The Devil's Interval (3 page)

‘That’s right, my old fella. He’s had that car from new, Henry. Before you were even born.’

Henry nodded, and tried to look sympathetic. ‘There’s nothing much in the crime report, sir. Taken away overnight three days ago, keys still in the house. Crime number issued. A straight to insurance job, by the looks.’

‘So case closed, would you say?’

‘Well, sir…’

‘It’s all right, I know that the fact that dad is so attached to that old car makes no difference to us. It’s a file and forget case, isn’t it?’

‘I’m afraid so, sir.’

‘But what if I told you that it fits into a wider offending pattern, young Henry, what then?’

‘Then that would be different, sir. Potentially, anyway. It would depend…’

‘We’re talking about a gang here, lad, stealing these old cars, these classics, if you like. Did you know that ten have been nicked in the force area over the last six months? And guess how many in the year before that?’

‘Twenty, sir?’, Armstrong ventured, hopefully.

‘No, lad, none. Not a single bloody one. So someone is at it all of a sudden, I’m sure of it.’

Armstrong did his best to look suitably concerned. ‘But why would someone steal a 1975 Ford, er, Granada, sir?’

‘Exactly. My dad has been saying that his old banger is a sure-fire classic for the past twenty years, but it’s still worth next to nothing.’

‘Then why nick it?’

‘The parts, son. Chummy is nicking these cars, and he’s breaking them for bits. A pound to a pinch of snuff. My old man says that there are parts on his car that you can’t get for love nor money nowadays. And you know what collectors are like, lad, they’re obsessed. My wife spends half her bloody life online looking for those little model cottages. And she’s made up for a month when she actually finds a new one, like. They all look exactly the bloody same to me, though.’

Armstrong glanced back down at his screen, then back at the ACC. He tried to look confident.

‘Leave this with me, sir. I’ll get to the bottom of it.’

‘That’s the spirit, Henry. And I’ll email you the crime numbers for the other cases that I found. That should give you a head-start. And time is of the essence here, son, because these buggers will strip my dad’s car down in no time. They might even have started already. And the others too, of course. All council tax payers to a man, the victims, I’m sure. But I’m sure you’ll bear that in mind, young Henry.’

When Rex Copeland returned to the office, about twenty minutes later, he dumped his messenger bag by his desk and suggested that he and Henry go out for lunch.

‘Sorry, mate. I’m bloody snowed under here.’

‘We’ll only be half an hour. What’s the worst that could happen?’

‘The ACC could come back, and ask if I’ve found his dad’s old banger yet.’

‘Come again?’

‘The ACC’s dad has had his car nicked. And now he’s sent me a list of similar stolen car reports. A Jaguar, an old Land Rover, even an Austin Maxi.’

Copland laughed. ’My dad had one of those, a Maxi, when I was a kid. It was donkey’s years old then. Shit brown it was, and it was absolutely, completely crap. Even he thought so. I’m surprised the thief managed to get the one he nicked going, to be honest.’

‘Well, the ACC reckons that it’s a right crime wave, these old cars being nicked for parts. And I’m the man to deal with it.’

‘Really? Unlucky. And whoever’s nicking cars like that should get a bloody reward. They must be death-traps, old heaps like that.’

‘Thanks for that, Jeremy Clarkson. But, like I said, God’s right hand man has a personal interest in this one. Any bright ideas to contribute?’

‘Yeah. Maybe.’

‘What do you mean, maybe?’

‘Tell you what, mate. I’ll help you out with the great rust-bucket mystery, if you give me a hand with my common assault.’

‘Sounds fair. What’s it all about, then, your case?’

‘No idea, not a bloody scooby. That’s what I need your help with.’

‘But I thought you’d just been out interviewing one of the complainants?’

‘Yeah, I have. But I’m still none the wiser. They’re both farmer Giles types, out towards Wigton, and I couldn’t understand what the guy I saw today was going on about. I think their dispute was about a horse, although it might have been a woman. Or possibly both. In the end I stopped interrupting the bloke and just let him ramble on. What’s a ‘cuddy’, by the way?’

