Horse's Arse (30 page)

    Upstairs
in the CID office, Bob Clarke and John Benson sat at their adjacent desks,
sorting through the piles of paper that threatened to engulf them. There were
supposed to be in and out trays somewhere on the desks, but they had finally
been swamped weeks ago by the ever-increasing piles of blue prisoner files and
manila files for crimes still undetected. Larger piles of typed paper balanced
precariously alongside their desks. These were the jobs committed for trial at
the Crown Court, which took painstaking weeks to put together. First everything
would be typed on to 'skins' (the only clerical assistance given) and then each
page roneoed and paginated by hand. Each file could run to hundreds of pages,
and then copies had to be made. One for the judge, two for the prosecution, two
for the defence and six for the jury, until the total number of pages ran into
the many thousands. South American Indians hacking down their rainforests seven
days a week could barely keep up with the demand for paper. It was not uncommon
to see officers attending Crown Court with a porter's trolley to ferry the
reams of paper their job had generated.

    Clarke
and Benson would generally assist one another with committal files, but it was
an absolute ball-breaker of a task.

    Without
doubt, it was the side of the job that all detectives hated. The nicking and
interviewing was great, but the paperwork - fucking hell, the paperwork.

    Their
desks were as they'd left them at 6 a.m. that morning after another horrendous
night. They'd got out shortly after 10 p.m. to nick a local for a series of
supermarket burglaries, but after booking him in with Custody had spent the
rest of the shift dealing with a serious assault that at one stage looked as
though it might become a murder inquiry.

    The
robbery victim had fortunately been found in time by what passed for a Good
Samaritan in Handstead, who'd phoned anonymously for an ambulance before
relieving the unfortunate man of his watch. The animals who'd fractured his
skull with a tyre wrench had made do with just his wallet and the takeaway
curry he'd been carrying. He now lay in a coma at the local hospital and Clarke
and Benson had spent a long night getting the scene of the attack preserved and
examined and forlornly looking for witnesses. Needless to say, none had been
forthcoming. In the small hours of the morning the victim's wife had confirmed
that her husband's decent Omega watch was amongst the property missing and
Clarke and Benson at last had a line of inquiry to pursue. By that time,
though, the watch had changed hands twice in a club, and even if they ever
managed to trace the original supplier, they would only ever lay their hands on
the Fairly Good Samaritan. Unaware they were pissing into the wind, they had
left instructions for the Early Turn CID to start getting into known local
fences.

    Amongst
the paper debris, Clarke found the note he'd been looking for. He read it
quickly and said in disgust, 'Early Turn got fucking nowhere with the watch.
He's still in a coma and surprise, surprise, still no witnesses.' He tossed the
note back on to his desk. Benson gave a grim, hollow laugh without looking up
from his pile of paper.

    'No
change there then. You got any of the paperwork for Gough?'

    'Gough?'
replied Clarke absently.

    'We
nicked him first thing, remember?' said Benson, tapping the side of his head.
'The supermarket burglaries?'

    'Oh,
fuck me, yeah. No, not a thing. Didn't you hand him over to Early Turn to
deal?'

    'Don't
think so. Can't remember speaking to anyone about him, can you?'

    'No, I
don't. We booked him in, brought him up here, stuck him in the cupboard and
then we got the shout to the robbery. We didn't get a chance to speak to him.'

    'So
where the fuck is he then?'

    They
said simultaneously, 'The cupboard,' got to their feet and went to a large,
double-doored, built-in cupboard at the far end of the office. A key hung from
a hook on the wall beside it and Clarke used this to unlock the door. He peered
inside. It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the almost complete darkness
within, before he could make out the shapes of two people sitting inside on the
floor. The whites of two sets of eyes looked hopefully up at him.

    'Mr
Gough?' he called.

    'That's
me. About fucking time too,' said a voice from the darkness.

    'You
ready to be interviewed?' continued Clarke, looking back at Benson and mouthing
'Fuck' at him.

    'I
can't fucking move, I've seized up,' said the voice. 'No fucking wonder, I've
been in here so long. What time is it?' What day is it would have been a more
appropriate question, but Clarke ignored it anyway.

    'Never
mind the fucking time, we've got a few questions to put to you and we're
expecting some answers. Otherwise it's back in the cupboard with you. You ready
for interview?'

    'Yes,
yes, I've had enough of this bollocks. I'm coming out, for fuck's sake, just
give me a moment.' There then followed the sound of groaning and moaning and
the cracking and snapping of stiff joints, before Lance Gough, burglar of the
parish of Handstead, emerged on all fours, blinking in the harsh light and
shading his eyes as he tried to see his arresting officers. 'Where the fuck
have you two been?' he said. 'I've been ready for hours but none of the others
would talk to me. I'm busting for a piss. Can I go before we start?'

    'Come
on, I'll take you,' offered Benson, moving alongside him, expecting him to get
to his feet. Instead, Gough began to shuffle across the floor on his hands and
knees towards the door.

    'Through
there, is it?' he called as he increased his speed before his bladder, now the
size of a beach ball, burst.

    'On
your feet,' bellowed Benson.

    'I
can't. My fucking back's seized solid. Does this sometimes, but I'll be OK in a
couple of days. I'll need a hand in the khazi, though.'

    'You
can fuck right off if you think I'm holding your knob,' grumbled Benson. 'You
can piss up the wall like a dog if you have to.' The human turtle hurried out
into the corridor as Benson opened the door.

    'Can
I come out now as well?' said another voice from the pitch-black cupboard.
Clarke screwed his eyes up and peered in.

