Rough Justice (22 page)

They finished their meals, had a cup of coffee, then headed back to the van.

Half an hour after they had left the canteen, Castle spotted a group of black teenagers wearing baseball caps sitting on BMX bicycles outside a betting shop. ‘Have a look at our two o’clock, Skip,’ she said. ‘Could be our most wanted.’

All heads turned to the right. There were six teenagers, all wearing expensive Nike trainers, dark blue New York Yankees baseball caps and gold necklaces. One was talking into a mobile.

‘Let’s give them a spin,’ said Fogg. Turnbull pulled over to the side of the road. As Parry opened the side door, one of the teenagers saw the van, shouted something, and they scattered. Parry jumped out and ran towards them, closely followed by Simmons and Castle.

Parry managed to grab one of the boys by the scruff of his neck but the rest pedalled off. Simmons lashed out at the back wheel of a bike as it passed him and the teenager lost control. The handlebars wobbled as if they had a life of their own but then the rider regained his balance and sped off. Simmons tore after him.

By the time Shepherd was out of the van the teenagers were all heading off in different directions, except for the one Parry had grabbed and now pushed up against the window of the betting shop. Shepherd saw one youth, tall and gangly, wearing a baggy black sweatshirt and a Nike backpack, pedalling against the traffic on the main road. He gave chase. The teenager kept glancing over his shoulder but when he saw Shepherd was on his tail he bent low over the handlebars and pedalled for all he was worth. After sprinting for a hundred yards Shepherd began to tire but he gritted his teeth and kept up the pace, his boots slapping on the pavement.

The teenager tried to cut across the oncoming traffic but a bus driver pounded on his horn and he swerved onto the crowded pavement instead to weave in and out of the afternoon shoppers, shouting and cursing. Shepherd’s arms pumped back and forth and he could feel his lungs burning. He ran at least three times a week but he was a distance runner, not a sprinter, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up the pace for much longer. He didn’t have the breath to shout, ‘Stop, police!’ but he doubted that the words would have any effect. The only way to stop the teenager was to catch him, and with every passing second that was becoming increasingly unlikely.

Ahead of him Shepherd saw a man holding a wooden sign on the end of a pole, advertising a sale at a nearby sporting-goods store. He was wearing headphones, nodding to whatever tune he was listening to, and eating a slice of pizza with his free hand. As he reached the man, Shepherd grabbed the sign from him and threw it like a javelin. It spun through the air and clipped the back wheel of the bike. The edge of the sign caught in the spokes, the wheel locked and the bike skidded. It slammed into a phone box and the teenager went over the handlebars and hit the ground hard.

Shepherd reached the boy just as he was getting to his knees. He grabbed him by the arm and helped him up. ‘Are you okay?’

The teenager nodded. His right hand was grazed and there was dirt along his sleeve but there was no real damage.

‘Have you got any ID on you?’ Shepherd asked.

The boy ignored him. He looked around, still shaken from the tumble he’d taken. The man who had been holding the sign walked up, still listening to music on his headphones. He picked up the sign, pulled a face as he examined it, and walked back to where he’d been standing.

‘What’s your name?’ asked Shepherd.

‘I don’t have to tell you nuffink,’ said the teenager.

‘Have you got any ID?’

‘I ain’t got nuffink.’

‘What’s in the backpack?’ asked Shepherd.

‘Nuffink.’

‘You won’t mind me having a look, then, will you?’

‘You need a warrant,’ said the boy.

‘You’ve been watching too much TV,’ said Shepherd. ‘The fact that you did a runner means I’ve got every reason to suspect that there’s something in there you don’t want me to see.’ He turned the teenager around and unzipped the top of the backpack. Inside were half a dozen mobile phones and several wallets. Shepherd took out one of the phones and held it in front of the boy’s face. ‘This yours?’

‘Yeah.’

Shepherd scrolled through the phone’s address book. ‘So if I phone Mum, it’ll be your old lady, will it?’

‘Yeah.’

Shepherd called the number. After a few seconds a woman answered. Shepherd told her who he was but before he could explain why he was calling the woman interrupted and said that her son had been mugged that morning by a group of youths who had stolen his phone after kicking him so badly that he was now in intensive care. Shepherd promised to call her back later. He dropped the phone into the backpack and zipped it up.

