My Kind of Justice: How Far Would You Go For Justice (D.I. Jack Striker Book 1) (3 page)

Crocodile tears? True colours shining through?
“Oh, you have, have you? How about I lock you both up for murder, you cocky little shits?” Striker saw what scant colour there was draining from the boys’ faces, but was disappointed he’d only lasted a matter of minutes in keeping his cool. Still, these pricks needed to show more respect. Despite his fourteen years’ service in the Job – a perpetually expanding client base, a booming business even the credit crunch couldn’t wane – some things never changed: the cocksure arrogance of the budding criminal.

“Where have your mates gone?”

“Dunno. They just ran off,” mumbled Mozo.

“Where and why?”

“Dunno and dunno.”

After an exaggerated sigh, mindful of other crucial avenues to explore, Striker said, “You’ve not heard the last from me.” Turning to Davison and lowering his voice, he said, “PNC them both and verify their current details. Don’t let them go anywhere until you’ve got signed first accounts. And if they don’t assist you, threaten to lock them up for obstruct.”

“Will do, Boss,” said the young constable, a flicker of insecurity in his expression.

Striker thought for a moment, realising the officer’s inexperience. “Give me a minute and I’ll get you some help, Ben.” Striker gave the boys a parting shot. “Tell this officer what you know or you’ll be arrested.”

He retraced his steps back through the outer scene, scanning the floor for anything eye-catching as five more uniformed officers tumbled out of a divisional van outside the main cordon. He was pleased to see DC Lauren Collinge with them, her friendly, pretty face and sweeping auburn locks lifting his spirits somewhat.

He smiled at Collinge, who reciprocated; the slight gap between her central incisors her only blemish, present perhaps because God thought she was
too
beautiful.

“Hi, Boss. Been a while.”

“Lauren. Good to have you back.”

“It’s nice to be back.”

“How was the course?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“Apparently so. Believe you passed with flying colours. Congratulations.”

“Yep. I’m a fully-fledged detective now, Boss.” She flicked her hair confidently, her captivating smile enhanced by a subtle tan.

Realising the lull created by her arrival, Striker promptly refocused. “We’ll catch up later, Lauren, but for now go and assist that constable over there” – he gestured at Davison and the hoodies – “and see what you can get from those two…” He refrained from calling them ‘scrotes’.

“Sure. Whatever I can do to help,” she said, giving him the smile again.

Striker watched her go. “And Lauren…”

Collinge stopped, looked round.

“Call me Jack. You’re part of the team now.”

She nodded and winked at him.

Striker smiled inwardly, pleased to have her on board. She’d been helping out on attachment from CID, having expressed her interest in MIT to Striker a few months earlier. Admittedly, he’d pulled a few strings, but he knew she was a willing worker and quick learner. Striker was aware of the occasional raised eyebrow from other female detectives who’d wrongly assumed something to be going on between Collinge and himself, but the rumours were unfounded. There was no way Collinge would go for a man ten years her senior, especially one with Striker’s baggage. It was simply his prerogative to build a team he could trust implicitly.

He swiftly instructed the newly arrived officers to their assigned duties. He tasked two of them to conduct house-to-house, one to make CCTV enquiries at the petrol station, another to liaise with the response sergeant to help with the scene log, if necessary, and also to assist in preserving the scene from the ever-growing crowd. All the while Striker kept glancing over at Lauren Collinge.

The officers eagerly starburst to their various tasks as Striker weighed up the evidence so far, or lack of it. The sound of an approaching vehicle caught his attention. He fought off a feeling of deflation while watching the DCI’s shiny, silver Mondeo park up.

Now, here was a woman he
wasn’t
so happy to see.

Typical.

Chisel weaved through the dark, dank Manchester alleyways like a sewer rat. He looked repeatedly over his shoulder as he fled the scene of his latest scrape with the law, the distant sirens diminishing into the night. On this occasion it wasn’t planned, but these things just sort of happened to him, not that he gave a toss.

The guy shouldn’t have objected to him jumping the queue anyway, especially when Chisel was hungry and wanted a Big Mac. Well that twat won’t be doing
that
again in hurry.

No one else had objected, just dipped their heads, and a good job too. But there’s always one – probably trying to impress his bird. Slowly scanning the back of the long line of terraced houses, Chisel replayed events in McDonald’s.