‘Oh, that’s a horse, so you were on the right track, I reckon. You didn’t record it all, by any chance?’

‘I did, on my phone.’

‘All right then, I’ll have a listen for you. Tell you what the
craic
is, like’

‘Don’t you bloody start. But I appreciate it, honest. The bloke was a right pain in the arse, I can tell you. Come to think of it, did you know that ‘farmer Giles’ is rhyming slang for piles?’

Armstrong laughed. ‘No, I didn’t.’

‘There we are then. We’ve both learned some new words today.’

‘Every day’s a school day. And, talking of which, what’s your big idea about my missing cars?’

‘I’d start with the local breakers yards. I assume the rightful owners have pictures of their cars?’

‘Aye, they’re bound to have.’

‘And are any of your local salvage guys straight?’

‘They all are, as far as I know.’

‘That’s your starter for ten, then. Have a drive round, and see what you can find out. But take my advice, Henry, if you use the pool car make sure that you leave it parked where they can’t grab it with those claw things. That heap is a bloody death-trap. The gear knob came off in my hand just now. Honest, it just bloody fell right off.’

Later, when Pepper Wilson returned to the office, DC Armstrong went to the kitchen, made a round of teas, and took hers to her office. She looked grumpy, he thought, but that wasn’t unusual. He expected it was down to the paperwork, or the bosses. It was almost always one of the other, and almost never the actual cons, no matter how annoying and stupid they were. She was always surprisingly calm and patient with them.

‘The ACC was round earlier, Pepper.’

‘Was he lost?’

‘He came looking for me.’

‘His old man’s missing Ford Focus, was it?’

‘Granada. It was a Ford Granada. Still is, I hope.’

‘He emailed me about it yesterday. I told him that, thanks to his current operational procedures, we’ll be able to search for it for slightly less long than I’d give to finding 5p if it fell out of my purse at the supermarket checkout.’

‘Shit. You didn’t really say that, did you?’

‘That was the gist, Henry. His old fella’s got a crime number, so he can claim on his insurance, and I’m sure our civilian call-handler sounded appropriately sympathetic, so long as the old fart didn’t bang on for too long. That’s about as good as it gets these days for car theft, I’m afraid.’

Pepper looked up at Henry, and knew that he’d given the ACC a different response.

‘Oh, shit, Henry. You’ve briefed INTERPOL about it, and there’s an armed response team on five minutes warning downstairs.’

He laughed, uncomfortably. ‘Not quite. But he demonstrated that there’s a pattern of similar recent offences, so I’m following up. I hope that’s OK?’

They’d been working together for months, but Henry was still apprehensive. The smallest things seemed to set her off sometimes. But this time she smiled.

‘Of course it is. You didn’t have any choice, did you? But the way I feel about the bosses at the moment I wish I’d bloody nicked it myself.’

‘Did you, boss?’

She laughed again. ‘Sadly not, but well done for asking. I take it that you’ve got sod all to go on, then?’ Armstrong nodded. ‘All right, well give it a few hours. But no more than that, mind. And if the ACC kicks off I’ll deal with him, OK?’

Pepper knocked off within two minutes of the end of her shift, left without a word to anyone, and Copeland glanced down at his shiny new Rolex in genuine surprise as she passed his desk. He was beginning to regret having bought it, a reward to himself for moving up here to the sticks, because whenever he went out with people from work they always asked if it was fake. ‘Is it because I is black?’ he usually replied, but the joke was wearing thin because he was almost certain that it was. Fuck ‘em, he thought.

Pepper was thinking much the same about her colleagues, or at least the ones with braid on their hats, as she waited for Ben to emerge from the after school club, looking, as ever, as if he’d come second in a fight with a pack of excitable puppies. For all she knew he had. She expected the knot of tension and anger to loosen its grip as he chatted on about his day, as it usually did, but today it didn’t. And even as she made tea she tried hard to rationalise, to compartmentalise, as she’d told herself a thousand times before over the years, but it wasn’t working. Not at all. So she tried again. She had a job, just like most people, and that’s all it was. She exchanged her labour for pay; but not her mind, and not her being.

