Storms (7 page)

‘Well I’m thinking about knocking all that on the head’ said Annabel.

‘What? Dermot?’

‘Yeah’.

‘Why?’

‘Because his wife is a psycho and would probably beat me up if she found out’.

‘You mean someone as good looking as Dermot would have a wife like that?’

‘You do recognise that he’s good looking then?’ said Annabel sensing a way through the armour around Tim’s senses.

‘Even other men would see that Dermot had a sexiness about him, Annabel’.

‘Interesting’ said Annabel who still didn’t know if she was any the wiser about what made Tim tick in the groin department. ‘But back to Dermot. I’d be cutting my nose off to spite my face if I did finish with him because he’s got such stamina and we have the most fantastic sex’.

‘He looks like he would be strong in that department’.

‘There you go again’.

‘What?’

‘Telling me a little and then no more’.

‘We’re all a puzzle though aren’t we?’

‘Well I’m not’ said Annabel. ‘Not where my sexuality is concerned’.

‘And you think I am when it comes to that?’

‘I don’t know what to think about you, Tim’.

Just at that moment when Tim was wondering what he could say next to continue confusing her, she got a text from Dermot saying he was going to be free all day on Saturday and asking if they could they get together. She told Tim about it.

‘But I can’t’ she said with a long face.

‘Why not?’

‘Because of Kyle’.

‘Well I’ll take care of Kyle’ Tim offered.

‘Really?’

‘Sure’ Tim confirmed. ‘He has met me before’.

‘Yes and he liked you’.

‘Well he’s a nice lad and a credit to you’ said Tim. ‘I could take him to the pleasure beach whilst you’re creating your own pleasure beach at home’.

‘Are you sure? Fourteen year old lads can be difficult. I mean I’m lucky with Kyle because he’s basically a good lad but he’s shy, Tim. He doesn’t open up easily to people which was why I was pleasantly surprised when he opened up so easily to you’.

‘Perhaps I’ve just got the touch’.

‘Perhaps you should’ve been a Dad’.

‘Oh I don’t know about that’ said Tim. ‘I’ve got to grow up a lot myself before I could even consider that. But look, Kyle and I will be fine. You can have your good time and I’ll make sure Kyle has a day to remember’.

‘I can’t believe you’re willing to do this for me’ said Annabel who was close to tears. Not even her own family, such as it was, had offered her any help with Kyle since Clive left them. ‘You’re such a nice man, Tim’.

‘Hey’ said Tim. ‘It’s what friends are for’. 

Chief Superintendent Geraldine Chambers had a soft spot for Jeff Barton. He was the kind of man she hoped her own son would grow up to be. He was every inch the man but he was modern and full of the values of today. He was sensitive. He gave more than just a passing thought for the welfare of his team and Geraldine liked that. He was the modern kind of police officer. He was himself but with a warrant card. Her son had been on her mind a lot lately. There wasn’t much chance of him growing up to be as open minded as Jeff judging by how much poison his father had poured into his head about Geraldine. She’d never wanted to hurt her ex-husband. That had been the very last thing she would ever have wanted. But he considered the fact that she’d left him for another woman to be a sin that was not worthy of his forgiveness. If he knew the kind of problems she was now having with her partner Sheila it might please him in some way that she was suffering. But you can’t go crawling back to someone you’ve hurt and expect them to offer you sympathy and support because the one you left them for gets a bit too handy with her fists.        

‘Jeff, I think you already know Detective Chief Inspector Mike Phillips who heads up the unit dealing with gang crime in the city’ said Geraldine once Jeff had joined her and Mike in Geraldine’s office. ‘Please take a seat, gentlemen’.

Jeff and Mike shook each other’s hands in that very alpha male way when two officers meet. To reflect Jeff’s higher rank Mike addressed him initially as ‘sir’ but Jeff told him to dispense with formalities.

‘I don’t need to tell you Jeff that we have a situation to deal with in relation to PC Tyler Moore’ Geraldine went on. ‘And it needs to be dealt with fast’.

‘Mike, just how did you come to place a rookie PC in the middle of a potentially very dangerous undercover operation?’

Mike noted the slight rebuke in Jeff’s voice but he’d been prepared for it. Looking back it maybe wasn’t his best decision to put Tyler Moore in with the Gorton boys but it was too late to waste time on regretting that now.

