The door went in with one kick. It was a good solid door but the lock was council cheap and the frame had been repaired so often it had been screwed more times than the prostitute living next door. Any other part of town at two o’clock in the morning and the explosive splintering of wood might have aroused suspicion, but in the litter-strewn alley behind the Big Snack all-night café violent noise was a way of life.
The smell of piss and three-day-old burgers was overpowering. Jim Grant took a small aerosol from his shoulder harness and gave the darkened room a healthy dose of green apple and water lily. He slipped the miniature Air Wick spray back into the pouch where his CS canister should have been and ignored the lack of handcuffs or a police radio. This arrest was off the books.
A police siren howled along a street somewhere across town. Grant paused for a moment, waiting to see if the siren was coming his way. It wasn’t. The siren faded as it sped into the distance. A dustbin was knocked over further down the alley. A dog barked. An unknown man shouted at his unknown wife, and the unknown wife screamed back. In this neck of the woods there were no victors, only victims, and even the victims weren’t exactly innocent.
This neck of the woods was Ecclesfield Division, Bradford, West Yorkshire. This part of those woods was a potholed back street off Lumb Lane, formerly the red light district of Bradford but now just a rundown collection of terraced houses and corner shops frequented by rundown shitbags and drug addicts. The prostitutes still hung out on the street corners but were less blatant than in the good old days, when they could practically hang a sign outside and the police would turn a blind eye. Modern policing was run by target figures and crime statistics. One of this year’s target figures was to get prostitution off the streets. The only thing that had achieved was to drive them underground, or more accurately drive them onto the Internet. In-call massage and out-call escort services were all over the World Wide Web. In-calls were at crappy shitholes like the one next door.
Grant ignored the crappy shithole next door and concentrated on the darkness inside the ground floor flat. He knew the layout from previous visits but wasn’t sure if the furniture had been moved around since the last time he’d dragged Chusan Palm out of bed. There were no streetlamps in the back alley, and the curtains were closed anyway. Grant didn’t think they were ever opened, even during the day, and the lack of ventilation only made the stench worse. A small black-and-white TV flickered in the corner, part of the twenty-four-hour broadcast culture that provided late-night repeats of programs that were rubbish during their first run. The television threw out enough light for Grant to check any obstacles.
It only took five seconds.
There was a two-seater settee in front of a battered three-bar electric fire. Next to that was a coffee table overflowing with Big Snack food containers and empty beer cans. There were no ashtrays, but there were plenty of ashes and cigarette butts. The settee was covered with more food cartons, a second television, and a green plastic garden waste bag large enough to hold a small fortune. The far wall was the kitchenette area, and beyond that was a door to the bathroom. Grant knew better than to brave a search of the bathroom. He also knew where the unkempt single mattress was and gave it a hefty kick at the same time as he reached for the light switch beside the splintered door frame.
A dirty, low-energy bulb blinked twice, then came on.
A dirty, low-energy body moaned beneath an even dirtier bedspread.
Grant kicked Palm again. “Come on, fucknut. Hands off cocks and on with socks,” his company sergeant major’s favorite wake-up call. Grant’s military training always came to the fore at times like these. The police force had tried in vain to drill it out of him but soon realized that the toughness instilled in him by the army was one of Grant’s strengths as a cop. His inspector didn’t entirely agree, tagging him as a loose cannon and somebody to be watched at all times. Inspector Speedhoff’s climb up the political ladder depended largely on keeping out of the shit. With Police Constable Grant on his team, shit was never very far away. The trick was to not let any of it splash on him. Grant stepped over the coffee table and turned off the TV. His hand brushed the screen, and he realized it wasn’t a black and white set after all—it was just so dirty that no color showed through.
He kicked the bed again. “Up. Now.”
A tousled head emerged from the blanket. “Officer Grant. What the fuck? I ain’t done nowt. Honest.”
Grant stepped back out of Palm’s fighting arc but kept his legs flexed and shoulders hunched. Years of experience told him that the most dangerous time was the first ten seconds, when a rudely awakened prisoner was most likely to kick out and try to escape before the cuffs went on or the gas was deployed. Palm saw the broad shoulders towering over him and immediately chose pleading his innocence over physical action.
“Honest.” He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “I’m going straight.”
Then, just in case Grant missed it the first time, “Honest.”
