Force Of Habit v5 (6 page)

On stage they were introducing the main event: Eddie George. North didn’t know what he was being honoured with, they must have invented a new one as he already had everything going. Steady Eddie, the northern rock, gentleman George, Sir Edward Charles George, Mister Newcastle. He was the richest this land had seen since the feudal system had reigned. He now used profits from his many companies to finance his own charities at home and abroad, including the purchase and regeneration of the city’s football club which was seen as the greatest charity of them all locally.

His taxes and business dealings dating back to his days peddling gear in the schoolyard were as clean as a whistle and now he was giving back to the community in spades. The national tabloids called him Saint George. He didn’t even have a blonde young enough to be his grand daughter in tow. It was true that he was married to a younger woman, and he enjoyed calling himself a cradle snatcher, but she was the wrong side of fifty, looked it and he adored her. There would be no trading in for a newer model. George was strictly old school. He strode onto the stage, cracked a funny that was actually funny and took complete command of the place. There were many in the audience whose jealousy made them refer to him as Big ‘Ed. Eddie George had heard the name and laughed out loud. He couldn’t give a shit. He lapped it all up. Loved it. North smiled. You had to love him back.

‘Inspector North?’ A kid with an iphone appeared. ‘Dave Green from the Post. That was quite the speech.’

You are the worst of the bunch, thought North.

‘Could I have five minutes?’

‘Sure,’ North smiled.

They were actually in a position to rally and influence but they didn’t care what they printed just as long as it sold papers. Splash the headline that grabs the punters. They should be educating them not leading them on. North proceeded to lead him on about Denise Lumsden’s death. It would all be corrected the following day but by then it would be too late. Once people had read about the judge who let a killer go that’s what would stick, regardless of what came later. They made ridiculous decisions and you didn’t get many chances to stick it to them so you took them whenever you could. The kid typed up the story then and there and it was transmitted to his office before North had left the building.

He stepped outside. He felt good. Across the street, lights winked at the push of his key fob. He felt like he could whistle and his car would pull up to the kerb and pop the passenger door for him. It had even stopped raining.

SEVEN

A white Luton pulled out in front of him as he indicated left. The diesel trundled past and all was quiet as he approached the Pond House. He slowed. The pub lights were out. Mason’s car was gone. A woman came out the 7-11 tearing cellophane from a cigarette pack and the wind carried it away. A tab was in her mouth and the lighter poised when she saw him.

‘You pervert!’ she shouted at North. ‘I’m taking your number. People have to live round here, you know. We’ve got kids. Its not right.’

North continued cruising slowly up the street. There was no time to explain, she would just have to report him as a kerb crawler. Hopefully by then he’d be in a position to laugh about it. Right now he still couldn’t see Mason’s car. There was no sign of him or James. He checked his phone in case somehow he’d missed a call. He hadn’t. He swung round the back of the block and steered between clusters of bins dotted along either side of the alley. At the back of the pub he got out. There was no sign of them here either.

He’d be inclined to think the worst of them, that they’d buggered off ten minutes after he’d left them, but the Super had told them to stay put - and the dark pub was ominous. It was nowhere near kicking out time.

He dialled Mason’s number. It went straight to voicemail. He didn’t have James’. He called the station. They hadn’t been in. He tried Mason again. Nada. He rang Mason’s home. He wasn’t back yet. He played it light with Mason’s wife but North was now worried.

This was no time for discretion.

‘Mason!’ he shouted as loud as could. ‘James!’

No one answered.

No one appeared.

He rang the station again, gave them the SP. They hadn’t been able to raise Mason by radio either so they got a search going. North headed for the pub, blood pressure rising. The door leading into the back yard was open. A windowless single storey extension jutted out on the left. To the right rectangles of obscured glass indicated the toilet block but even if they’d been open the bog windows were too small to crawl through. The rear door lay dead ahead. He wanted to charge the place and kick his way inside. The station wanted him to stay put and wait for back up. Neither felt right.

