mike, what’s the chances of hitting Cakebread with the Drug Trafficking Act?’

‘You mean the Drug Trafficking Offences Act, 1987?’

‘That one.’

‘Slim. There’ve been one or two prosecutions, but the drug end of it was well proven. You’d have to do that first, before you could strip his assets. When Cakebread was turned over he was clean, wasn’t he?’

‘Like Mother Teresa. What happened to the parcel that was planted in my car?’

‘Your half-kilogram of Bogota’s best; it’s been incinerated, along with a load of other stuff. Listen, Charlie; I hope you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking. If you are, forget it. Hear me?’

‘It was just an idea.’

‘Well don’t have any more like it. They’re not worth it, Charlie. Keep repeating “Pension, retirement, pension, retirement”. OK?’

‘I hear you. Thanks for ringing.’

It was definitely too cold to prune the shrubs, so I put a CD on the player and stretched out on the sofa to listen to it and relax. In deference to the sabbath I’d
selected my Thomas Tallis. I played it loud, to impress God and the neighbours. I like the English composers, even if some of them have names that wouldn’t make the Jockey Club members’ enclosure. It’s good music to think to; sort out your mind and make decisions. Inspirational, even.

Too many people were being hurt. We were catching the little fish, victimising the victims, while the hammerhead swam free. I lay staring at the ceiling as the choir’s final, triumphant chord faded into the ether; then I slipped into my trainers and leather jacket and went out to the car. I’d decided to go shark fishing.

Sunday afternoon is probably as quiet as it ever gets down at the station. Most of the squad cars were in the yard, one bearing a dented wing, evidence of a memorable Saturday night for someone. The front door of the building was locked; I spoke into the microphone to gain admittance.

Sergeant Jenks was in the charge room, with a PC and a miserable wretch who was being fed into one end of the sausage machine that would cough him out into the magistrates’ court on Monday morning. Jenks looked up when I poked my head round the door.

‘Hello, Mr Priest,’ he said. ‘We weren’t expecting you. Anything special?’

‘No, Sergeant. I’ve just called to collect something from my office.’ I nodded towards the frightened little man. ‘What’s he in for?’

Jenks shook his head and tut-tutted. ‘Trumping in church, sir,’ he said.

I glared at him, long and mean. ‘Hang the bastard,’ I pronounced.

Upstairs, I pulled open my bottom drawer. The brown envelope addressed to our late Chief Constable was still there. I reread the note it contained. The mysteries of PH and PM were solved; now was the time to exorcise the rest of it. I wrote the number for the alarm, 4297, on the back of my hand with a ball-pen, and pocketed the three keys.

Ten minutes later Heckley was falling behind and below, as I gunned the car up the moorland road that led into Lancashire. The radio tuned itself in to the local station and I sang along with the music, slapping time on the wheel with my fingers. All the songs were new to me, but you feel you’d heard them in the cradle after the first two lines. I felt good; activity is the best antidote for depression.

Even on a bad day the moors look all right. Today was still and clear, for a change, and they were at their benign best. It was only temporary, though: moody malevolence was never more than a breeze away. A million years of rain and wind has smoothed off every sharp edge, every jutting crag or soaring pinnacle. The hills roll and curve sensuously, with the valleys cutting deep cleavages between them, The shapes they make are animal, rather than geological.

Man’s tentative grip is seen only in the valleys. Bold
mills stand foursquare to the elements, their chimneys long grown cold. Rows of solid workers’ terraces are now the homes of painters and the makers of thick wooden jigsaws and other primitive toys; guaranteed to make your children believe that Santa Claus hates them. Cotton and worsted that once clothed and carpeted the world have been replaced by politically correct dolls and pottery that grinds the enamel off your teeth. I love it all.

Going down the other side the patchwork of the Lancashire plain was visible almost to the coast. Soon I was driving through the middle of Oldfield, rattling across the market square with its ancient cross, and heading out towards Welton and ABC House.

I drove past the gatehouse at the front entrance. Apart from the rows of mute lorries and security vans, the only vehicles parked there were a small motorbike belonging to the gateman and Breadcake’s Rolls Royce. Dammit, I hadn’t expected him to be in today. I settled down to watch, from as far away as possible. After an hour I rang his home, The Ponderosa, on the mobile phone.

‘Hello,’ said a female voice.

‘Hello, is Mr Cakebread there?’ I asked.

‘No.’ She didn’t give much away.

‘Oh. It’s Mr Curtis here, of Curtis’s. I’d like a quick word with him, soon as poss. Are you expecting him?’ Curtis’s were the local Rolls Royce dealers.

‘Yes, he shouldn’t be long.’

‘Good, I’ll try a little later. If I miss him could you ask him to give me a bell sometime tomorrow?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank you. ‘Bye.’ Click.

At least it sounded as if he was due to go home soon. He did, just before the end of the Radio 4 play.

The cobbled lane that runs down the side of ABC House was deserted, apart from a couple of vehicles parked outside the factory next door. I left my car behind them and walked back to the side entrance of the building. I knew that two of my keys fitted the small door that was inset into the big sliding one. Without looking round I unlocked the deadlock, then the Yale, and stepped inside. A small red light was blinking on the burglar alarm unit on the wall at the side of the door. I typed in the number and the light turned to a steady green one. He hadn’t changed the code, I was in. I closed the door, leaving the latch off.

It had possibly been a weaving shed, or something similar, in days gone by. Now it was just a big empty space, devoid of any machinery. Across the other side were a couple of disabled lorries, cabs tipped forward and entrails laid neatly on the concrete floor, waiting for their mechanics to resume work on Monday morning. A security van stood on blocks, minus its wheels. It was gloomy without the lights on, the only illumination coming from a row of windows up near the roof. Away to the right was the main entrance – a big concertina door that led out into the yard – and the office block
where I had met the desirable Gloria. The offices were a two-storey affair, easily accommodated within the height of the main building. A flight of metal stairs led up to the next floor. I wondered if the door at the top of them gave access to Breadcake’s private suite, with its deep carpets and wonderful matching colour scheme. There was a good way to find out.