“Straight to jail.”
Grant had learned in the army and the police that when somebody tells you honest, it behooved you to pay attention to what they were saying. Because they were inevitably lying.
“You ever watch Porridge?”
“Ronnie Barker. Yeah.”
“Remember when Fletcher—that’s Barker—gets asked by Lennie Godber…”
“Richard Beckinsale. Yeah.”
“Godber asks him what he’s in for. And Fletcher says, ‘I got caught.’”
Grant leaned over and reached for the green plastic bag on the settee. He unfurled the neck. An ornamental lampshade poked out of the top. There was also a Roberts portable radio, a set of ornate silver cutlery, and a tortoiseshell jewelry box.
“Well, you just got caught.”
Chusan Palm held up his hands in surrender.
“That’s not mine, officer. Someone must have left it while I was sleepin’.”
The hulking ex-soldier picked up a delicate glasses case and clicked it open. A pair of horn-rimmed spectacles glinted in the light.
Grant fixed Palm with his hardest stare. “There are none so blind as those who cannot see.”
Palm gulped down his protest. He’d seen that stare before and spent six weeks in the Bradford Royal Infirmary before being sent to prison. Grant spotted a grubby pair of jeans on the floor and kicked them expertly across the room.
“Get your pants on, chief.”
Palm obliged, whipping the bedspread off his skinny body to reveal stained underwear and bruised ribs. The big toe of his left foot stuck out of a hole in his sock. He shuffled into the faded blue denims lying on his back, then pushed a pair of already laced Nike Air trainers on his feet. He didn’t think this was the time to explain that Chusan wasn’t an Indian name, like in cowboys and Indians, although Grant could have passed for Clint Eastwood’s Arizona sheriff in Coogan’s Bluff.
Palm didn’t realize that this was no ordinary arrest until he reached the car. It wasn’t the lack of handcuffs—Grant’s reputation meant very few prisoners tried to make a run for it, so he didn’t bracelet them—and it wasn’t the fact that the plainclothes detective hadn’t read him his rights. The big, ugly cop had arrested him so often, they both accepted that Palm knew what his rights were. It wasn’t even the unmarked car that didn’t come from the CID pool, because Grant often used hired cars or personal vehicles to disguise his presence on the streets.
It was when Grant opened the boot instead of the back door.
The cobbled alley was deserted. The only illumination came from a security light three doors along that reflected off the wet cobbles and threw harsh shadows across the crumbling backyards. Tangles of rusty wire atop the low walls ensnared torn newspapers and empty crisp packets. A wheel-less baby pram lay on its side in the middle of the alley. A bent pushbike with two flat tires was wedged in a gateway that had no gate. The security light was a farce. There was nothing here worth stealing. This was where shit that had been stolen ended up, not where you took it from.
The rain had stopped, but the remnants of the overnight storm puddled along the gutters. The drains were as clogged as the dregs of society that lived here. Raindrops stood out on the Ford Sierra Sapphire like beads of sweat. The kind of Sierra with a boot, not a hatchback. The undercover cop quickly skirted the rear passenger door and opened the boot. Palm stopped in his tracks, expecting Grant to get something out. Instead Grant jerked a knee into Palm’s gut, doubling him over, and bundled him into the luggage space. The boot lid slammed shut.
That was when he knew he was in serious trouble.
Straight north from Bradford was the quickest route to the countryside. South was too industrial. East and west were too developed. Grant drove north, and within half an hour civilization faded into the night. There were pockets of domestic housing and even the occasional village or market town, but for what he had in mind north was the way to go.
He didn’t dwell on the implications as he sat calmly behind the wheel of his battered old Ford. He didn’t look back on his police service and consider that this might be a career-ending decision. What he did think as he drove the burgling scumbag to his fate was that this had been a long time coming. You don’t serve your country in the armed forces and then lay your life on the line in defense of the citizens of West Yorkshire without developing an acute understanding of right and wrong. Some things were just plain wrong, like robbing and stealing and picking on the weak. Some things were wrong but for all the right reasons, no matter how wrong that wrong thing was.
Grant reckoned this wrong thing fell into that category.