‘Tyler Moore is an extremely able young police officer’ said Mike. ‘He came to my attention during an operation involving a Salford gang in which he put his life on the line in the arrest of the gang leader who was wielding a sawn off shotgun and was more than ready to use it on a police officer who he considered as the enemy. If you don’t mind me saying Tyler Moore is far beyond being labeled as a rookie if you don’t mind me saying. He’s intelligent and very capable’.

‘I don’t doubt any of that, Mike, but surely you must have assessed the risks of putting him in there?’

‘I did’ said Mike. He shifted in his seat. He was feeling somewhat defensive. ‘And whatever happens is on my head, I accept that’.

‘Tyler Moore has been able to provide Mike with a lot of valuable intelligence regarding the activities of Melanie Patterson, Jeff’ said Geraldine.

‘Go on?’ said Jeff.

‘Well’ said Mike. ‘Melanie Patterson is the undisputed leader of the Gorton boys. Sure it was made out that her son Leroy held the top spot but he couldn’t do anything without consulting his mother first. The Gorton boys used a mixture of violence and intimidation to control what they considered to be their streets and they made a lot of money from the drugs trade on the estate. They’d also started a new line in pimping. Girls, boys, usually addicts who’d do anything to get enough cash for a fix’.

‘Nothing new in that’ said Jeff. ‘It’s more or less classic’.

‘True enough’ said Mike. ‘But make no mistake, Jeff. Melanie Patterson ruled the Gorton boys with a rod of iron. We knew all about the intimidation and the drugs and the pimping but the reason why I put Tyler Moore in there as her long lost nephew was so that he could find evidence linking her to two murders eighteen months ago. The bodies of two former members of the Gorton boys, Alan Chaplin and Reggie Clayton, were found on waste ground to the side of the A580 going towards Wigan. The pathologist concluded that they’d been burned, probably whilst still alive, and because of the way their skin had burnt and the residue of rubber around their necks, heads, and shoulders, it looked like they’d been subjected to being necklaced. Tyler was able to find out that it had been done because the two victims had been suspected by Melanie Patterson of having talked to the police about the Gorton boys activities’.

‘And had they?’

‘They’d both approached us but we hadn’t been able to talk to them before they were murdered. But it was enough to convince me and fellow officers that they’d been got at before they’d had the chance to talk to us’.

‘It certainly looks that way’.

‘Now Melanie Patterson and the rest of the community on the Gorton estate have remained tight lipped about the murders of Chaplin and Clayton which gave us more reason to believe that our theory was correct’.

‘With all due respect’ said Jeff. ‘Why am I only hearing about this now?’

‘It was vital with regard to protecting the operation and protecting PC Moore, Jeff, that we kept silent’ said Geraldine. ‘Something could’ve easily leaked out that we had someone in there and he could’ve easily been fatally compromised once we knew what Melanie Patterson was capable of’.

‘Okay, point taken, but do we have evidence that Melanie Patterson ordered these deaths?’

‘We have her recent admission to Tyler Moore or, to her, her nephew Jackson Williams’.

‘Then why on earth didn’t you pull Tyler out once you’d got what you needed?’

‘Because there was still more to find out’ Mike responded. ‘Tyler was gathering evidence on all the names, dates and places that would’ve made a cast iron case against Melanie Patterson’.

‘But you are going to pull him in now surely?’

‘I ordered it twenty-four hours ago as soon as got word from you that Jackson Williams had been identified as Tyler Moore’.

‘But I sense there’s still a problem?’

‘I haven’t been able to get hold of Tyler’ Mike admitted, a grave look suddenly covering his face. ‘He’s not responding to any of my communications’.          

‘

STORMS SIX

He’d been careless. He knew that. He should’ve known better. He’d been a fucking idiot. The man had looked like some kind of delivery driver and called over to him to ask for directions. He was standing at the back of his van which was parked down a small access street that formed a kind of border between the backs of two rows of houses on the edge of the Gorton estate. Tyler clicked out of being belligerent Jackson Williams and clicked back into being a police officer. He walked over to the man. The back doors of the van were open. The man looked like he was consulting some paperwork that was in his hand and the next thing Tyler knew was a kind of cotton pad being forced over his mouth and nose. Chloroform. Jesus, how could he have been so stupid? He’d fallen into what was, for a police officer, such an obvious trap. He’d read descriptions of this sort of thing so many times in relation to other abductions. Now he had his own to deal with and the fear was racing through him with an intensity he never thought was possible to feel.