She’d just got Ben into bed, negotiated his ration of computer game time, and finally successfully altered the medium of measurement from levels completed to elapsed time. He explained, very carefully, that many bad guys would remain undead as a result.

‘There are always more bad guys, Ben.’

‘But you catch them, don’t you, mum?’

‘Some of them, aye.’

‘No, you catch all of them. Every last one. That’s why you’re at work so much. Justin told me that.’

‘Did he? Well he’s right, of course. We catch all the bad guys. Don’t you ever worry about that, love.’

As she went downstairs she tried to picture herself at that age. When she had asked her mum about all the things that made her insecure and afraid, what had her mum been able to say that could possibly have reassured her? Pepper couldn’t remember, but she was sure that she would never have believed a single word of it. She’d been a child, not an idiot.

She’d barely poured herself a beer when she heard the knock at the door. It was her father, she just knew it, and he would be drunk. He hardly ever came round these days, and she’d told him not to often enough, so he had to be pissed already. She chucked her own beer straight down the sink, rinsed out the glass, and waited for the knock to come again. When it did she walked quickly along the hall, opened the door and hissed at her father.

‘What are you doing here? I told you, dad, don’t come round. I’ll call the station and have you picked up. You’re harassing me.’

‘I’ve not seen you in weeks, love. I’ve got a birthday present, for the lad.’

‘His birthday was weeks ago.’

‘I know that, aye.’

‘Where is it then, this present?’

Her father looked all around, then held up his empty hands. He looked unaccountably surprised that the present was nowhere to be seen.

‘Sorry. I wonder what that went? Look, love, can I come in?’

‘You know you can’t. We’ve been through this before. I don’t want you anywhere near Ben. I don’t want him to know you. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.’

‘But I’m his blood.’

‘And that’s all you are. I can’t do bugger all about nature, worst luck, but nurture is down to me.’

‘You what, love?’

‘You’re a bad influence, dad. So bugger off, will you? I’m really not in the mood.’

She expected anger from him, and wanted it too, but still it didn’t come.

‘I need help, love. I’m desperate.’

‘You need money, you mean.’

‘I do, aye. Five hundred would get me clear, like.’

Pepper shook her head. She didn’t have to think about it, not even for a second. She’d tried to get him to go for counselling to address the gambling, and she’d even paid some bloody watch-waver £500 for a course of hypnotherapy. For all the good it had done she might as well have put the cash on some three-legged nag at Newmarket, although she’d never so much as set foot in a betting shop herself, except to nick someone. She always felt itchy and uncomfortable afterwards too, like she’d just touched her tongue on a trace of cocaine. And they’d long-since stopped asking her to join in on the Grand National sweepstake at work.

‘They’ll hurt me if I don’t pay up, Pepper. Bad, really bad.’

‘Tough shit, dad.’

‘Well if you won’t pay, won’t you at least have a word, like? They’d listen to you.’

‘How many times? No, I bloody won’t. Because if they did let you off I’d be a corrupt officer, and I could be blackmailed. I could go to jail, dad. So no, you’re on your own. Just like I’ve always been.’

Pepper turned, knowing that Ben was already behind her.

‘Hello, grandpa…’ he began, but Pepper bent down, scooped him up, and slammed the door in her father’s face. He could fuck right off. And the whole bloody world could do one too, come to that.

Thursday, November 27th

9.03am, Superintendent’s Office, Carlisle Divisional HQ.

Pepper had always known that it was a stupid idea to get to know the Super socially, and this was why. Maybe she’d always known that something like this was bound to happen, sooner or later. After all, it wasn’t the first time in her career that she’d sat outside the Super’s office waiting for a bollocking. Far from it. And this time it could be worse than any of those. She’d know immediately, of course. Because if that cold-eyed bitch from personnel was in there as well then it meant that she was going to get the sack. And how the hell would she look after Ben then? How would she live? How would she pay the mortgage? She had none of those transferable skills that people always went on about.

