Chapter Twenty-Two

 

Emma took her own car and drove to Margaret Watts' house. On the way through the estate there had been groups of people standing around the green. They just appeared to be talking to one another, some smoking cigarettes, but Emma was uneasy. With a trained eye she could see that the groups were mostly men, and also mostly younger. It was worse than she'd anticipated. She knew that when the sun went down the mood could change, become uglier.

'Oh, Emma, it's you.' For once Mrs Watts looked uneasy. She hung onto the edge of her front door. 'Are you sure this is a good time to come round?'

'Are you going to invite me in?' Emma was suddenly nervous about what she was doing there. She was exposed standing on the doorstep.

'Of course I am. It's just a strange time to have police on the estate.'

Soon they were settled down in the front room with rich fruit cake and cups of tea. Before she could ask why the police were persona non grata, Margaret told her.

'It's silly really. The people stirring up trouble around here are usually the first to avoid the police if they can manage it. They like to solve their problems on their own, if you know what I mean. But now they're saying that you should've been here to crack down on the dealers. They think that if you were, Jordy would still be alive.'

'How bad is it out there?'

'Have you seen Twitter? Hashtag Justice for Jordy is trending in this area.'

'Trending?' Emma asked, amazed.

'Less of that!' Margaret said with a smile. 'The community centre did computer courses and set up a website. I'm not too old to learn new tricks. And I love Twitter – we've set up groups to organise local events. Anyway, there is a lot of ill feeling starting from the fact that beat police haven't been seen around here for many years.'

'It's just hard to know what to do next,' Emma said. 'If I'm being honest we want to come here more often. But it's a hostile environment and we're so often single-crewed that we don't. We also have our own resourcing issues.'

'Well, you'd better find something and find it quick. The mood round here is ugly.'

'If we could have maybe a couple of days to sort things out, we could make moves towards arresting the dealers, try to get some of the worst stuff off the streets.' She paused for a moment. 'But we won't be able to do that if we're policing a small riot and processing a station full of people for breach of the peace.'

Margaret Watts looked shifty. Finally she said, 'I do know one of Jordy's relatives – an aunt. I mean, we're both on the same community committee but I don't really talk to her.'

'But you could?' Emma asked hopefully.

'Maybe. I mean, the whole family will be in turmoil.'

'But do they really want young people causing trouble on the estate?' Emma pressed.

Margaret sighed. 'No one wants to see that. Can you wait here for a bit? I'll see if I can get hold of the aunt and maybe a couple of others. If you talk to them, promise that you'll find this dealer, maybe we can calm things down.'

'Yeah, I can wait here.' Emma sat in the front room unable to relax. The chairs were overstuffed and all the surfaces and walls were cluttered with plates. She sipped her rapidly cooling tea and ate another slice of cake.

'It's no use,' Margaret said as she came back into the room. 'The whole family has so much to do with undertakers, hospitals, the police, you name it. A sudden death like that shakes everything up. They won't, or can't, come to meet with you. But the nephew, Jordy's cousin, has said he'll get onto Twitter and all the rest and try to calm things down. Straight from the family, it might help.' She stopped and looked awkward. 'Listen Emma, there's not much good you can do here. You know me, I'm a very polite person and known for my hospitality. But right now...'

'No, no, you're all right. I understand. It would be bad all round if someone called round and found me here.' She got up and prepared to leave. 'Anyway, I ought to be out there, chasing up some of my informants. See if they know who's supplying this stuff. The sooner we make some arrests, the better.'

With more awkwardness than usual, Emma got up and left. She looked both ways on the way to her car, feeling like she was being watched. But the street was quiet – most of the residents were the other side of the estate. She hoped that Jordy's cousin would be able to calm things down.

She knew where she had to go and drove straight there. Away from the residential estates of Seaview and Coopers End was a more picturesque part of town. Here, up a cobbled side street, was the holiday cottage with a view of the sea where she'd last seen her friend, Lukas.

As soon as she knocked on the door though, she knew that it was empty. Her career of banging on doors and looking for people had given her an instinct. She looked through the window and confirmed exactly what she'd thought, the house was empty. She peered more closely inside. It wasn't only empty, but professionally cleaned. There were no personal possessions, not one used coffee cup, to be seen. There was a key safe on the wall by the door, the holiday rental had ended and the house had been turned around for the next occupant.