The teenager stared at the pavement and mumbled something about police harassment, but Shepherd was no longer interested in anything he had to say. He slapped handcuffs on the boy’s wrists and marched him towards the van. ‘What about my bike?’ asked the teenager.

‘You can come back and get it later,’ said Shepherd.

‘It’ll get nicked.’

‘Do you think?’

By the time he reached the team, Parry and Simmons had put the other lad in the van and had taken off his trainers and socks. He was wearing two pairs of socks and between them were dozens of small twists of foil, which Simmons was laying out on one of the seats.

Fogg grinned when he saw Shepherd walk up with his prisoner. ‘Nice one, Terry,’ he said. He gestured at the boy in the van. ‘We’ve got cannabis and a fair amount of crack. He’s coming in for dealing.’

‘It’s personal use, innit?’ said the teenager, sulkily.

‘Plus he doesn’t want to tell us who is he is,’ said Fogg.

‘I don’t have to tell you nuffink. I know my rights.’

‘What about yours?’ Fogg asked Shepherd.

‘Doesn’t want to tell me who he is, but he’s got a bag full of stolen phones. I spoke to the mum of one of the victims and he was badly beaten up earlier today. He’s in hospital, intensive care.’

‘Someone gave me the phones. Dunno where he got them from,’ said Shepherd’s prisoner, still staring at the pavement.

‘There’s cash in the bag, too,’ said Shepherd. ‘And some wallets.’

‘I found them,’ said the teenager. ‘I was gonna hand them in.’ He looked at Fogg. ‘He assaulted me, he did,’ he said, jerking his chin at Shepherd. ‘Hit me with a sign, he did.’

‘You should have stopped,’ said Shepherd.

‘You can’t go around knocking people off their bikes,’ said the boy. ‘And that’s another thing. He left me bike back there. It’s gonna get nicked.’

‘No problem,’ said Fogg. ‘Just take a receipt or proof of purchase to any police station. They’ll get you sorted. Course, if you nicked the bike in the first place then it’d be a different story, wouldn’t it?’ He nodded at Shepherd. ‘In the bus with him,’ he said.

Shepherd helped the boy into the van and put him in the bingo seat. ‘I want to call my lawyer,’ he said.

‘When you get to the station,’ said Shepherd.

Parry and Simmons finished searching their prisoner, then told him to put his socks and trainers back on. The drugs went into a plastic evidence bag.

Shepherd sat opposite his prisoner, who stared sullenly out of the window, muttering to himself.

‘Nice one, Terry,’ said Castle, as she climbed in. ‘You went after him like a bat out of hell.’

‘What about the others?’

‘Lurpak had a go but the buggers were just too quick. They’ll be known to us, for sure – we’ll get them sooner or later.’

They drove the two teenagers to Wembley police station and went in through the rear entrance to the custody suite, where Fogg explained why the pair had been arrested and that they had refused to identify themselves. The custody officer smiled like a benevolent uncle and asked the two boys for their names and addresses. The smile didn’t fade in the slightest when they told him to go screw himself. He sighed, tapped away on his computer, then asked Fogg if he’d take their prints through the automated Livescan inkless fingerprinting system. The pair were marched over to the machine where the fingers and palms of both hands were scanned and transferred to the IDENT1 database. Then they were propelled to a row of seats and told to sit down. In less than ten minutes IDENT1 had provided the names and addresses of both, along with a list of convictions for street robberies and possession of stolen goods.

The still-smiling custody officer finished completing the necessary documentation, then told them they would be held in custody until a detective could be found to conduct a tape-recorded interview. The teenagers began to protest but two constables seized them by the arms and took them along to the cells, removed their expensive training shoes and locked them in.

Fogg looked at his watch. ‘Let’s call it a day,’ he said. ‘Traffic the way it is we’ll get back to Paddington bang on the end of our shift.’

Denzel Holmes liked white girls. He didn’t know why but, given the choice, he’d always go for a girl with white skin rather than a girl with skin as dark as his own. Getting white girls was easy because Holmes was a drug-dealer and Harlesden was full of white girls who’d do anything for crack or heroin. If a girl was white and pretty then Holmes was happy enough to give her a free sample or two, but as soon as she was hooked she had to do more than just smile sweetly if she wanted to score.