“Erm, excuse me, pal. Do yer mind not pushing in?” said the scraggly-haired freak.

“You fuckin’ what, Mr Big Shot?” Chisel saw the student-type physically shrink, pathetically clutching onto his bag of books.

The bird piped up, “He didn’t mean it, go ahead, it’s fine,” stepping half in front of her shithouse boyfriend.

Chisel pushed the girl to one side like a rag doll and eyeballed the student. “Fancy yer chances? Want some?”

“I was simply pointing out that…”

The headbutt rudely interrupted the student’s sentence and burst his nose, spraying the cowering crowd.

Staggering forward for more?
“Okay, if you want some, you can have some.” Chisel threw a flurry of punches and the student dropped like a sack of shit. The big right particularly pleased him, sending a shock-absorbing shudder up his arm. The girlfriend’s screams and the pleas from the McDonald’s staff were just a distant boring drone. Chisel was in the zone. The student was in a ball on the floor and his head was beautifully placed for a good stamping. And that’s what it got, over and over. Something crunched on the sixth stamp.

It was only when some bloke in the queue, clutching the hand of his little, sobbing daughter, pulled at Chisel’s shoulder and gestured at the CCTV camera pointing directly at them that he came to his senses a bit. He could now hear the unison of screaming as if someone had turned the volume up.

“The cameras in ’ere are crap,” Chisel said to the bloke, before pulling his loose hoodie further over his face, just in case.

“The police are on their way,” shouted a burger-flipper from behind the counter.

“Good. Well now there’s plenty of fuckin’ ketchup for those fat bastards, in’t there?”

He left feeling a bit pissed off with himself. He was still hungry and had been really looking forward to that Big Mac. Like any cop-dodger worth his salt, seeing blue lights flashing in the distance, he quickly sought the sanctuary of the alleyways.

Ever the opportunist, Chisel finished scanning the line of rear windows, smirked in the darkness and slipped on a pair of leather gloves. His shadowy, hooded form slid between two wheelie bins and, despite his blood-spattered Nike trainers, he easily climbed over the wall into the back yard. Yet another unsuspecting householder had kindly left their kitchen window open for him.

People just never learn. No security light. No dog barking. A ladder, too… Fuckin’ bingo! The house was in darkness and he carefully positioned the step ladder beneath the kitchen window. He wriggled his stocky frame through the generous transom window in quick time. The stale whiff of unwashed pots rose as plates clattered in the sink below, making him freeze for a second. He crouched like Spiderman’s shadow on the kitchen unit, his senses heightened, his hand ready to withdraw his flick knife in an instant.

No return movement. No alarm. Definitely nobody home. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway because he’d just stab whoever was unfortunate enough to disturb him. He’d done it several times before. That’s how he got his nickname and how he became cock of the school before he was expelled. He didn’t kill gobby Bobby Lomas in woodwork class, but he did shut the twat up with a chisel.

There had been no long stretch inside for Chisel, not with his boys doing their stuff when he was on remand at HMP Forest Bank. Nothing like a bit of witness intimidation to shut up a few blabbermouths. The ‘not guilty’ verdict was based on the fact that Lomas had lunged at him, and Chisel had had a legitimate reason for holding the chisel and had just ‘reacted’. With the only witness testifying being Chisel’s buddy, Jamie ‘Johnno’ Johnson, the judge and jury had no option and Chisel was freed.

He slid off the kitchen unit, withdrew a tiny torch and went for a mooch. Nothing heavy, just valuable – the golden rule of the lone burglar. The VW keys on the lounge coffee table were tempting, but he wasn’t too arsed about car keys tonight. The cops would be knocking about, so best not. He’d stand out like a priest at a drug deal if he hit the streets in a stolen car. Anyway, he’d promised to meet Johnno, Bezzer and the rest of lads, and was running late. It was Bezzer’s eighteenth so they’d all be stocked up with beer, coke and weed, and it was only right that Chisel brought something to the party.

Five minutes and as many rooms later, Chisel’s pockets were filled with two gold rings, a mobile phone, three credit cards, a Nintendo DSi and forty-odd quid. The bonus of the latest Grand Theft Auto made him grin. Bezzer loved this shit so, all heart, Chisel would give his mate the game for his birthday.