But Mary Clark was alone, and there was a teapot, with the old Constabulary crest on it, and a pair of the best china cups and saucers. But there weren’t any biscuits. So mixed messages, then.

‘Relax, Pepper’ said the Super, as Pepper marched up to the meeting table in parade ground style. ‘Sit yourself down.’

‘Thanks ma’am.’

‘You like your tea strong, don’t you?’

‘So long as a spoon won’t quite stand up in it, it’ll do me.’

‘A woman after my own heart.’ Clark put the the pot back down, and glanced down at her notes. ‘So let’s talk about what happened yesterday, shall we? Have you had a chance to reflect on how you handled the situation?’

‘I have, ma’am.’

‘And is there anything that you’d do differently, if you had the opportunity?’

‘Realistically, no.’

‘I see. Well, that’s…..disappointing.’

Clark paused, but Pepper had no intention of filling the silence. She’d been a copper for the better part of fifteen years longer than the Super, and she could just sit there for the rest of the shift, if she really needed to.

‘I really am torn on this one, Pepper. For a start, I have to tell you that I’m recommending you for a commendation. To tackle two angry, armed individuals in a confined space demonstrated a level of bravery and skill that I never expected to see. I’m really still just a civilian in uniform, and I’ll be honest with you, I froze. I could never have done what you did.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

‘But I also saw what you did to that man, Pepper. I heard the bones break, literally. There’s almost no doubt in my mind that you continued to hit him for several seconds after he presented no viable threat to you, or to anyone else.’

‘You’re almost sure?’

‘Exactly. If I was sure, and if things hadn’t happened quite so fast, then we’d be having a different conversation now. I’d have no hesitation in suspending you, and in recommending that you be dismissed from the service. We’re here to protect the public, even the shitty ones, and not to beat them to a pulp.’

‘I didn’t hit him that hard, ma’am, or that often.’

‘You just don’t see it, do you? So I do need to take action. Because I’m genuinely worried about what you might do next time, Pepper. I’m concerned that you could very easily end up facing an assault charge or worse, and that you might seriously injure someone. So I’m going to arrange for you to attend a series of counselling sessions, with the force psychiatrist.’

‘Doctor Doom, ma’am? They only use him when some poor bobby has had to deal with a dead baby or something.’

‘PTSD is one of Dr. Collier’s specialities, Pepper. And I should make clear to you that this is optional. I can’t force you to attend.’

Clark broke off, and poured the tea. It was the colour of the Caldew in spate.

‘Thanks’, said Pepper, accepting the cup, ‘but no thanks, ma’am. I’ll watch my temper in future, OK?’

‘No, that’s not OK. Let me be clear about this Pepper. You don’t have to attend, and you’ll be commended either way, but if you fail to turn up I will arrange for you to be transferred to a core support function, either here to HQ.’

‘Not the living dead, ma’am.’

Clark laughed. ‘I’m one of them, Pepper, remember that. And I was thinking of personnel, actually.’

Pepper laughed. She just couldn’t help it. The idea was just so daft.

‘No, I’m being serious,’ said Clark. ‘I’m taking you off the street. The risk is just too high, to yourself and to the public. You’ll be a loss, obviously, but you leave me no choice.’

‘I’ll do it then, the counselling. Just tell me where and when.’

‘That’s excellent news. I would have hated to lose a front line officer of your quality. But be in no doubt, Pepper. I don’t bluff, so if you don’t show up, or just take the piss, you’ll be collating PCSO training records for the foreseeable.’

‘I get you, and thanks. I know that I put you in a spot yesterday.’

‘You did. And be honest, just between us. Did you hit that tosser too hard?’

‘Honestly? I didn’t hit him anything like hard enough.’

Mary Clark shook her head. ‘I’ll email you the doctor’s details within the hour, Pepper. And I expect you to make contact and get something sorted today.’

