No Questions Asked (13 page)

Martha had started an e-petition campaigning for the government to reverse its policy on the European bill to combat paedophilia and child pornography and sign the UK up to the legislation.

‘Our total as of this morning is 29, 928’ Ashley pronounced proudly. ‘Plus whatever you made from the street stall you had in the constituency on Saturday morning’.

‘That’s not that great, is it?’ said Martha. ‘I mean are people so consumed with their anti Europeanism that they’re prepared to sacrifice legislation to protect children from paedophiles?’

‘It would seem so, yes’ said Ashley. ‘But it’s only been going for a week and the facebook page which only got going last Friday has already got 7,000 likes. So let’s not be despondent. We’ve still got a month to go before the final meeting in Brussels where this could be implemented or not’.

‘Well I want this to be emphasized all the time until then, Ashley’ said Martha. ‘I couldn’t care less about the politics. I just want to do right by those kids’.

‘Well you’ve got appearances on Good Morning Britain and BBC Breakfast to use to get the message across’ said Ashley. ‘That should be worth something’.

Ashley went through the rest of Martha’s diary for the week with her including all the speeches she had to make and the meetings she had to go, her trip to Bristol on Wednesday to speak to the police chief constables annual meeting and have a working lunch with them afterwards. He also went through that week’s upcoming home office questions and what were likely to be the topics, including the continuing controversy over the government’s refusal to sign up to the European anti-slavery legislation. Then they went through the day’s mail and what had come through over the weekend and by the time they were done a couple more letters had arrived. As he opened the first one Ashley remarked on the Bradley Thompson murder case that he’d read about online from one of the Manchester newspaper sites.

‘Isn’t it a little bizarre that they’ve charged someone and are holding him but now they’re staging a re-construction?’

‘Apparently they’ve got a lot of circumstantial evidence against the suspect Gary Mitchell but they want witnesses and can’t believe that on a Sunday lunchtime in a built up area nobody saw anything’.

‘It’s right on the border of your constituency of course’.

‘I know’ said Martha. ‘I feel so sorry for his mother. If it was my son … well I don’t want to even think about it’.

‘And she’s been picked on unmercifully because she’s a single Mum who worked in a lap dancing club’.

‘Oh if she’d been part of a professional, middle class, attractive and articulate couple she’d be swamped with everyone’s sympathy. But because she’s got nobody to stand up for her then she’s attacked as if it was all her fault. It bloody annoys me. Our society has still got so much growing up to do’.

‘Bring back hanging for child murderers?’

Martha took a deep breath. ‘You know I don’t believe in capital punishment under any circumstances, Ashley’.

‘It would be very popular with the public’.

‘And in the cases of child murder I understand the sentiment but sometimes it’s up to politicians to lead public opinion and not just follow it for electoral gain. That’s what completely devalues our principles. Anyway, you’re even more against capital punishment than me’.

Ashley smiled. ‘I know. I was goading you’.

‘I know you were’.

‘Wait a minute … what the hell is this?’ Ashley held up the inside of one of the letters he’d opened which was pretty sinister in its nature. The letters of each word had been cut out of newspapers and magazines and they read …

… LEAVE IT ALL ALONE …   

‘Oh my God’ said Martha. ‘We’ll need to get it to the police straight away but does this mean they’ve got a serial killer on the loose? This is because of the petition. I’ve rattled someone, Ashley. Christ, I just hope I haven’t pushed them into making a victim of another child just to stick two fingers up at what we’re trying to do’.

EIGHT

Brett Collins was not looking a very pretty sight when Adrian and Joe turned up to see him in hospital. Apart from being hooked up to a drip he couldn’t open one of his eyes and his face was barely visible through the evidence of the obvious pounding he’d taken.

‘Jesus, Brett’ said Adrian ‘Couldn’t you have just gone in for plastic surgery?’

‘The doctor says you’re lucky to be still with us, Brett’ said Joe. ‘What with the broken ribs and all the internal bleeding that they only just managed to contain’.

‘Well if you’ve got a point to make then go with it’ Brett said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. ‘I’m not feeling my best’.

‘Who did this to you, Brett?’ Adrian wanted to know. The man was clearly struggling to speak but they needed to know. ‘Who took you to the edge of death?’

‘I fell’.

‘Yeah of course you did’ said Adrian. ‘We received a call to say that you were in here. The caller wanted to remain anonymous. Now that suggests to us Brett that this was linked to criminal activity and we want to know about it. We want to know about all of it, Brett’.

‘I’ve told you what happened’.

‘Yes and our sides are bloody splitting’ said Joe. He was tempted to apply physical pressure on Collins where he knew it would really hurt him. But then he stopped himself. Could he really be thinking like this? Was he really the same sort of savage who did all this to Collins? 

‘We’ve got a good idea who did this to you’ said Adrian, standing on the other side of the bed from Joe with his arms folded across his chest. ‘All we need you to do is confirm our suspicions’.

‘Nothing gets past you two’.

‘Yes well it’s a habit we both displayed at police training college’ said Joe sardonically. ‘Everything else we’ve just filled in along the way which is all very interesting but we need to hear from your lips, Collins, who tried to mash you as if you were a spud. So why don’t you let us get on with our day and we’ll let you get on with yours’.

‘It’s not as if you’re going anywhere though is it?’ Adrian added. ‘So you can just get back to relaxing and enjoying the painkillers’.

‘You two have no bloody idea’.

‘So why don’t you tell us? Is it because they’ll be back to finish the job if you do? We can protect you, Collins. We can make sure you’re not got at again but you need to meet us halfway and tell us what we need to know’.    

