Horse's Arse (3 page)

    'Old
Bill,' he said grimly as he heard the approaching sirens. 'Time to go. You two
fuck off quickly. I'll be in touch.' He hurried back into the pub and headed
for the cabinet to finish stuffing packets of cigarettes into his jacket pockets,
followed closely by the female gang member. As he passed the unconscious
manager he kicked his head contemptuously and smiled. The thug who had felled
the manager with the vodka bottle was standing alongside his prostrate body
still holding the broken neck of the bottle. He grinned at his leader's gesture
of contempt and then quickly crouched down and stabbed the jagged edge into the
back of the manager's head. He looked up at his leader for a sign of approval,
only to be disappointed to see complete indifference at his act of deference.
Shrugging, and throwing the bloodied bottle neck to one side, he too began to
beat a hasty retreat.

    The
gang had waited too long. As the leader returned to the front door and peered
out into the darkened car park, a police car and van careered to a halt
outside.

    'Fuck
it, out of the toilet windows,' he shouted and led the charge away from the
door. At the toilet door a panicked bottleneck ensued, while the front doors to
the pub crashed open and two extremely large policemen carrying truncheons
burst in and quickly appraised the scene of devastation before them. Others
rushed in behind them, and then the whole group noticed the trapped gang and
charged at them in their bottleneck. Some of the gang, including the leader and
the girl, made it through the small window in the toilet, but for the remaining
eight only a fearful beating at the hands of the police remained an option.
They knew it, and once escape was no longer viable they turned to fight like
cornered rats. They were no match for the superior numbers ranged against them,
all of whom had had a good drink too, and were soon hammered into submission
and arrested. Some rudimentary first aid saved the relief manager's life and he
was eventually removed to the intensive care unit at the local hospital with
severe head injuries. One of the more sober police officers was despatched with
him on a deathwatch.

    The
eight prisoners were dragged to police vehicles where further summary justice was
administered before they were taken to the police station for processing. The
dice had been rolled and the game was on.

    Six
a.m. the following morning. A freezing cold January morning. It was still dark
and pissing down. The Night Turn had been busy: the cells were full and the atmosphere
in the nick matched the weather.

    'D'
Relief had arrived in silent dribs and drabs with the air of condemned men.
Wordlessly they had changed into uniform and now sat in the muster room waiting
to hear what the coming day held for them. No one spoke.

    It
was the first day at Handstead for one of 'D' Relief's sergeants, Mick Jones,
recently arrived after a spot of bother with the wife of a fellow officer at an
outlying rural nick. He was terrified and it showed. He had stood nervously,
shifting from foot to foot behind a lectern as the Early Turn officers had
silently filed in and taken their seats. He was sure that one large, unshaven,
dark-haired officer with bloodshot eyes had passed him, turned slowly to look
at him and revealed a set of vampire's teeth - he may even have hissed at him -
but it could have been a trick of the light. He hadn't slept for days before
coming to Handstead. Colleagues at his previous nick had tried to console him
when news of his enforced move had come through, but, as one by one they'd
crossed themselves and promised to light a candle for him, he knew he was
doomed. Not only was he now at Horse's Arse, but he was on 'D' Relief. Rumour
had it that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had declined moves to 'D' Relief.

    Pop-eyed,
he looked at his audience and they glared back at him.

    'Morning,
everyone,' he said. He actually squeaked, his throat was so dry, so he coughed
loudly and tried again.

    'Morning.
I'm Sergeant Mick Jones. Spot of bother at Alpha Sierra, so here I am.' He
laughed nervously, and on his own. In reply the vampire sitting in the front
row leant to one side, removed his teeth and farted loudly.

    'Jesus
Christ,' Jones said quietly to himself and looked desperately to the door where
Inspector Greaves, 'D' Relief's 'leader', stood looking out of the window. He
was off with the fairies and Jones was on his own. Greaves was wearing a pair
of carpet slippers, which he had walked to work in, and he now stood in an
ever-increasing puddle. He was unshaven and saw nothing as he stared out of the
window. Eighteen months at Handstead on 'D' Relief had broken him.