She walked back to her car and prepared for the next stage of locating Lukas. She called him, left a voicemail, then backed it up with a text message. Then she drove to the right part of town and started banging on doors where he'd lived in the past.

Unsurprisingly, the only real answer she got was that he was 'shacked up with a posh bird' and hadn't been seen for ages. It was getting late in the day so she had to decide what to do next. She sat in her car and weighed up her options. She should really head back into the station, call Pete, and get things underway with the laptop for Rob. But, she had a nagging worry about Lukas. With only ten minutes left before the technical department clocked off, she called Pete from her mobile, told him to go ahead, and to leave the paperwork on her desk if anything needed signing.

Now the time was about right to go and try some of the dodgier pubs. The trouble was that she was on her own and the mood was already quite ugly. On the other hand, her concern about her friend was mounting. Usually, if she put a couple of hours work into it, she could find him. Either he didn't want to be found or something was wrong. She decided to try a couple of the less dangerous pubs. While she was there, she'd also try to find out who was filling the gaps in the drug market.

Two hours later, she had to admit defeat. No one had heard or seen of Lukas recently, wherever she asked. She'd also tried to push her contacts on who was currently dealing, especially around the estates. But word had already spread of the unrest. No one was admitting to anything. If they had supplied those drugs they'd have to choose between an angry mob or a lengthy prison sentence.

Emma sat in her car outside the last dodgy pub on her mental list – The Greyhound, which was a flat-roofed, prefab building in a part of town that was definitely not on the tourist route. She couldn't remember a time when it had taken her this long to hunt down Lukas. She had a bad feeling that she'd learned not to ignore.

She could go home and try again tomorrow, but she knew she would never settle so instead she drove back to work, grabbing some fast food on the way to the station. It felt different now that it was early Friday evening. There were fewer civilian staff and the uniformed officers were gearing up for work.

As a police officer, Emma knew how to handle a missing persons case. She also knew that she could use her name and rank without making it official just yet.

She started calling the various departments within the police who might have seen Lukas Mills, or picked him up somewhere. She was working on auto-pilot when she dialled through to the Bradwick Hospital.

'Yes, Lukas Mills is here. On Ward four west, admitted two days ago. Suspected overdose, but still being held for observation.'

Emma thanked the administrator who'd answered the phone and automatically hung up. She knew she ought to go and see him, but she was still in shock. Lukas had always seemed so indestructible, stumbling his way through life in a charmed fashion. What had gone wrong?

Her thoughts were interrupted when Brian Chisholm banged his way into the office. 'Right. Who's coming down the pub? Got a proper result this afternoon!'

'What are we celebrating?' Nick Dent raised his head from his computer monitor.

'I've been out all afternoon, real police work. Drinking pints with all sorts of undesirables who've been my snouts either now or in the past. And under one rock that I turned over I found the lowlife who sold poor old Jordy Peters some very dodgy drugs.' He smiled smugly. 'I managed to persuade him that his best chance lay with us. We may have to move him out of area when we want to lock him up.'

'You promised to get him locked up out of area?' Nick said, sounding impressed.

'Well, to be honest, people on the estate would be likely to have a cousin or brother somewhere in a local prison. He'd be safest a long way away from here. Of course, I'll have to go to court for the remand hearing and ask the judge. But it'd be worth it. I've had a quick nose round his house before calling in the specialist search teams. The dealer wasn't the sharpest knife the drawer, drugs and weapons all over the shop.' He stopped to look around the room. 'But the details can wait till tomorrow, tonight I'm off to the pub and I'm buying, who's with me?'

'I can't, I've got to visit a friend in hospital,' Emma said, making the decision immediately. She found herself irritated that she'd failed to defuse the situation on the estate and that none of her contacts had turned up the dealer. Her annoyance also spilled over to Brian Chisholm. She thought that she owned the problem on the estate, but obviously he had taken it on himself and done what he could. She'd only really informed him as a courtesy, a matter of procedure. She certainly hadn't expected him to steal her case and make a success of it.