Adrian’s mobile rang and when he looked at the caller id display he saw that it was his girlfriend Kate. He shouldn’t do but he excused himself and left the room leaving Joe to deal with the hapless Collins alone. Joe looked down at the useless waste of space and oxygen and wondered how he was possibly expected to have any respect for someone like him who followed in that great tradition of tiny little stupid beggars who thought they were big men with a wide view of all the stuff around them that they thought they controlled. But they were the puppets. They were never the puppeteers. They were the ones who moved whenever their strings were pulled and yet they portrayed to the world that they were the force to be reckoned with. They were pathetic. Collins was pathetic. They didn’t deserve the Joe who’d grown so much as an officer in DCI Sara Hoyland’s team. They didn’t deserve the Joe who’d almost died at the hands of gunmen who were supposedly the bad guys but who’d turned out to be the good guys. They didn’t deserve the Joe who was so anxious to make the right impression on his new team with DSI Jeff Barton. This was someone who could deliver results for Joe’s new team. His revelations could help Joe slide into his new team without having to worry about what people thought about his effectiveness as a police officer. He could help Joe feel like he was better than those who’d almost succeeded in slaying him. 

He reached out randomly and connected one hand over Collins mouth and he pressed the other into the side of his torso. Collins head immediately jerked back. The pain was written right the way across his face and Joe could see tears coming out of his eyes. The readers on the machine he was strapped up to began to flicker quite wildly too and Joe knew he wouldn’t have much time before medical staff came flooding in. He leaned forward and spoke in a loud whisper of a voice.

‘Connelly did this to you, didn’t he?’

Collins shook his head from side to side. Joe pressed deeper into the side of his torso and had to hold his hand down more firmly over Collins mouth to stifle the scream of pain.

‘Didn’t he?’

Collins nodded his head and with his one open eye looked pleadingly at Joe.

‘And did he deal with Terry Latham?’

Collins couldn’t help but show a flash of recognition in his eye when Latham’s name was mentioned.

‘Did he have him done over and murdered?’

Collins nodded his head and Joe took his hands away and leaned back up straight. He knew enough about the machines to see that Collins heart beat had become rapid so to cover himself he called for the medical staff who were already on their way and came sweeping in.

Joe left them to it and stepped back quietly out of the room.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Adrian when he saw the commotion.

‘Collins talked and I think it must’ve all got too much for him’ said Joe without looking Adrian in the eye.

‘What do you mean he talked?’

‘I mean cloth head that he told me that his boss Connelly had ordered his bashing and that Connelly had also been behind what happened to Terry Latham. Now I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to work out that if Connelly knows he was Bradley’s father then he’ll be out for revenge. He’s the sort who believes in an eye for an eye with no questions asked’.

Adrian rang the information in to DS Ollie Wright and suggested that all the paedophiles in the Greater Manchester area were checked out, especially the ones who Latham had been counseling because if he’d been able to find him then he probably had information on the others who were known to him.

‘Looks like I got that call just at the wrong time’ said Adrian after he ended the call to Ollie Wright. ‘I missed all the fun’.

‘It doesn’t look too funny at the moment’ said Joe.

‘No’ said Adrian, curiously.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing’ said Adrian who didn’t want to go where his thoughts were taking him. Joe had certainly developed a side to him since he was near fatally wounded in a previous case but could he be capable of doing what Adrian feared he had done?

John Squires wasn’t questioning anything about his new association with Bernie Connelly. Part of the deal was that he’d killed someone. It wasn’t the first time although admittedly when he’d done it before it was back in Rhodesia and there was a civil war going on with the black majority. He’d had no sleepless nights then and he’d had none since he’d dispatched Terry Latham into judgment day. He knew that Connelly had set him up to get his hands dirty and prove his loyalty to him. But John already had dirt and blood on his hands and he wasn’t sure if Connelly knew that. Still, getting rid of the likes of Terry Latham had been the right thing to do. Filthy perverted scum like him didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as ordinary, decent people. That’s where he and Connelly came together. Police and other law enforcement agencies had lost the battle when it came to law and order. Only people like Connelly who’d naturally inherited the same sense of justice as the Kray twins and that played well with the man and woman on the street. They’d had enough of excuses being thrown out for perverts. They wanted them dealt with and they wanted no more ‘understanding’. Kill them. Get them away from all the kids they could do so much harm to. It was time to take back control and nobody except middle class do-gooders who wouldn’t know justice if they ran over it would disagree with that. 

He put his head round the door of Connelly’s office at his Knutsford, Cheshire home. ‘If it’s okay with you, boss, I’ll be getting off home’ he said. It was just after eight o’clock in the evening and he’d first got there at seven-thirty that morning. Connelly had managed to ‘obtain’ the list of paedophiles who Terry Latham had been counseling and it had been John’s job to go to each of the eleven addresses to check it out. Connelly was planning to abduct them all and get to the truth about what happened to Bradley Thompson but these things needed to be carefully planned and that meant sending someone out to check the place out and the surrounding area. These perverts tended to live fairly secretive lives for fear of being discovered. They didn’t make any friends. They kept themselves to themselves. They scuttled around like mice across a polished floor and tried to make sure that nobody took too much notice of them. The only people they could feel confident of making friends with were amongst their own perverted kind. ‘If there’s nothing else you need me for?’

Connelly had pushed his chair back and had his feet resting on his desk. He was making his way through his second large scotch of the evening and had a thick Havana cigar on the go too.

‘Will you join me in one of these, John?’ said Connelly, holding up his glass.

John didn’t think that Connelly was someone you should ever say no to, however matey he might come across, so he accepted.  He sat down and watched Connelly pour him a scotch. John was desperate to get home to his dear wife Antonia. Dear, sweet Antonia who’d probably had to put up with more from him over the years than she should’ve done and yet she still stood by him with such loyalty. He dreaded to think what she’d say if she knew what he was getting up to these days with Connelly.