When the call came through to Rex Copeland he was surprised. Not because a member of the public was offering information
per se
, because in his experience the criminal classes, for all their protestations of old-school loyalty, thought nothing of grassing each other up over all manner of real and perceived slights, usually utterly trivial. It always amused him that most of them seemed so completely ignorant of the law as well - given that their entire job description was predicated on breaking it - although he still enjoyed telling them exactly why the police wouldn’t be able to help. But what surprised him this time was that this informant had asked for him by name.

‘DC Rex Copeland. Can I help you?’

‘I doubt it, son. But I can help you.’

‘Who am I speaking to?’

‘Alan Farmer. I’ll save you the trouble of looking me up, son, because it’d take you ten minutes to read through my previous, even if you’re a right fast reader, like.’

‘Give me the highlights then, Mr. Farmer.’

‘Nothing in years, but go back to the nineties and I did a decent stretch for armed robbery and another for GBH. So I wasn’t a purse snatcher, mate.’

Copeland still typed the name in as he talked. ‘And what would you like to talk to me about today?’

‘Prison absconders. Proper villains. How would you like to get one of them back?’

‘Very much. And you can help us do that, can you?’

‘Maybe, aye. How about a meet?’

‘How about you tell me on the phone?’

‘Not a chance. Are we on?’

‘All right. Where and when?’

‘Fifteen minutes, outside the railway station.’

‘How will I know you?’

‘Don’t you worry about that. I’ll know you, won’t I?’

Pepper wasn’t in her office, and Copeland didn’t have time to do any more than complete part one of an informant contact log sheet before he left. It was raining hard, but he managed to find a parking space in the station’s short stay drop-off area, and then he ran for the shelter of the station foyer.

‘You need to buy a proper coat, mate,’ said Farmer, as he approached.

‘A snorkel, more like.’

Farmer laughed. ‘It’s true, us short-arses will drown first, come the flood.’

‘So have you got names, dates, places for me?’

‘I will have, aye. As soon as I know the details, you’ll know and all. I just thought we should meet, so you can see I’m genuine, like.’

‘Well, I can see you’re here, anyway. So when are we talking for this absconder coming through? Today, next week, sometime, never?’

‘You need to slow down, mate. Where’s the bloody fire, like? But it won’t be long. The con will be coming through the county, in transit, like. That’s all I know, for now.’

‘So no name, then? That’s not a great start. And why are you willing to help us anyway, Mr. Farmer? Money, I take it?’

‘A few quid won’t go amiss, aye. And a favour in the bank might be worth having too, like.’

‘What kind of favour?’

‘Don’t worry, son, nothing you couldn’t manage.’

Copeland shook his head, and felt a trickle of water run beneath his shirt collar. ‘Not a chance, mate. The transfer of intel between you and me will be strictly in one direction only. And you do know that this is all one hundred percent on record, don’t you? There’s absolutely no question about that, mate.’

‘I’d expect nothing less, what with your bit of bad luck down south and all that.’

‘What do you mean? What do you know about that?’

‘I know all about you, DC Copeland. You’d be surprised, I expect. You can read my file, every last page, and I’ll still have the upper hand. Even when you’ve talked to Pepper Wilson about me.’

‘How do you know that I haven’t done that already?’

‘No time, was there?’ Farmer was smiling, as if he knew much more than he was letting on. Copeland decided to let it go. It would just be a good guess, he thought.

‘So what will DS Wilson say to me, when I tell her about this meeting?’

‘That I work for John Porter. You’ll have heard of him, I take it?’

‘Yes, I’ve heard of him.’

‘And Pepper will guess that I’m acting on instructions, like.’

‘And would she be right?’

‘Quite possibly, aye. But there’s one thing that she definitely won’t know, and that’s who it is who’s moving this human cargo all around the spot, like.’

‘And you’re going to tell me that now, right?’

‘Dai Young. You’ll have heard of him too? I bet Pepper talks of nowt else these days.’

Copeland shrugged, but Farmer was right. Pepper never stopped going on about bloody Dai Young. ‘So why not just tell Pepper yourself, Mr. Farmer? Cut out the middle-man, sort of thing.’