His annoyance at his own failings had stopped him from trying to figure out the reality of his situation. He was naked. There was tape over his eyes and his mouth. He was lying flat on his back and spread eagled with his wrists and ankles cuffed tightly and with no room for him to move his hands or feet by even a small amount. There was some kind of bulky apparatus around his neck that separated his head from the rest of his body and his wrists were restrained to what felt like either end of it. What the hell was this sick bastard going to do to him? Leroy Williams had been garotted. He’d been told about it when he’d reported in to DCI Phillips. He wanted to cry but was determined not to crack for as long as he could hold on. He’d wanted this undercover operation. He’d suggested it and volunteered himself to carry it out. The only way to get the information they needed on the Gorton boys was to get inside it. He’d discovered a level of criminality that had surpassed his expectations. Melanie Patterson was not someone to be messed with. She was callous and she was cruel. She’d ordered so many beatings of young boys who wouldn’t tow the line that she’d lost count. She had no conscience. He’d give anything to be back in her house arguing with her right now. He’d give anything to be tucking into his mother’s jerk chicken. It was always his favourite. She loved doing it for him. She’d been getting anxious lately because he hadn’t been home for a while. God knows what she was going to make of whatever was about to be done to him. How was she going to cope?

He flinched when he heard a door opening behind him and someone’s footsteps come close.

‘I’m glad you’re awake, Jackson’ said the man who was standing behind Tyler. ‘It’s so much more fun when the person I’m tormenting is conscious and able to feel every horror of what he’s about to go through. I’m enjoying this, you see Tyler. Do you know why I’m doing it? Have you worked out just who I am yet? Or is it beyond your tiny little excuse for a brain?’ He took out his packet of cigarettes and got one out. As he was lighting it he went on. ‘I started a little ritual with Leroy. I light a cigarette and I stub it out on a part of your body where the pain will be unbearable and then I let you suffer it all night before I come back in the morning to complete your execution’. He dragged on his cigarette and then he stubbed it out right on Tyler’s neck. He watched as Tyler shifted as best he could to try and quell the pain but it was no good. The man then knelt down so he was close to Tyler’s face. ‘I’m going to get every single one of you until I feel you’ve paid for what you did. And even then I might just carry on. You must be wondering how you’re going to be passing from this world and into the next? Well I’ll keep you guessing for now. See you in the morning, Jackson. Hope you have a … restless night’.

Tyler hadn’t slept at all when the man returned hours later. He had no conception of it being night or day. His neck was so bloody stiff and it ached like hell. The cuffs around his wrists and ankles were cutting into his skin like sharp knives. This must’ve been what it was like for Leroy. But why was this sick fucker doing this? What did he have against the Gorton boys? He had to try and keep his mind on rational thoughts for as long as he could or else he could quite literally go mad with terror.

‘Good morning, Jackson’ said the man when he came into the room. ‘It’s a beautiful day out there. Shame I can’t let you see any of it. Shame this is your last day on the old mortal coil. Shame you’ve been such a bloody useless bastard whilst you’ve been on this earth. But look, I digress. I’ve got a lot to do today. You know the usual stuff like shopping, going to the dry cleaners, watching some TV. But first I have to deal with you. Holding your neck in place is a kind of round cut in a set of stocks which are part of a guillotine. You heard of one of those, Jackson? It’s the traditional way the French used to execute people going all the way back to the revolution. I can’t stand the French personally. All that garlic and snails and frogs legs. And throughout history they’ve never been there when we needed them. But they did devise a quite magnificent way of killing people. And I’ve added my own little twist especially for you, Jackson. You see, the usual way to place the prisoner for execution was to get them face down with their hands cuffed behind their back. But as you can tell I’ve restrained you on your back with your head facing upwards. That’s so when the time comes you’ll be able to watch the blade come down at rapid speed and chop your head off’. He watched as Tyler tried to struggle. ‘It’s no use Tyler. You won’t be able to break free. But I will let you have one final word or two before dying’.