No Going Back (21 page)

‘Come in, then. How's Taz?'

‘He's doing well, thank you. He's still at the vet's under observation because of his head injury, but he should be able to come home tomorrow, all being well.' Daniel shut the door behind him and followed Meg down the hallway towards the kitchen, where an ageing black cocker spaniel lay across the doorway. It raised its grey eyebrows enquiringly but made no move to vacate its position. Meg stepped over it without breaking step, but Daniel hesitated.

‘Oh, I'm sorry about Mosely. It's his favourite place to sleep. I think it's because he can see all the comings and goings from there. He's a bit deaf, you see. Just step over him, he won't mind.'

The kitchen wasn't particularly large but was fitted out with cream-painted cupboards that stretched from the floor almost to the lofty ceiling. Worktops were of stained timber, the sink an old-style Belfast one, and a bottle-green Rayburn held pride of place under a brick arch on one wall. Fred stood in front of this, stirring the ingredients of a large stockpot with a wooden spoon; the combination of a blue and white striped apron, earring and razor-cut hair giving him a strangely Gallic look. An enticing aroma of curry pervaded the air.

‘Hi, Daniel. How's Taz?' Fred said, looking over his shoulder.

Daniel repeated his report.

‘That's good news. But what about you? You look a bit rough yourself.' He pointed the spoon at Daniel's bandaged hand. ‘Was that from last night too?'

‘Yeah, but it's nothing much. Listen, thanks for standing in for me today; that was a great relief.'

Fred slanted a look at him. ‘I didn't think you'd turn up anyway with your partner at death's door, so to speak. I was just getting in first, keeping the illusion of authority.'

‘Well, no, I wouldn't have,' Daniel admitted, noting Bowden's use of the word ‘partner'. ‘But thanks anyway.'

‘Well, the rice is about ready,' Fred said, lifting the lid on another saucepan. ‘Where's Tom got to, I wonder?'

‘I'll lay the table. I'm sure he'll be here in a minute. He said he'd be finishing work at six when I spoke to him earlier, so unless something's come up . . .'

Daniel had no idea who the absent Tom was but supposed he would find out shortly. He wasn't left in the dark for long.

‘Would you like a beer, Daniel?' Fred asked, going to the fridge as Meg disappeared with a handful of cutlery. ‘Tom's our eldest son. We don't see him very often, but he pops in now and then for a spot of good home cooking.'

‘Oh, then you'd probably rather I wasn't here. Thanks,' he added, accepting a bottle of real ale.

‘No, you're all right. I budgeted for the both of you. Do you need a glass with that?'

‘Of course he does!' Meg came back in. ‘Don't be such a philistine. And take the top off for him too. He can't do it with a bad hand.'

Daniel's protests were interrupted by the sound of a key turning in the front door.

‘Ah, there he is,' Meg announced.

Moments later there was a rush of cold air and a man's deep voice called out in greeting.

Daniel shifted his position so he could get a good look at the newcomer's approach, and saw a well-built man, perhaps a few years older than himself, with very short, greying brown hair. There would have been no doubting his relationship to Fred, even if Daniel hadn't been told. Apart from being slightly taller, he was a carbon copy of his father, with the same intrinsic toughness that needed no attitude to back it up. Here was a man you just knew you shouldn't mess with.

Before Tom even reached the kitchen, greeting the dog and then stepping over it as a matter of course, as his mother had, Daniel had readjusted his mindset towards the rest of the evening. Unless he was very much mistaken, Fred Bowden's son was a police officer.

At least that explained the sudden and unheralded dinner invitation, Daniel thought as introductions were made. He was pleased to have solved that mystery. Even with the edited version of events that Daniel had given him, Fred had apparently decided that enough was enough.

On the face of it, Tom Bowden could be a godsend, especially if he was senior enough to have any clout in whichever station he hailed from, but one major hurdle remained: how would he react when he pulled Daniel's record at the Bristol Met?

‘You go on in with your beers. I'm just going to put some veg on,' Meg said, shepherding them all towards the door. ‘I can't work round you lot. This kitchen isn't big enough.'