There was no sign of life. The only light came from a flat above the 7-11. It was enough to reveal a security light and alarm box on the pub wall. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim glow North found a couple of discreet security cameras up there too. The windows had bars bolted to the outside. None of the gear looked too weathered. The fixings bore no signs of rust. His own security heightened. What did a tiny shithole like this need all the security for? And why was the motion sensor light switched off on the light? If the barman or manager or whatever the fuck he was had chucked everyone out and shut up shop after Rawlins had done a runner then why wasn’t the security set? Maybe they hadn’t left. Maybe one of them had ear-wigged the conversation he had had with Mason and knew he was coming back. Maybe they were in there waiting for him, whoever
they
might be. Lurking in the dark. Ready.

He told himself he was getting carried away. Anyone helping Rawlins would want well away after they had picked him up and the pathetic fuckers that regularly frequented the place may be well capable of taking the piss but they were in no fit state to be seriously fucking with him. They were probably lined up squinting through the nets laughing their bollocks off as they watched him flap around in the dark.

But why the security?

Where were Mason and James?

And Scanlan!

He’d forgotten about Scanlan. The Super had sent him back here. He called him. It rang out, tripped to voicemail. North disconnected. Redialled. It rang out. It was picked up just as it was about to trip again.

‘Where are you?’

‘What? Who is this?’

‘North. Where the fuck are you? Are Mason and James with you?’

‘What? No. What?’

‘They’re missing. Why aren’t you here? At the pub.’

North could hear someone in the background. Near the phone. A woman.

‘What?’

Scanlan was all over the place. He couldn’t focus. Had North interrupted him in the middle of doing someone? He felt sorry for whoever it was.

‘There is no one watching the Pond House and we can’t contact Mason.’

‘They’ve probably gone home to bed rather than sitting out there wasting their time,’ he had begun to collect himself. ‘Mason sent me home. You should do the same and sober up.’

North disconnected the call.

Fucker.

Mason wouldn’t have left. He would have gotten shot of Scanlan because he would have been doing his head in. Somehow Rawlins must have gotten on his toes, got past them, and Mason and James had taken off after him, it was the only explanation. But why they couldn’t be contacted started him thinking up all manner of unhappy endings. He tried not to think of Denise Lumsden lying on her living room floor.

He focussed.

He had to go in there now. Mason and James may be depending on it. If anyone was in there then they had seen Rawlins leave, who with, how many there were and when. How many minutes had Mason and James been off the radar?

Fuck it.

His hand closed on cold, wet metal and turned. It gave and the hinges parted. He was glad he hadn’t lost the head and come at it gung-ho. It was a hefty piece of kit. He closed it and listened, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the deeper black. He couldn’t hear a thing and so couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that had him convinced that there was more than one person waiting for him on the other side of the next door.

He was in a small room with a small pool table that needed a sawn off cue to make cushion shots. The door to the windowless extension was locked. Probably the storeroom. He held his breath and approached the door into the main pub. Listened. Still nothing. He pushed it open and the lights came on.

‘SURPRISE!’ they chorused.

North leaped like a scalded cat but fell into a defensive stance. Voices shouted and screamed. They were all still there. The atmosphere was relaxed. The tension that had existed earlier was gone and you could bet your balls that anything that had changed for their good was going to be to the detriment of his.

‘You like a rear entry then?’

‘He thinks he’s James Bond.’

He was still wearing the tux.

‘Maybe he’s come to referee a pool match.’

‘I don’t care how nice you’re dressed, you’re barred, so fuck off,’ said the bloke behind the jump.

‘Where is he?’ North’s voice was calm. He stood before them seemingly without emotion, not a trace of the tornado that had just touched down inside him. He took in the crowd. It had gotten bigger. There were faces that hadn’t been there earlier.

‘I said fuck-off!’

He was far too lairy. He felt safe. They all felt safe.

Rawlins had definitely gone.

‘Where is he?’