    'Who
are you?'

    'David
John Hegg,' the voice replied formally in the manner of someone used to being
locked up regularly.

    'Who's
dealing with you?'

    'DC
Adams and DC Smith.'

    Clarke
recognised the names of two of the Early Turn officers he'd seen at 6 a.m. that
morning, not due in until 6 a.m. tomorrow.

    'What
you nicked for?'

    The
voice mumbled something in reply.

    'I
can't hear you. You'll have to speak up,' Clarke shouted.

    'Flashing,'
shouted the voice.

    'You
dirty cunt. You can fucking stay put for a while. Teach you to wave your old
man about,' bellowed Clarke, slamming the door shut and locking it.

    'Let
me out. I'm sorry. Let me out,' cried the voice in the dark plaintively.

    'Shut
up, you dirty bastard,' shouted Clarke, giving the door a kick, 'shut the fuck
up or you're out the window.' The voice trailed off into silence; its owner
knew about the windows at Handstead police station. From the first floor up,
every window at the station was barred, not as might be expected to stop the
locals breaking in, but to stop prisoners being dangled out by their ankles to
encourage meaningful dialogue. Whilst no one had ever been dropped, too many
complaints had been made for the matter to be ignored. Rather than issue a memo
to the effect that prisoners should not in future be dangled out of windows,
the Divisional Commander had arranged for the gradual installation of bars on
the upper-floor windows at Handstead. It was a tacit admission that the
practice went on, but he stopped short of a witch-hunt that would have
resembled the British Raj's attempts to outlaw suttee. But the fact was that
Handstead was the only nick in the Force with windows barred for the benefit of
its reluctant visitors.

    Hegg
had been out of a window at Handstead before, and had no wish to repeat the
experience. Captured three years earlier showing his blue veiner to a jeering
junior school playground, he'd been encouraged to admit to a few other
offences, some real, some imagined, by two detectives who'd hung him out of a
fourth-floor window at the back of the nick. Contemplating the long drop on to
the roof of a police car below, he'd happily have put his hands up to drilling
holes in the hull of the
Titanic.
It had been a sobering experience and
Hegg still shuddered as he debated which had been worse - dangling, stark
bollock naked, out of a window over a sixty-foot drop, or having his meat and
two veg crushed as the detectives dragged him back into the room over the
window sill. He hadn't managed a blue veiner for months afterwards.

    As
the CID officers began their interview with the recidivist human turtle, the
uniformed officers of 'D' Relief were collecting their car keys and radios from
the front office. Blister was handing the radios out on receipt of a signature,
and having dealt with the Brothers was now impatiently waiting for Ally to sign
for the radio he was cramming into his coat pocket.

    'Come
on, Ally, I haven't got all night,' she snapped, eager to get back to her
Barbara Cartland bodice-ripper.

    He
looked at her and smiled, but said nothing, signed the register and turned to
walk away. Then he stopped, turned back, put one hand on his hip, threw his
head back and began to pout his lips, swaying his hips from side to side,
lisping loudly, 'Come on, baby, love that camera for me, love it, baby, love
it, lick your lips for me, baby, hmm, love it.'

    The
rest of the group began to bray like donkeys, with the notable exception of
Psycho who stood horrified, looking from Ally to the Blister with the
expression of a man having a catheter fitted by a blind, arthritic cobbler. For
a moment Blister was nonplussed by Ally's performance, but gradually the lights
came on and she fixed Psycho with a stare guaranteed to thicken blood.

    'You
fucking dirty, slimy, sick bastard,' she hissed venomously, her face turning
crimson with rage as she puffed her fat little body up like a Louisiana
bullfrog. Psycho didn't bother to play dumb or deny what he had done - he
turned and fled along the corridor as the rest of the group cried with laughter
and the Blister steamed, swearing dreadful revenge on him at the top of her
voice.

    Ally
finished his display, which rather disturbingly he was quite good at. He'd
noticed the dark looks he was getting from the Brothers as he minced and swayed
around the front office, and decided to call it a day. The Blister spoke for
the Brothers when she said, 'You look like some horrible old drag queen, Ally.
Not a poof, are you?' It was an innocuous, inconsequential question that could
and should have been swatted away contemptuously, but instead produced
absolutely the wrong response.

    'Course
I'm fucking not. I got crabs from that Aussie barmaid I shagged, didn't I?' he
announced proudly. Not everyone on the group had known about Ally's dash with
the infested barmaid, but they did now, and erupted in another bout of belly
laughs.

    'Crabs?'
shouted the Blister, shrewdly seeing the opportunity to change the focus of
attention from her unfortunate photo session. 'Fucking crabs?' she repeated.
'You dirty bastard.'

    'Don't
get holier than thou with me, you old cow,' shouted Ally desperately above the
laughter. 'At least Psycho didn't shag me and then take pictures.'

    'Sure
about that, are you, Ally? You were mincing about there like a real
shit-stabber. Wouldn't surprise me at all if he'd given you one by mistake when
he was pissed.'

    Pizza,
who was standing nearby, cringed as he recalled the horror he'd felt when he'd
woken in Psycho's bed and believed for a while that the hose monster had
rethreaded his kitchen towel holder. He wandered away from the uproar and into
the relative calm of the custody area where Mick Jones sat grinding his finger
into his ears, looking through the custody records he'd inherited from Late
Turn.

    'Hello,
sarge. Got many in?'

    Jones
glanced up briefly, examined the finger, and then looked back at the papers.
'Just the two at the moment.'