Obediently the three men moved into the dining room, another high-ceilinged room, this time decorated with a theme of deep red and gold and dominated by a big, dark oak table with a gothic candelabra as its centrepiece. Daniel fancied he could see Meg's hand at work in the slightly Bohemian décor.

As he followed the others, Daniel allowed himself a secret smile, suspecting that this was to be the moment for the unveiling. Some perverse facet of his nature prompted him to take the initiative and let Tom know he was rumbled.

‘So, which station are you from?' he asked casually, as if the subject had already been broached.

There was a noticeable pause and then Tom looked at his father. ‘You've told him?'

‘I haven't said a word,' Fred replied. ‘He didn't even know you were coming until five minutes ago. It must've been your big flat feet that gave the game away.'

Tom held out his hand towards Daniel. ‘DS Tom Bowden, Molton CID. How did you guess?'

Daniel shook the hand, shrugging. ‘I don't know, really. Just knew.'

‘Well, I can't say you've done wonders for my undercover confidence,' Tom remarked ruefully. ‘And you are former PC Daniel Whelan of the Bristol Met and more recently of Taunton nick, but I can't claim any great intuition, just plain old-fashioned record-checking.'

It was Daniel's turn to look at Fred.

‘I'm sensing a set-up, here. How long have you known?'

‘Since the start, when you turned up for the job. You didn't really think I took your rather vague CV at face value, did you?'

‘I did think you were a bit casual,' Daniel admitted.

‘I asked Tom to check you out. I've had a couple of bad experiences with drivers in the past, so I don't take any chances these days. Can't afford to.'

‘In that case – if Tom did his homework properly – I'm surprised you took me on.'

‘Well, I don't pretend to know exactly what went on at the Met,' Tom said. ‘In general, your ex-colleagues weren't over keen to talk. But I didn't find anything that made you a risk as a potential employee for Dad. Did I miss something?'

Daniel smiled faintly. ‘Would I tell you if you had?'

Tom took a couple of swallows of his beer. ‘I did speak to DCI Paxton,' he said then.

‘And . . . ?' Daniel said warily.

‘He said you and he hadn't always seen eye to eye but he had no complaints. Without giving details, he implied that you'd had something of a nervous breakdown and that your colleagues had lost confidence in you. He said that that was why he'd assigned you a temporary desk job. He seemed genuinely disappointed that you'd decided to call it a day.'

‘Yeah, that'd be right!'

‘I don't know of anything against Paxton and he's got a bloody good record for getting the job done,' Tom stated calmly, walking round the dining table and sitting in one of the chairs on the other side. ‘But personally, I don't like the man and I don't trust him any further than I could spit him.'

Daniel glanced across, a glimmer of hope in his heart for the first time in a long while.

‘So, do you want to tell us your side of the story?' Tom invited, waving a hand at the chair opposite.

Scanning the man's face, Daniel could see nothing except an apparent honest interest, and found that he did very much want to set the record straight, if only to this limited audience.

He stepped forward and pulled out a chair to sit on, standing his beer on a mat on the table.

‘It started a couple of years ago, when I was still in the Dog Unit,' he said, staring at the beer glass, which he was turning with his fingers. ‘There was a major drugs bust going down at a warehouse on the waterfront – it was the culmination of a big operation – and they wanted a couple of dogs on standby just in case anyone slipped the net.'

He glanced at Tom, who nodded. It was a normal precaution.

‘So I was there with Taz, and as it happened, we
were
called in. It seems there was a tip-off at the last minute and before the lads could even take up their positions the suspects were legging it in all directions. It was chaos. Taz and I were in one of the squad cars tailing two of the main suspects who'd made off in a vehicle. Anyway, they crashed a couple of miles down the road, split up and made a run for it. The lads caught one of them pretty quickly, but the other one had it away on foot across country, carrying a rucksack. The chopper was tied up helping the boys on the ground locate a couple of runners back at the waterfront, so we were on. Taz picked up a good scent and set off at a hell of a lick – completely ran the legs off the sarge who was following me.' Daniel paused reflectively. ‘Mind you, he was pretty soft – been sitting behind the wheel too long.