The girl lying next to him was twenty-one, three years older than him. She had long blonde hair, a cute arse and the best breasts he’d seen in a long time. She was a student but since Holmes had introduced her to cocaine she had pretty much given up her studies. She’d said that her dad was a local magistrate, and he found that a turn-on. He’d met her at a club in Harlesden. She’d been there with her whiter-than-white friends, slumming it. He’d offered her a drink and she’d said she could buy her own. He’d offered her a line and given her two in the toilets along with his phone number. The next day she’d called him, asking if he had any more coke, and three days later she was in his bed, doing whatever he asked. Now he banged her two or three times a week but he was starting to get bored and he was planning to pass her on to his crew. After a few months with his boys she’d be ready to put to work on the streets.

She was snoring softly, her long blonde hair over the pillow. Holmes loved blonde hair, the longer the better. He liked the feel of it, the smell of it and the contrast between it and his almost black skin. He nudged her. ‘Hey, bitch, get me a beer from the fridge.’

‘I’m sleeping,’ she murmured.

‘Fuck you, bitch, I’ll give you sleeping.’ He put his foot against her stomach and pushed her out of bed. She yelped as she hit the floor. ‘Get me a bloody beer and then give me a blow-job.’

She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Have you got any more coke?’

Holmes grinned. ‘Yeah, baby, I’ve got what you need. Now go down and get me a beer.’

She pouted, pulled on a bathrobe and left the room. Holmes rolled over, grabbed his cigarettes and lit one. He lay back and blew smoke up at the ceiling. It was just after one o’clock in the morning. He had two hours to kill before he had to be in west London to pick up a kilo of cocaine he’d arranged to buy from a Jamaican importer. It should already have arrived on a commercial flight from Kingston, smuggled in by a Jamaican minister and his wife. The dog collar and the overweight woman in her hat covered with flowers made four trips a year to London, ostensibly to conduct Bible study groups, and they had never yet been stopped by Customs.

‘Come on, bitch, where’s my beer?’ he shouted. There was no answer. ‘Cow,’ muttered Holmes. He tried blowing a smoke-ring but it didn’t hold together for more than a second. He coughed and tried again.

He heard footsteps on the stairs. ‘About bloody time,’ he said. A man appeared at the doorway. Holmes was so surprised that he yelped and pulled the quilt around him, but the man was smiling, he wasn’t holding a weapon and he was white, so he wasn’t there to shoot him. He was wearing a bright yellow fluorescent jacket over a white shirt and black trousers and Holmes realised he was a cop, even though he hadn’t identified himself. A second man appeared behind him, a big West Indian wearing a bulky black jacket over his uniform.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ said Holmes, regaining his composure. They weren’t from the local Drugs Squad and he was pretty sure they weren’t Operation Trident.

‘Police,’ said the man in the fluorescent jacket. ‘We sent your girlfriend home – hope you don’t mind. There was some cash on the table so we gave her that for a taxi.’

‘Whatever,’ said Holmes, running a hand through his hair. ‘You got a warrant?’

‘Why would we need a warrant?’

‘You’re wasting your time, Five-O, because there’s nothing here. No guns, no drugs, no nothing. I never keep nothing in my crib.’

Fluorescent Jacket shrugged. ‘Do I look like I care, Denzel?’

‘I’ve got no court appearances due, no fines that need paying. I ain’t done nothing wrong.’

‘Well, now, there’s that for a start,’ said the West Indian. He nodded at the small mirror on the bedside table. ‘That white powder would be what, Denzel? Talc?’

‘That bitch you threw out brought it with her. It ain’t mine,’ said Holmes.

‘You’re a drug-dealer, Denzel. Of course it’s your gear.’

‘Her fingerprints on it. Charge her. Maybe her dad can get her off.’ Holmes grinned. ‘Her old man’s a magistrate – how about that?’ He sat up and stubbed out his cigarette on the mirror. ‘Test my blood if you want. I don’t use. Only losers take drugs.’

‘And winners sell them. Is that the theory?’ asked the West Indian.

‘I don’t use drugs,’ said Holmes, flatly.

‘You know how I know that you’re lying?’ said the West Indian. ‘Because your lips are moving.’

A third man walked into the bedroom as if he owned the place. He was wearing a long-sleeved fleece over his uniform. He grinned at Holmes, revealing slab-like gleaming white teeth, and held up a large plastic bottle of Pepsi.