‘Oh no, son. Like I said I want this all on the record, all official, like. I want my name to be on file, and all the information I provide to be properly logged.’

‘And what makes you think that DS Wilson wouldn’t do that?’

‘Come on, lad, act your age. I know you’ve only been working here for five minutes, but you must know what she’s like. She’s a bloody one-woman army, is young Pepper Wilson. Anyway, you’re asking the wrong question. The right question is, why am I giving this to you? There are loads of other CID blokes in the county who I could have gone to, although it’s true that most of them are useless tossers who couldn’t find their arses with both hands. So why did I choose you, do you think?’

Copeland was getting cold, and he could feel the water being drawn up through his socks by some kind of textile osmosis. ‘Don’t piss me about, mate. Just say what you’ve got to say and we can both get on our way. So far all you’ve given me is a lot of vague bollocks. I’m not even sure it’s worth writing up, now I come to think about it.’

‘But you will write it up, DC Copeland, you will do that. Every bloody word. You’ll even pull the CCTV from here, I wouldn’t wonder, just to check I am who I say I am. So you run along, and I’ll be in touch as soon as I know any more. And you tell Pepper Wilson that I send my regards. To her and her dad both, like.’

Copeland nodded, and turned away. It was only when he was unlocking the car that he remembered that Farmer had never said how he’d been selected. He looked back, but Farmer was nowhere to be seen. It probably didn’t matter, anyway.

DC Armstrong was on his fourth and final breaker’s yard visit, on the outskirts of Whitehaven. The first three had been wash-outs, in every sense, and he’d spent most of his morning trying to avoid both the puddles, each glistening with a rainbow sheen of petrol, and the sharp-toothed tethered dogs that he encountered before he even reached their monosyllabic owners. But this place was different. There were no dogs, and the big warehouse space was dry. The lad behind the counter got on his walkie-talkie and the owner appeared after a minute or two. He even shook hands with Armstrong, having wiped his hand on his overalls first. It didn’t make them any cleaner, but Armstrong appreciated the thought.

‘What’s this about?’ the owner asked. ‘You’re welcome to walk the yard, if you want.’

That was the last thing that Armstrong wanted.

‘No, I’m enquiring about a Ford Granada. Have you had one in?’

‘Not in about ten years, no. You could have phoned up and asked that, son.’

‘How about other classic cars?’

‘No, that’s not our thing. Just no call for them, see. Cars are just like washing machines to most folk, these days. I’d love to stock bits for the classics myself, but they’d just gather dust for years, I expect.’

‘So you don’t think that someone who is stealing them these days would be doing it for parts?’

‘I didn’t say that. Just that we don’t sell them. But for lots of old cars, calls them old bangers or classics if you like, there’s no call for remanufactured parts, so second-hand is the only way to go.’

‘What kinds of parts?’

‘It depends on the model of car. Usually mechanical parts aren’t that hard to get hold of, but things like interior and exterior trim can be well-nigh impossible to find, even second-hand.’

‘And there’s no way of tracing these parts back to an individual car?’

‘To prove they were nicked, like? No, no way at all. Not when they’re off the donor vehicle, like.’

‘And how do these parts get sold? For these old cars, I mean?’

‘Auto-jumbles used to be favourite, but now I’d say it’s online, mainly. All of these old cars have owners clubs, and they usually have member’s adverts buying and selling parts. And then there’s the online auctions too. We sell loads of our stock on those now, like.’

‘OK, thanks. So if I searched about a bit online, you reckon that I could find out which parts of various cars are the ones that would be most in demand?’

‘Oh, aye, that would be favourite. Just email someone in the owners club, and they’ll tell you soon enough. They’ll be glad to be asked, I expect.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Well, no offence, Detective Constable, but you lot don’t seem to interested in any car thefts these days. I can’t remember the last time we had a visit, like. So the fact that you’re interested in an old Granny, well, that is a bit of turn up, I must say. Did it belong to the Chief Constable, or something?’