Dying Bad (13 page)

‘Sorry Dave, didn't recognise you for a sec.' Maybe needed an eye test or better fitting hat. He lifted the peak. ‘Are you OK, old son? Looking a bit rough there.'

Harries nodded absently, total focus on the view over Fraser's shoulder: a narrow street of grey pebbledash two-up two-downs, no gardens, no groundcover. Several appeared uninhabited: grimy uncurtained windows, rotting frames, warped doors. Presumably, those still occupied had been evacuated. Police vehicles lined both kerbs, half a dozen uniforms with helmets and riot shields gathered behind a makeshift barricade of wheelie bins. ‘What's the state of play, Dougie?'

Fraser lifted a finger, took a radio call, gave a few sage nods, right-ohs. Rocking on the balls of his feet, Harries scanned the street again, still couldn't locate Sarah. Neither should be here by rights, it was uniform's baby. ‘Too many bloody chiefs, or what?' Fraser clipped the radio back on his belt. ‘Anyway, old son. State of play. Some joker rang. Gave an address. Claimed all hell was breaking loose. Needed checking out. Patrol in the area, why not?' He shrugged. ‘Lads couldn't get in, could they?' He turned, pointed to a derelict property fifty metres on the right, downstairs window boarded up, racist graffiti scrawled across the front door, upstairs window a gaping hole, tell-tale black stains pointed to a fire some time in the past. ‘The little shits are up there. Barricaded in. Chucking gubbins every time anyone sets foot.'

Missiles littered the road: bricks, bottles, floorboards, slates, tiles, toilet seat, taps. Harries drew his collar tighter trying to keep out the rain that tipped down now. Oily puddles reflected the leaden sky. A scrawny black cat sat in a doorway licking its arse. Some of the crowd shuffled off, kids still enjoying the floor show.

‘Puts a new spin on house clearance, don't it?' Fraser's sniff was sceptical. He tapped the radio. ‘I hear they're out of ammo.' According to hastily set-up surveillance in the next house, there'd not been a peep for twenty minutes. Thinking was either the youths had stripped the place, or they'd drunk the contents before lobbing the bottles and were now paralytic.

‘Either road, SWAT's going in, take away any toys left.' He dug a hankie out of his pocket, dried his face. ‘Sooner the better in my book. Frigging brass monkeys out here and I could do with a slash.'

Surely he'd have said?
‘I heard an officer . . .'

Harries spun round at a roar of mixed jeers and cheers from the crowd, turned back just in time to glimpse the battering ram take off the door, and riot officers stomp through shouting, ‘Police!'

‘It's not like they were expecting the Avon lady, is it?' Fraser batted his eyelids, dropped the simpering smile. ‘Little gits; waste of space. Down to me, they'd get a good slapping, not a tap on the wrist from some lily-liv—'

‘Fuck's sake, Doug.' Shouting over the crowd's din. ‘Has a cop been injured?'

‘Young lad. Probationer.' Apparently a rookie had been hit by a flying brick, patched up by paramedics then taken to hospital for further checks. ‘He'll live.'

Harries expelled a deep breath. So much for gut instinct. ‘Is DI Quinn around?'

‘She is.' And standing at his shoulder. ‘What's the problem?'

He rubbed a hand across his chin. ‘Long story, boss.'

‘Save it.' Unsmiling, she nodded down the road. ‘It's our lucky day.' He turned to see two youths in cuffs being frogmarched to a police motor, doors open, engine running. ‘Guess who, Dave?'

S
afe to say it was not the luckiest day of Zach Wilde and Leroy Brody's short and distinctly unsweet lives. Slumped on thin blue mattresses on low benches in adjoining police cells at Lloyd House each unwittingly mirrored the other's miserable-sod posture. Heads hung between hunched shoulders, scrawny arms hugged bony knees, each jigged a bare dirt-encrusted foot. Not so much dumb and dumber as glum and glummer. Mind, in the brain department, two cells between them was about right.

On arrival, they'd barely been able to stand, let alone string a coherent sentence together. After booking them in, the custody sergeant had had no choice but to let them sleep it off.
It
being a staggering amount of cider and dope. Slur and Lurch as Harries referred to them hadn't long come round. And given the overwhelming eye-witness evidence, pretty soon they'd be going down. For what and how long were the imponderables. Disorderly behaviour, assaulting a police officer, criminal damage, possession – went without saying. But would the rap sheet include robbery with violence and murder?