‘Fuck-off.’ A different voice. A bar stool scraped the floor. A pair of faded Doc Martens stepped onto the floor. The bloke in them had a web tattooed across his neck. He made fists of prison tattooed fingers. He was a big lad. Looked about forty. Still hadn’t grown up. Never would. Text book hard nut from the terraces.

‘Do him Vinnie!’ screeched the tramp stamped mutton dressed as lamb next to him.

North turned back to the barman, like Vinnie didn’t matter to him. The more riled Vinnie got the less control he would have.

‘Where is he?’

Vinnie charged like a bull. North stepped into him, brought the palm of his left hand crashing into Vinnie’s nose then his right fist up into his throat. The nose job was for everyone else’s benefit, not Vinnie’s. Vinnie could take it but there was nothing like a load of claret to keep those bystanders who were still in two minds erring on the side of caution. The blow to Vinnie’s Adam’s apple floored him like the sack of shit he was. He dropped to his knees, clutching his throat, struggling for breath. North sent him the rest of the way down. Put him flat out. Gave him extra to make sure he wasn’t getting up any time soon. The tramp ran over and fell on her fella, crying, wailing, gobbing off at North, snot running from her nose. God she was ugly.

North moved up to the bar. He was about to speak when the barman’s eyes glanced past North. North looked into his old friend, the mirror, behind the optics. Two lads with sawn-off pool cues in their hands were coming at him. They must have ducked into the annex while he was taking care of Vinnie, the sneaky little fuckers.

They were young, fit and not so little. They wore local gang colours. North lifted a half full pint glass from the nearest punter, swung round and threw it as hard as he could. It exploded in the first kid’s face. He dropped the cue as his hands clutched at glass and claret. The second kept coming but North side stepped and wood crashed into the bar. North raked the sole of his shoe down the kid’s shinbone and then put all of his weight down onto the bridge of the lad’s foot. The kid went down and North put his sole into his face. Lights out. He kicked the other one in the bollocks for good measure and went back to the bar.

‘I won’t ask you again,’ said North.

‘Aw, we were just fucking with yer,’ old saggy red faced Jimmy chuckled into his cider. ‘Have a drink. Them other pigs took off after him ages ago.’

‘Enlighten me,’ said North.

EIGHT

North could only watch and wait while the armed response unit went to work. The window of opportunity for charging forward and kicking his way inside this one had long gone. Two missing detectives had stopped everything. Everyone had been on it. The helicopter had ID’d a possible location and the ground forces had closed in on a rundown, disused industrial site about five miles south of the Pond House.

Hastily rigged lights and sniper sights were trained on the building. The helicopter now roared overhead, its nitesun illuminating the entire scene as the unit received final instructions.

Back at the Pond House North had learned that some guy had entered the pub through the front door, a half hour before North had returned, then left with Rawlins via the back two minutes later. The element of surprise must have given them a good few yards on James and they had made it to a car, close by. Mason and James had gone in pursuit and off the radar.

The chopper had started its search along the main arteries relaying possible locations to the ground. It could cover areas in twelve minutes that would take the entire station over two hours. Some sad sod had worked it out. The fly boys had been chasing charvers over every inch of ground for miles around for years. The tactical flight officer had initially picked up a light source just off the A1 on an abandoned industrial site they knew no longer had power running to it. The light was fixed and steady so it wasn't kids or tramps around a fire.

Thermal imaging had soon revealed three bodies nearby, moving about on the motorway embankment. The helicopter had stayed high. They didn't want to spook anyone into making any rash decisions. The same people responsible for killing Denise Lumsden could have Mason and James cornered down there. There was no sign of Mason’s car, or anyone else’s, but a couple of the units were plenty big enough to accommodate them. The thermal imaging camera only picked up surface heat so they couldn't tell if there were any warm engines beneath those roofs, or any other people. They moved away. A uniform was despatched. The uniform got close enough to see a car inside – at least a part of it. It was the same colour as Mason’s. The Chief had him retreat. He was two down and he wasn’t about to risk a third. He ordered in the cavalry.