He glanced at the green plastic bag on the back seat. Recovered stolen property. Procedure dictated that it should be cataloged and booked into stores at the Ecclesfield police station. It should be handled with care to preserve any prints and SOCO requested for the following day. The Scenes of Crime Officer would powder any suitable surfaces and lift latent prints using adhesive tape and clear acetate sheets. Rough surfaces would be ignored. The bag itself would be sent to headquarters for tech process and fingerprint development.
That meant that Grant shouldn’t touch the bag or its contents without gloves, and even then only with extreme care so as not to smudge any prints that might be there. It also meant that the contents would be covered in powder and pretty much fucked before the owner got them back. He’d seen it many times. People too upset to use their property again. People who couldn’t handle the ingrained silver powder and the constant reminder it would always provide.
He turned his attention to the small object on the seat beside him.
Grant took a deep breath at the memory of the owner when she’d realized it was one of the things stolen. Taken during the burglary that changed her life. His heart went out to her. His mind took him back.
Mavis Peacock put a brave face on it but couldn’t hide the hurt behind her eyes as she answered Grant’s questions. The two-bedroom back-to-back terrace house was a mess. That seemed to hurt the eighty-five-year-old lady as much as what was missing.
Grant stood in the doorway next to the broken ground-floor window and immediately knew this house was normally spotlessly clean. His former company sergeant major could have run his white-gloved finger over any flat surface and not come up with a lick of dust. Women of Mavis’s generation had no truck with dust. They vacuumed and dusted and polished twice a week every week and never left anything out of place. Women of Mavis’s generation lived within their means and nursed their husbands into their graves, then polished and dusted their memories in photo frames and wall-mounted portraits. Mavis’s husband had been in the army. The photographs were faded to brown but still displayed the hearty smile and rigid back of a man in uniform. A man who had fought for his country and provided for his wife until death do us part. Death had parted them, but life continued for Mavis.
Until tonight. Tonight had almost finished her right there and then when she’d come home and found the window broken and the house ransacked. Grant did the professional stuff first. He composed the modus operandi for the crime report in his head.
Domestic burglary. The attacked premises are a two-bedroom back-to-back terrace house on a quiet residential street. Between times and dates shown, while the occupant was out shopping, person or persons unknown approach locked and secured ground-floor wooden framed window and use a screwdriver or similar instrument to prise up the top-opening sash window, causing the glass to break. Entry gained by climbing through window. All rooms untidily searched and property stolen. Egress by unlocking front door. Suspect makes off on foot unseen, direction unknown.
He booked SOCO to come and fingerprint the scene but was told they couldn’t get there for two hours. Grant made an executive decision. Taking a close look at the window frame where the thief had pulled himself through, he spotted muddy woolen glove marks on the paintwork. He called the council to board up the window and led Mavis through the wreckage of her home. Clothing had been tipped out of the drawers. Food had been poured all over the kitchen. The portable television had been stolen after removing the ornaments from the top.
Anything with a smooth surface Grant put to one side for SOCO. Everything else he helped Mavis tidy away. The food he cleaned up. Tablets from the bathroom cabinet he told her to put back. She was upset but keeping it inside—until she checked the bedside table and discovered the most important thing missing.
The sob that crept out of her throat almost moved Grant to tears, and Grant wasn’t given to bouts of emotion. Mavis described the delicate glasses case and the horn-rimmed spectacles she needed for reading. She couldn’t provide Grant with a value because she hadn’t paid for them herself. The glasses had been an anniversary gift from her husband. It had been the last thing he’d ever bought her—three weeks before he died.
The memory forced Grant to clench his teeth. The muscles in his jaw tightened as he concentrated on the road ahead. Some things were wrong but for all the right reasons, no matter how wrong that wrong thing was.
Grant was certain this wrong thing fell into that category.
The night was all consuming. The headlights swept the road before him, and he took one last look around. No streetlights. No houses. Just trees and fields and the occasional farm track. When he saw the turnoff he wanted, Grant dowsed the headlights and slowly pulled into the dark, overgrown entrance.
“Say it again.”
“I’m fuckin’ sorry, man. All right? For fuck’s sake.”
Palm was dripping sweat despite the cool night air. Stringy tendrils of saliva dangled from his mouth, and tears filled his eyes. Grant looked into those eyes and felt nothing. He was a rock. The sight of a little old lady crying like a baby overshadowed any regrets he might feel here. He stood over the kneeling figure at the edge of the sandstone quarry and felt no pity at all. No guilt either. What he was about to do was wrong but for all the right reasons.