    The
vampire, 28-year-old Sean 'Psycho' Pearce; turned to the officer next to him
and said in a stage whisper, 'Who's this knob?' Jones heard him and shrank
further into himself. He forced himself to look at the officers ranged in front
of him and quickly wished he hadn't. They continued to glare at him.

    Sitting
at the back were the Grim Brothers, who would not have looked out of place in
the front seat of a hearse. Indeed, neither would have looked odd in the coffin
in the back. They crewed the area car, call sign Bravo Two Yankee One, and were
a cold, brooding pair with a reputation for violence that kept them apart from
the rest of the group. They worked and drank together, kept watch for each
other, and according to Psycho Sean had probably been separated at their birth
to a Rampton inmate. Jim Docherty was a dour, pale-faced Geordie in his early
thirties with breath that could strip wallpaper. He loved his job, which he saw
as a very simple one. Arrest villains, fit them up if necessary, kick the shit
out of them - job well done. His partner in crime, Henry Walsh, took a similar
line and between them they had established a reputation in the town as a pair
of unscrupulous hard bastards. The locals hated them, and whilst their
colleagues regarded them warily, their arrival at a pub fight was always as
welcome as the appearance of the Seventh Cavalry. Unfortunately, their arrival
at non-violent situations had a habit of shortly preceding a fistfight. Henry,
known simply as H, had joined the Force straight from school and could never be
described as the stereotypical copper. School had been a prep school in Kent
followed by a minor public school in Devon, which he had left with a
rudimentary education, a raging thirst and a desire to experience life outside
a secluded valley. The son of a naval officer who had served around the world,
Henry had been at boarding school from the age of eight, rarely seeing his
parents or younger brothers. He was fiercely independent and emotionally
retarded, but soon found the job he had been born to do. He revelled in the
macho world of the police and discovered that being born with fists like
granite gave him a distinct advantage. He was also marked out from the rest by
his less hirsute approach to personal grooming. Whilst his colleagues,
including Jim, favoured a collar-length, over-the-ears style with full
sideburns, H preferred his blond hair cut in a tight flat top — a style
achieved in a local knife and fork establishment to the accompaniment of
'Something for the weekend, sir?'. He enjoyed the comparisons, often made, to a
German Panzer tank commander.

    The Grim
Brothers had made Bravo Two Yankee One theirs and no supervisor had ever been
inclined to separate them. Many took the view that with them working together
at least trouble was confined to one job at a time. Now the pair looked at
Jones and then at each other.

    'Complete
twat,' said Jim and H nodded in agreement. They always agreed.

    The
officer to whom Psycho Sean had offered his opinion of Jones was Dave 'Bovril'
Baines. Bovril had gained his unusual nickname after a drunken coupling with a
nurse at the local hospital. After several hours of frenzied activity the
unfortunate woman's nether regions had become dry, and in an attempt to avoid
serious injury she had asked Baines to use some lubricating jelly from a jar on
a shelf above her bed. He had grabbed a jar, smeared a huge handful of its
contents into her crutch and got stuck in again. Her screams had chilled his
blood, as had the horrendous brown stains on both their bodies and the bedding.
The discarded Bovril jar on the floor calmed him somewhat before he beat a
hasty retreat leaving her dousing herself at the sink. He had related the tale
to the rest of the group later and was quickly saddled with a nickname that
would stay with him for the rest of his life. Even his mother now referred to
him as Bovril, but innocently assumed that it was as a result of his childhood
addiction to the stuff.