Fifteen minutes of ducking, diving and skulking later, and Chisel felt secure in the sanctuary of his patch – Bullsmead.

He could hear Bezzer and the rest of Bad Bastard Bullsmead Boys before he actually saw them, their voices carrying in the cool night air. He felt charged up as he turned into the side street off Bullsmead Road and approached his boys. They’d already started on the booze, the twats.

Bezzer was sitting on a waist-high cable TV electrical box beside the wall of a 1950’s gable-end terraced house. He wore his trendy baseball cap side on and was supping a bottle – Lambrini no doubt. The rest were hooded up, in a mishmash of black tracksuits and jackets. They gathered noisily around Bezzer under the streetlamp, jostling positions and generally larking about. An empty bottle flew through the air and bounced onto the road, the hollow clinking echoing between the two gable-ends of the side street that the gang occupied, then rolled to a stop at the kerb.

Chisel smiled. True to form, wannabe graffiti artist Johnno was spraying ‘BBBB’ in yellow on the wall of the end terrace while the unsuspecting occupant of the house was probably sat watching Newsnight reporting on yet another example of ‘Broken Britain’. Chisel was proud of his boys.

He emerged from the darkness like a beast from a cave, striding toward the throng with a cocky swagger, his arms opening at his sides.

“Yo, Chisel, what’s up?” One of the lads spotted him and their knuckles soon met in a macho greeting. He grabbed a bottle of Bud’, downed it in one and wiped his mouth with his sleeve before lobbing the bottle into the night, ignoring the smash seconds later.

The other five repeated the knuckle greeting ritual, springs in their steps now their leader was here. They all gathered around Chisel, like flies round shit, as he told them about how he’d battered some student in McDonald’s earlier because he’d misguidedly objected at Chisel jumping the queue. His re-enactment of the punches he’d thrown and the stamping he’d done on the lad’s head produced roaring laughter and high fives from the boys.

He then told them, with a plethora of ‘ra-ras’ and ‘innits’, how the McDonald’s staff were all pussies and had shit themselves. Plus, he’d left the lad motionless in a pool of blood on the floor with books strewn about and his girlfriend crying over him. Chisel’s impression of the girl crying was hilarious.

“Hey, Bezzer. Happy birthday, mucker.” Chisel produced Grand Theft Auto from his pocket. “Been doing a spot of shopping,” he said, revealing tobacco-stained teeth.

Bezzer’s face lit up. “Fuckin’ awesome, mate. Nice one.” He fizzed open a can of super-strength lager and gave it to Chisel, who again gulped it in one, and then squashed the can as he let out a long burp. He chucked the can over a wall into the back yard of the nearest terrace, causing a clatter, and held out his hand for another.

A light came on in the rear downstairs room of the house and the concerned face of a woman peered through the window, a hand raised above her eyes as if to aid her vision.

Johnno shouted, “Fuck off, you nosy cow,” alerting the others, who all joined in the abuse, accompanied by V-signs and middle fingers.

A startled look zoomed across the woman’s face. She disappeared behind the curtain and was soon replaced by a man of about forty.

“Come on then, dickhead,” yelled Chisel, his palms face up, repeatedly curling his fingers inwardly. The others also edged forward, bouncing on their feet, a couple doing the universal wanker gesture, goading the occupant.

The man’s face wore a mixture of confusion, anger and fear. A few seconds later, the house’s rear door opened and the man peeped out, the yard wall obscuring him except for his head.

“I’ve got kids asleep, lads. Could you please keep the noise down?”

“Get fucked, knobhead.”

“There’s no need for that. I’ve already called the police.”

“Well that gives us another fuckin’ hour then dunnit, you grassing twat,” shouted Chisel, who thundered toward his prey. He clambered onto the top of the wall, spitting threats close up to the man, who stepped back wincing. On cue,
artiste extraordinaire
Johnno sprayed ‘GRASS’ in fancy yellow letters on the wall. Another threw a beer bottle, which smashed on the brickwork above the rear door, the shards falling close to the retreating occupant. Two cans clattered off the closing door as the man hastily slammed it shut.

When a brick shattered the window of what was probably the kitchen, the gang ran off, nearly pissing themselves with laughter.

Parked across the street, the engine of the black, tinted-windowed VW Golf GTI fired up, growled and followed them…