Get Cartwright (11 page)

‘The
Evening Gazette
!’
said Gene. ‘I thought they
booted you out after that to-do with the chickens.’

‘Oh, don’t drag up the to-do with the chickens, DCI Hunt,
per-lease
!’
Sargood replied, rolling his bloodshot eyes. ‘No, no, no, I’m distinctly
off
chickens.’

‘And I can’t imagine they’re too happy about you neither, not after what ’appened.’

‘And what
did
happen?’ put in Sam, nonplussed.

‘Nothing worth repeating here,’ Sargood declared, lifting his chin in a dignified manner. ‘No no no. A misunderstanding, long since forgiven and forgotten. It ruffled a few feathers at the time – ha ha – but it’s all in the past now. What interests me is what
you
chaps have been getting up to today, mm?’ He smiled, swaying slightly but regaining his balance. ‘Ex-Detective Chief Inspectors dropping out of church spires! And then certain police officers blazing away at the body like it’s a spot of target practice!
That
sort of lark doesn’t happen every day. All very odd. Feel like telling your Auntie Jacky about it, mmm? Make you feel better. A trouble halved, and all that. I mean, I’m sure you’ve got nothing to hide.’

Sargood flipped open his reporter’s notebook and waited to take a quote.

Gene turned slowly towards Sam, his expression thunderous.

‘
That,
Tyler, is what I was talking about,’ he growled, jabbing a thumb in Sargood’s direction. ‘We got the press on our backs already over this monkey-business with Carroll. And this is just the start, you know what I’m saying?’

Gene was referring to word getting out to the papers of the whole corruption scandal from the sixties, how a police officer’s death had been covered up, how a villain had bought CID’s silence, and how the whole thing had been brushed under the carpet. Sam reflected that perhaps he was right, that it would create an avalanche of bad publicity that could quite conceivably bury Gene’s career.

‘I’ll give you a statement, Mr Sargood,’ said Sam. ‘My name’s DI Sam Tyler, I was the officer attempting to prevent ex-DCI Carroll from jumping. I failed. I take responsibility. It was an extremely difficult situation involving a disturbed man, a firearm, and hostages. I was attempting to resolve the whole drama without bloodshed or loss of life, and regretfully that proved impossible. But I did my best, and I acted at all times in accordance with my principles as a police officer. As for shooting Carroll’s body, well, there’s an explanation for that.’

‘Hold up,’ Sargood interrupted him, frowning at his notepad. ‘I’ve gotten as far
my name is …
And what
was
your name again? And why’s my pencil not working?’

‘You write with the pointy end,’ Gene advised him.

Sargood laughed delightedly: ‘Ah ha! So you do! After all these years ...! Have you ever thought of taking up writing for a living, Mr Hunt, you seem to understand the equipment.’

‘It’s
DCI
Hunt to you, Sargood you saturated twerp, and you’d do well to remember that, ‘specially if you want to keep your head from being thwacked clean off your shoulders.’

‘No no no, don’t knock my head off, please. Where would I put my cigarette? Now – which one of you was telling me things? Are the pubs open? Perhaps we could continue this little interview over a cocktail. It’s surely time for a highball or two.’

‘I know a cocktail you’ll like,’ said Gene, planting himself squarely in front of Sargood. ‘I invented it meself. I call it a Breathless Slammer.’

His smile faltering, Sargood said: ‘I have a feeling it’s going to be …’

Gene rammed his fist into Sargood’s stomach, doubling him up.

‘… a little too strong for me …’ Sargood wheezed.

Gene batted the trilby from Sargood’s head, grabbed a fistful of hair, and hauled him upright. Sargood’s face, already red when he arrived, was now redder still.

‘You and me, we’ve had our fun in the past, ain’t we, Jacky-boy.’ Gene snarled right into his face. ‘All them things you’ve put in the papers over the years, all them stories you writ about me.’

‘It’s
wrote
, actually,’ Sargood meekly corrected him.

But Gene ignored him: ‘All the times I didn’t quite get it right. All the times I maybe, just
maybe
made a wrong call in a tight corner, or went that bit too far. Like that business with Zak Benney, remember him? You
pilloried
me over that lad!’

‘Well, you did rather leave him in a state,’ Sargood said. And then, swallowing nervously, he added, ‘But maybe I was a little harsh about you.’

‘And then there was them nancy boys up from … Wiltshire, was it? And that thing with the sausages.’