Sarah and Harries sat and pondered in an airless overheated observation room along the corridor. Wilde and Brody were showing on separate CC screens. Tom Cruise had nothing to worry about.

‘Give us one, Dave.' Gaze fixed on Wilde's image, Sarah slid a hand along the table.

‘Thought you didn't like 'em.' Salt and vinegar crisps. He'd just ripped open his third pack.

‘Smell's making me hungry.' Make that ravenous. The beef pasty and Penguin lunch long gone. Coming up to five now, her scheduled day off was the latest in a long line to go by the board. She could've pulled out, but the prospect of interviewing the youths held appeal, a lot rested on it. He-who-must-be-informed Baker had been called at home, wanted a piece of the action, too, according to Hunt. Sarah had yet to set eyes on the chief. While Brody and Wilde had been out of it, she'd cracked on with the rest of the admin, now owned a clear desk for the first time in months. Harries had taken off for a couple of hours in the interim, returned clean-shaven and smelling of shampoo. The pull of the Brody Bunch Two had proved irresistible.

‘I'd've brought in popcorn if I'd known,' he said. ‘Choc ice. Hot dog.' She rolled tired eyes. ‘Yeah, you're right.' He nodded at the monitor, opened a can of Red Bull. ‘It's not exactly
Mission Impossible
, is it?'

Blues Brothers
more like
.
She gave a fleeting smile, licked salty fingers. ‘You're not here to enjoy yourself. And nor are they.' They were there to face a bunch of questions. ‘What are the odds d'you reckon, Dave?'

The can paused halfway to his lips. ‘That they're behind the muggings?'

‘No. I'm thinking Shergar in the two thirty.'

He pulled a face. ‘Get you.'

‘Well don't be a plonker.'

‘You're the one always banging on about evidence-based facts, analytical minds. Since when did idle speculation get the Quinn seal of approval?'

‘Since I said so. Are you answering or not?'

‘Not. I'd rather wait for proof.'

‘Suit yourself.'

Wouldn't they all? FSI guys were currently picking a path through what was left of 14 Jubilee Way. In an ideal world, they'd unearth evidence before the interrogation got under way. Back in the real world, initial forensic feedback had revealed nothing to point to the youths' involvement in the street attacks. Nothing to set the world on fire either, only that fires had been lit in the house: grates upstairs and down contained ashes and embers. Several scuzzy sleeping bags had also been found lying round, plus a stash of canned food and grubby clothes in Asda carrier bags. It didn't take a PhD in the bleedin' obvious to conclude the place was being used as a squat. As much as anything, the findings confirmed statements taken during house-to-house inquiries and anecdotal stuff from some of the crowd. It had quickly emerged that number 14 was well known locally as a magnet for dossers and druggies. Whether Wilde and Brody had taken temporary refuge or lived there illegally was still up in the air.

As was Wilde's middle finger. His expression was pure loathing.

‘Cheeky sod, look at that.' Harries pointed a crisp at the screen. ‘If I was taking a punt – which I'm not – he's odds-on favourite.'

Wilde had clocked the security cameras, clearly took exception to being filmed. Jumping up on the bench, he shoved his ugly mug as close as he could to the lens and was mouthing off big time. Hiring a lip reader wasn't necessary. Fuck off scum was hardly original. Sarah shook her head. The cocky little git was flashing V signs now. He sure wasn't camera shy, and certainly not blessed photogenically.

‘Wouldn't want to wake up next to that of a morning, would you?' Harries sniffed.

She cut him a glance, said nothing, resumed watching Wilde's pathetic antics. Short and painfully thin in the flesh, his looks had changed since the Facebook pic to the extent there was more hair, fewer teeth. The layer of stubble resembled a dark skull cap, the black gap a poor substitute for a missing incisor as well as the absent molar. Could be down to decay, oral hygiene not being a priority, or Wilde got into a lot of fights. Looking at him now, she'd opt for the latter. It also struck her that in a less crude setting, the large pale green eyes would be beautiful.

‘Seen enough, boss? Reckon they're up to a grilling?'

‘Oh yes.' Eyes wide, she turned her back on the screen. Wilde had just dropped his trousers, his arse in close-up was too much, talk about dark side of the moon. Brody was still head down, rocking if not rolling. They'd need clearance from the custody sergeant first but as far as she was concerned the sooner the show hit the road the better.