‘Anyway, we'd been tracking the suspect for a couple of miles when Taz suddenly stopped – bang – and did a ninety-degree left. Our runner had realized we were getting close and ditched the rucksack. He'd lobbed it into the bushes and that's what Taz had found. Once I realized what had happened, I put him back on the scent and we found matey up a tree, a hundred yards or so further on. I radioed my position, but he was so scared of the dog he refused to come down until back-up arrived, so I was able to leave the formalities to them. All in all, in spite of the tip-off, the waterfront operation had been a huge success and everyone was on a high. Much back-patting all round.' He paused and looked up to find Tom watching him closely.

‘And?'

‘Well, I took a quick look in that rucksack when I pulled it out of the undergrowth, and I'd say there was easily a couple of kilos of smack inside. The thing is, I found out later that when it was checked in at the station, there was only a fraction of that.'

Tom's brows drew down. ‘You couldn't have been mistaken? Are you sure there wasn't anything else in the rucksack that could have made it feel heavier?'

‘Nothing,' Daniel stated with absolute conviction. ‘Somewhere between the collar and the evidence room, the major part of the haul went walkies.'

‘And did you have any idea who might have taken it?' That was Fred.

Daniel shook his head. ‘It could have been any one of a number of people. My shift was already over, and as I didn't actually make the arrest, I didn't go back to the station – just picked up my car and went home.'

‘And you think it was one of your colleagues?' Fred again.

‘It had to be, unless someone was criminally careless.'

‘I'm afraid it's not unheard of,' Tom told his father. ‘Officers supplementing their income with a bit of, shall we say, recycling?'

‘You mean they sell it back to the dealers?'

‘Yeah, or wherever,' he confirmed resignedly. ‘They're not short of contacts.'

‘They're no better than the dealers they're arresting,' Daniel said bitterly. ‘Worse, really. Hiding behind their badges. One thing's for sure – someone made a pretty penny. The smack that did make it back was a hundred per cent pure. The jokers at the warehouse would have cut it and sold it on to the dealers.'

‘Cut it?' Fred asked.

‘Yeah, mixed it with something else to bulk it out.'

‘What do they mix it with?' he wanted to know, and Tom answered.

‘Powdered milk, sugar, baking soda, soap powder, talc, sink cleaners, detergent – you name it, basically. Any white powder; they aren't bothered. There was a case, years ago, where the Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards almost died when someone cut his dope with strychnine.'

‘Strychnine?' Fred was horrified. ‘But that's a poison!'

‘So is heroin,' Tom said grimly. ‘But you wouldn't really want to inject
any
of those fillers into your bloodstream. They'll probably all kill you in the end if the heroin doesn't.'

Fred Bowden shook his head in disgust. ‘And the cops are selling it back to the dealers,' he said. ‘Christ! These are the people we pay to uphold the law.'

‘So, what did you do about it?' Tom asked Daniel, coming back to the main thrust of the tale.

‘I looked up my old sergeant, Sid Dyer, and had a word with him. He's not at the Met any more – he's community liaison officer for another nick – but I called him up and we went out for a drink. He was my mentor when I joined up. I was just eighteen then. He took me in hand and I thought the sun shone out of his arse.'

‘And what did he say?'

‘He basically advised me to look the other way. “Don't rock the boat. Nobody'll thank you for it,” he said. “All you'll do is make trouble for yourself.” I wasn't completely surprised, but I'll admit I was a bit disappointed. You see, when I'd worked with him, Sid had always been so straight, so principled. I hadn't seen him for a while and he'd changed. It was like life and the job had finally worn him down. He seemed tired, more cynical. He told me he was looking forward to his retirement.'

‘I take it you didn't follow his advice,' Fred observed.

‘I should've,' Daniel replied with feeling. ‘I did think about it. Perhaps if I had, I'd still have a marriage, a career and a pension to look forward to. But I couldn't get away from the fact that keeping quiet would make me just as guilty as they were. I mean, it wasn't just a spot of petty pilfering. Heroin ruins lives – not just the users' but their families', and the lives of the people they mug and steal from in order to feed their habit. One of the rehab support workers I know calls it “powdered misery”.' He looked at Tom, hoping he understood. ‘I didn't
want
to get involved, but I felt I couldn't go on doing my job if I didn't. I just wished to God I'd never found out.'