‘Oh yes, the sausages!’ Sargood smiled, his face brightening at the memory. ‘I can’t forget the sausages!’

‘Neither can I, not after what you writ!’

‘Like I say, it’s
wrote,
actually.’

Sam stood back, watching. He knew nothing of Zak Benney, the Wiltshire boys, or some scandalous CID business connected with sausages – they were all presumably from before his arrival in A-Division – but what he did understand was that there was a long history between these two men … a history of bad blood, of hatchet jobs in the paper, of simmering resentment. It was no wonder that Gene expected a bomb to go off if Sargood and his fellow hacks discovered that there was a murderous past hidden in the police records that Gene himself had made no effort to unearth and avenge.

With effort, Sam insinuated himself between Gene and Sargood, pushing them apart.

‘Time out, gentlemen, let’s not get into an undignified brawl,’ he said, keeping himself between Hunt and the hack. ‘I think it’s best if you get back to your desk, Mr Sargood. Don’t you?’

‘I think you might be spot on there, DI whatever-your-name-is,’ said Sargood, picking up his trilby and beating a retreat back along the corridor. ‘It seems that right now isn’t an opportune moment for taking statements. And I think I’m just about to do a lot of toilet in myself.’ But then, from a safe distance, he called back: ‘I will not be intimidated by you, Mr Hunt! You cannot silence the voice of the free press! The pen is the sword of truth, or something like that. And truth shall always … it will always … oh dear.’

He started gingerly checking his trousers for untoward dampness. Furiously, Gene made to lunge at him. It was enough to send Sargood skittering away, barely keeping his balance as he crashed through a set of swing doors and vanished from sight.

‘I can see you and him have a colourful past,’ said Sam.

‘He’s stuck so many knives in my back you’d think I was a ruddy voodoo doll,’ growled Gene. ‘I nearly once got the sack coz of what he writ.’

‘It’s
wrote
actually, Guv.’

‘Don’t you start an’ all, Tyler.’

Sam held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. They headed off together along the corridor, each wrapped in his own thoughts. But just as they reached the exit, Sam turned to Gene.

‘I’ve just got to ask, Guv. Where did you learn about the fall of Constantinople?’

‘Sleepless nights in front of the Open University,’ Gene replied, arrogantly sparking up a cigarette. ‘If you’re gonna sit up all night, might as well improve your mind. Besides, there ain’t nowt else on at four in the morning.’ He fixed Sam with a mean look. ‘But I can guess how you
spend
your
sleepless nights, eh, five-tissue Tyler.’

Back at CID, Gene ordered his team to assemble. Annie sat behind her desk, with Sam standing next to her. Chris stood eagerly to attention, awaiting his captain’s commands. Ray lounged, smoking and chewing gum at the same time.

‘I’m convening a meeting,’ Gene announced gravely. ‘A council. A council of the utmost confidentiality. I want everyone in my office. Everyone except Bristols.’

Annie looked up angrily from her desk. Gene glowered implacably back at her and said, ‘And before you pipe up in her defence, Tyler, she’s unreliable.’

‘She’s one of the team, Guv,’ Sam declared.

‘Is that right?’ Gene said, raising his eyebrows. ‘Is that why she conducts “private investigations” behind her DCI’s back? Is that why she goes running round town talking to ex-coppers who then get bumped off? Is that why she gives me a heap of backchat and don’t tell me nowt I need to know coz it’s “personal” and sits in my ruddy motor
tooting my ruddy horn
?! Cartwright – you’re on light duties. Kettle, tea bags, fresh bottle of milk, and that floor could do with a sweep.’

Before Sam could jump to her defence, Annie slammed her hands down on her desk, got to her feet, and stormed out.

‘Leave her, Tyler!’ Gene barked. ‘Chris, Ray, get your arses in there.’

‘Aye, Guv,’ they said in unison, and disappeared into Gene’s office.

But Sam remained where he was, torn between obeying his DCI and going after Annie. Gene strode up and loomed over him.

‘I said leave her, Sam,’ he said, but his voice was lower this time, less harsh, less commanding. ‘I said it before – there’s no room for personal, not in this place.’

Sam made a move to go after Annie, but Gene caught his arm.

‘Fellas are dying,’ he hissed. ‘And I need coppers.’

Sam hesitated. Then, at last, he nodded.

‘Yes, Guv,’ he sighed.

He followed Gene into his office and positioned himself next to Chris and Ray, while Gene himself fished out a packet of fags from the heaps of junk on his desk and lit up. He drew deep, exhaled a slow cloud of smoke, and then cast his eyes over his assembled squad.