    Bovril
didn't respond to Psycho's observation, but privately agreed with him. A
formidable shagger, he drew the line at going after colleagues' partners, but
had a rendezvous planned for that morning with the girlfriend of a greengrocer
who left for work shortly after 6.30 a.m. As soon as this pointless muster was
over he would be on his way. He worked as hard as he had to, but he really had
only one interest in life: sex, and lots of it. A previous supervisor had once
memorably remarked that it was a shame he was such a lazy bastard. If he'd been
able to get up in time he'd have shagged the crack of dawn. Even at this
ungodly hour Bovril was thinking about sex. He cast a glance behind him at
Amanda Wheeler, known as the Blood Blister, 'D' Relief's only WPC, briefly
considered having a crack at her later, thought better of it and went back to
sleep.

    Amanda
Wheeler had seen Bovril leering at her and wondered if her hour had come. Every
fibre of her fifteen-stone body yearned for him. The red, bloated face that had
earned her the nickname - often shortened to just the Blister - glowed more
than usual as she lusted after him. She'd previously made him an offer at a
party he all too easily refused.

    'I'll
need a couple more gallons and a lobotomy,' Bovril had gallantly told her.
Despite the rebuff, the Blister was still very much in love with him. A veteran
of the old Womens' Police Department that had dealt with female prisoners and
juveniles between office hours, the Blister found her new role an onerous one.
She was vehemently opposed to the Equal Opportunities gurus who had got her
into this mess and longed to turn the clock back to when she was the secret
other half of a detective inspector who kept her on her back and in the dry.
Now the Blister sighed deeply and took another long drag on her cigarette,
drawing the smoke deep into her ruined lungs.

    She
blew the smoke vacantly at the neck of the officer sitting in front of her. He
had a large spot forming in his hairline and was rubbing it with his fingers.
Alan 'Pizza Face' Petty was covered in spots and one more would make no
difference to the stick he got on a regular basis. Each new arrival on his body
was a fresh worry for him to pick and scratch at. With only three months in the
job he was the butt of every practical joke and was little more than an errand
and tea boy. He'd not been allowed out in the cars yet and spent his days
wandering aimlessly around the depressing pedestrianised town centre taking
regular calls to deal with shoplifters at the only supermarket. The other
officers in the group generally ignored him. Recently turned nineteen he was no
match for them and could feel himself unravelling.

    He
lived in horrendous lodgings in the town with an old puff adder of a landlady.
She was unprepared for a lodger who worked shifts and the only meals she served
were breakfast, lunch and dinner. Too bad if he was working nights. He'd
considered moving into the local YMCA hostel, but H had convinced him he'd be
raped by the legions of homosexuals that inhabited the place. He'd lost a stone
in weight since joining and his physical and mental deterioration was becoming
a real worry to his doting parents. When he'd gone home for a weekend, haggard
and hungover following a 'D' Relief invasion of Calais, his reaction of 'What
the fuck is that?' to the lovingly prepared Sunday lunch had his mother in an
apoplectic fit. Only his heart-rending apologies had persuaded his father not
to phone the station to complain about his son's rapid descent into moral hell.
He sat there totally alone amongst the group.

    Next
to him was Ray 'Piggy' Malone, so called because of his uncanny resemblance to
a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig. He crewed one of the beat vehicles with whoever
happened to be spare. Piggy had the gait of primitive man and with his ever-
open mouth and a forehead that protruded far enough to keep his feet dry had
convinced his colleagues that he was the missing link. He spent large periods
of the year off sick with a bewildering array of illnesses and injuries, all of
which he managed to obtain doctors' certificates for. Never one to miss an
opportunity, he had plunged down flights of stairs in sudden power cuts,
slipped on wet floors and been deeply affected by the carnage at road
accidents. He had let it be known that he had instructed his wife to arrange
for him to be deposited in the back yard of the nick in the event of his
passing away at home. This would ensure that his demise would be recorded as
happening on duty, thus ensuring a huge payout. The fact that he personally
wouldn't benefit had apparently not occurred to him — but then he was extremely
thick.