He glanced around him at the wooded glade on the edge of the cliff. The uneven ground was a mixture of matted grass and rocky outcrops. The tree line was maybe six feet from the precipice along the northern face apart from at the clearing. Here the trees drew back to give the two men some space. Moonlight picked out the sharp stone and tufts of grass that marked the end of life on the plateau.
The cold blue-gray light couldn’t penetrate the depths beyond. Grant picked up a stone and tossed it into the abyss. There was no sound for a long time, then it click-clacked on the rocks below before splashing into the dark waters of the quarry pond.
“What else?”
“Fuck? What? I ain’t never gonna do nothin’ like that again.”
Grant kicked Palm in the ribs, and the burglar almost toppled over the cliff. Their eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, and both could now see the steep drop onto jagged rocks below. The water was just a dead black space with unseen ripples from the stone Grant had thrown.
Palm’s eyes bulged in his head, and the spittle shot out as he screamed, “Aargh. I will not break into houses—never no more!”
Grant stepped in close and grabbed Palm by the scruff of the neck. He twisted his fingers into the burglar’s collar and yanked him to his feet. He jerked the skinny pustule toward the abyss. For a moment the policeman was the only thing between balance and oblivion. Palm’s feet scrabbled for purchase on the loose ground of the rim. His weight leaned outwards even as his body tried desperately to lunge back in. Then Grant tugged the crumpled collar back onto terra firma and let go. He smiled a humorless smile. He’d bet that Chusan Palm had never had his collar feel quite like that before.
“That’s right. You’re retired.”
“Yes, officer.”
Palm was sobbing now, but he repeated the apology just to be on the safe side. “Not never again.”
Grant ignored the double negative and reached into his windcheater pocket. He took a small, dark object out and held it in front of Palm’s face. He clicked it open with a metallic snap. The burglar flinched as the switchblade glinted in the moonlight. Palm waited for the pain of the slashing cut or the stabbing lunge. It was only when the pain didn’t materialize that he realized it wasn’t a flick knife. Grant took the pair of horn-rimmed spectacles from the delicate glasses case.
“There are none so blind as those who cannot see.”
Palm’s eyes were streaming tears. He had to wipe them away on his sleeve to see what the detective was showing him. A whimper escaped his mouth. Grant took Palm’s left hand in a vicelike grip and spread it out on the rocky precipice. It lay between two raised outcroppings like a plank over a trestle. Grant stood up.
“She was eighty-five years old. Couldn’t see a thing without these glasses.”
He towered over the figure on the ground.
“Couldn’t read the tablets she needed twice a day and at bedtime.” He raised one heavy booted foot. “The pills that were keeping her alive.”
Chusan Palm closed his eyes and said a silent prayer. He couldn’t watch but he couldn’t move his hand either. It lay there ready to be stamped on. He braced himself for the pain. “I didn’t know.”
“You shouldn’t need to know.”
The cool breeze rustled the nearby trees.
“And if she’d taken her tablets she didn’t need to have—”
Grant didn’t finish. Instead he drove his foot down hard. The bone-crunching snap was loud in the quiet of the wooded clearing. It echoed around the quarry like a gunshot. Palm screamed, then yanked his hand back and fainted.
The thick broken twig tumbled into the abyss.
Grant put the glasses back in his pocket and stepped back from the edge, both literally and mentally. He felt the anger ease. Tomorrow he would return the bag of stolen property to the old lady who had almost died. The paramedics had saved her life. Grant had saved her glasses.
He looked down at the quivering mess that was Chusan Palm, persistent burglar, robber, and thief. He was curled in the fetal position with both hands tucked safely under his stomach. The faint didn’t last long. His eyes flickered but he kept them shut, fearing what he might see.
Words dribbled off his lips in an ungainly tumble. “Please. Sir. Permission. With your. I’ll retire.”
Grant took the car keys out of his pocket. “Damn right you’ll retire.” He looked down the burglar one last time. “Permission granted.”
He didn’t need to add any threats, and Palm couldn’t hear them anyway. Grant got in the car and started the engine. He pulled back from the precipice before turning the headlights on, then reversed down the track to the main road.