It was nearer six before everyone got their act together. Fed and watered but refusing briefs, Brody and Wilde slouched in separate soundproofed interview rooms. Baker and Hunt were in with Wilde, the chief had waltzed in at the last moment demanding first dibs. Fine by Sarah, like she had a choice. Besides, she'd seen more than enough of Wilde.

She and Harries sat across the table from Leroy Brody in IR2. Décor of muted blues and grey was meant to be relaxing. She'd already snapped one pen in half. Twenty minutes since Harries had run through the spiel for the audio and video recordings and apart from her increasingly terse questions, the tapes were mostly redundant. A ticking clock, rustling papers and the occasional sniff wouldn't sway a jury. Brody hadn't uttered a word. Not even the catch-all ‘no comment'
.
For Christ's sake, he'd not even cracked a knuckle. Oblivious of her cold glare, the youth hunched forward, elbows on knees, head in hands, black curls still with blue tinge. The slight but constant rocking of his slender body was sending her up the wall. Now she knew why the bloody furniture was nailed to the floor. Frustration didn't begin to cover it.

She rolled the sleeves of a crisp white shirt. ‘This is doing you no good, Mr Brody.' And it certainly didn't help the police. Worst interviewees in the world are those who won't open their mouth. Ziptits, Baker called them. With no version of events to go on, detectives had nothing to follow through, stand up, knock down. Semi-literate though Brody might be, he was canny enough to know the more he came out with greater the chance he'd give himself away. She could hardly catch him out in a lie, when the only sound he'd produced so far was a fart.

‘For your own sake, I really think you should take the offer of legal advice, Mr Brody.' And a shower: the guy stank of stale flesh, unwashed hair, cheesy feet. Given the temperature in the room, the odours weren't getting any sweeter. She poured water into a glass. ‘If not now, you'll need representation in court, because make no mistake you will stand trial and this time it'll be a custodial sentence.'

He must know the stand-off had attracted a bigger audience than Madonna's Super Bowl gig. OK, she ceded, that was police licence. But eye-witness evidence at Jubilee Way was overwhelming, conviction virtually a given. And they hadn't even touched on the muggings. She took a few sips, willed him to respond. Eyes creased she studied Brody's humped back. Perhaps a stay at Her Majesty's Pleasure was preferable to life on the street? As far as they'd established, the nineteen-year-old had no family, no fixed abode, no job, no deodorant. She sniffed. More to the point, she had no way of gauging his thoughts. Since the minimal eye contact when she'd made the introductions, Brody's entire focus had been on the tiles. Body language said bowed if not beaten. But what the hell was going on in that head?

‘Well, Mr Brody?' Nothing. She exchanged the latest in a series of voluble glances with Harries. He raised an eyebrow, but she wasn't ready to pass the baton yet.

‘I'll take that as a yes then.' She made to stand, wanted to force the issue, force something, anything. Brody shook his head a few times, gaze still on scuffed trainers. Progress of sorts, she supposed. She sank back in the chair, regarded the youth again. His arms were stick thin and grimy, one wrist bore a fraying friendship bracelet. A tiny cross hung quivering silver fish style from an ear lobe. For a second or two, she felt almost sorry for the youth. With a shit background like that, what chance had he stood of a bright future? Not her baby. As a cop, she reserved the lion's share of her sympathy for the victims.

‘The police officer you
attacked? Want to know how he's doing?' The slow rocking stilled momentarily. The emphasis on
you
getting through? She paused, gave him an opening. Mind he'd had more openings than Broadway. Still, nothing. As it happened, the mild concussion wouldn't keep the rookie in hospital overnight but Brody could stew. ‘Course you wouldn't. Why would you care? Casual violence's your thing, isn't it?'

Chair grated tiles as she got to her feet. She paced slowly up and down for a fat minute while Harries lounged back, legs crossed, fingers drumming thigh. The silent treatment could work both ways. It often unsettled edgy suspects, eventually most filled the void. Eventually. Most. She rolled her eyes. The method wasn't foolproof. Maybe Brody wasn't a fool? How could they break his story when he hadn't offered one? Maybe the heat, maybe tiredness, it wasn't often she lost her cool, but she was pretty damn close.

Stifling a sigh, she resumed her seat, took up a file from the desk. ‘Moving on, Mr Brody.' That was rich, they hadn't gone anywhere yet. She removed glossy prints of the mugging victims so familiar with them by now she could probably produce copies from memory. For Brody, she'd brought along the most graphic, the results of violence needed to hit home. She slid Duncan Agnew's picture across the desk.