‘A sleeping dog has woken up,’ he said, ‘a sleeping dog I’d hoped would stay happily snoozing until I was retired off and drinking away me pension. A big dog, gentleman. A big, horrible bastard of a dog called Clive Gould. Ring any bells, Ray?’

Ray thought, shrugged, and shook his head.

‘Don’t ring no bells for me neither,’ piped up Chris.

‘A little before
your
time, young Christopher,’ Gene said. He drew on his cigarette again, and then went on: ‘Clive Gould was a villain, back in the sixties. He was well known in CID. He was
very
well known. He made his money in the motor trade – buying, selling, importing, all of it hooky. A lot of the lads working here made use of him, getting cars they’d never be able to afford otherwise. Harmless stuff. And Gould did well out of it, started expanding his business interests into clubs and casinos all round the city. Plenty of free drinks and birds on the lap for the boys from CID, and in return them boys turned a blind eye when he dabbled in a spot of naughtiness here and there.’

‘Naughtiness?!’ put in Sam, incredulous. ‘Guv, “naughty” is not the word for that murdering, psychopathic –’

Gene raised his hand to silence him.

‘These things always start small,’ the Guv said. ‘Favours, back-handers, a little ducking and diving that profits everyone and don’t hurt no one. You know how the world works.’

‘Yeah,’ said Chris, pulling what he thought was his wisest face.
‘I
do.’

‘But Gould was ambitious,’ Gene went on in a low voice. ‘Ambitious and ruthless. You’re right, Tyler, when you call him a psycho. He set himself up against some of the hardest bastards running the rackets in this city. And he broke ’em. He broke damn near
all
of ’em. There was fellas shot, fellas drowned, fellas found on the wrong end of a rope, fellas turning up with half their brains hanging out.’

Dredging up some old recollection from his dusty memory banks, Ray said, ‘Hang about, yeah, this is starting to sound familiar. Weren’t some bloke found nailed to a tree one time?’

Gene nodded: ‘Ruddy great six-inchers, one through his throat, one through his bollocks. And he were upside down an’ all. Just imagine that. I think Chris certainly is.’

Sam and Ray glanced across at Chris, who had gone pale green.

‘Gould had half this city sewn up,’ Gene went on. ‘And all them little favours and back-handers he was exchanging with CID had grown and grown. He was paying off dozens of coppers round here – and not just plod, but top brass too – DI’s, DCI’s, whatever it took to keep the law off his back. The pay-offs were massive. Gould was pouring money into this place – and naturally, there was no shortage of takers for it.’

‘But what’s all this got to do with us, Guv?’ asked Ray. ‘This Gould slag, he’s not around now, is he?’

‘He got too big for his boots,’ Gene said. ‘He made too many enemies. And one of them enemies caught up with him. I don’t recall the details – I’m not sure anyone does, it was all confusing – but it seems somebody got to him, some old villain he’d run out of business, most like. And that was that. Gould got zapped, the pay-offs stopped, his empire fell apart, and Manchester turned into the paradise on earth that well all know and love today.’

‘Aye,’ shrugged Ray, ‘but like I say, Guv, why are you telling us all this?’

Gene turned to Sam. ‘I’ll let you inform him, Tyler.’

Sam cleared his throat and said quietly: ‘I don’t believe Clive Gould is dead. I think he’s … he’s been away, and now he’s back. Pat Walsh and Mickey Carroll were both coppers on his payroll back in the sixties. I think Gould killed Walsh and he was trying to do the same to Carroll.’

‘Why would he kill ’em after these years?’ asked Ray.

For a moment, Sam was at a loss how to answer that. He couldn’t say the truth as he knew it: that Gould was draining them, cannibalizing them, to build himself up; that he wanted to destroy Sam and drag Annie away with him. How the hell could he say that?

But Nelson had told him that whatever cosmic events caught Sam in their orbits, they appeared here in 1973 as cases for CID. Everything found a reflection, a symbolic manifestation, in their police work – and the return of Clive Gould would be no exception.

‘I think,’ said Sam, weighing his words carefully, ‘I think that there is evidence hidden in the files here that could not only expose Gould’s death as faked, but could be used to put him away for the rest of his life. I think he’s afraid that certain coppers who used to be on his payroll are prepared to blow the gaff on him – and in turn, he’s prepared to risk everything to silence them.’