By the time Jo pulled into the visitors’ bay at Lifechoices HQ, which served as its outreach, treatment and dispensing centre, you’d never have known Scotty had broken down just a few minutes earlier. Game face on, he strutted ahead of Jo as if he owned the place.
The way he was received, he might as well have. Jo knew he was a familiar face amongst the drug-using community but the balance of those who held him in awe and those who feared him was split fifty–fifty.
The greetings reflected on which side of the fence each patient – as that’s what he told her to call them – sat. Some mumbled a reluctant ‘All right Scotty,’ others practically hugged him. None though dared snort like a pig or mutter insults under their breath.
As they were about to enter the squat prefabricated building, Scotty stopped short. A scruffy twenty- or thirty-something man in a filthy parka with raggedy stubble and hair yanked back into a ponytail had caught his attention. ‘Spanners, over here.’
The man looked edgy as Scotty took his arm and walked him towards what looked like a storage shed. Jo followed, the name registering immediately. 134
‘Man, I can’t be seen talking to you here. Them lot’ll shank me.’
‘Relax. I have little chats with everyone here. Don’t think you’re so special. So long as no one hears what we’re saying, they won’t give it a second thought. Ma’am, this is Spanners. I mentioned him the other day. Spanners, this is my big boss so no swearing, got me?’ Spanners eyed Jo suspiciously, then flicked his attention back to Scotty. ‘Say good morning to Mrs Howe, then. Where are your manners?’
‘Honestly, call me Jo.’ Spanners just nodded, still wary.
‘Do you know anything about a bloke who ended up in a bin? Needle marks all over him. Dumped by the dustcart.’
‘How would I know anything about that?’ His head flicked left and right, clearly terrified he’d be labelled a grass.
Scotty took hold of Spanners’ elbow and from his squirm, Jo knew he’d found the pressure point.
‘Think harder.’
Jo touched Scotty’s shoulders to suggest he relaxed his grip a little.
Spanners rubbed his arm. ‘There was this geezer in the squat where I was dossing. He took too much or maybe a bad batch. I tried to save him man, honest to God.’
‘Woah, back up. You saying you were there when he died?’
‘Yeah, but it weren’t nothing to do with me. I was just there. I tried CPR and shit but it was too late.’
‘So what happened?’
Spanners shrugged and Scotty finally let go. ‘They took him, man.’
‘Who? Where to?’
‘I don’t know. They took me away and did this.’ He pulled up his T-shirt and showed a rack of black and yellowing bruises.
‘Jesus,’ said Jo. ‘You need to get that seen to.’
‘I’m sweet, Jo,’ he said, then gave Scotty a sardonic smile. ‘They took the geezer away, and last I heard he was dumped. I don’t know where, I swear.’
‘You and I need to talk more about this,’ said Scotty.
‘Sure.’ 135
Jo and Scotty walked back towards the door, leaving Spanners to scurry in the opposite direction.
‘I wasn’t expecting that,’ said Jo.
‘I was. They’d all know something about it. There are no secrets among this lot, whatever they’ll have you think.’
‘You were expecting him to have tried to save the bloke’s life?’
‘Er, no. That was a bonus, I’ll give you that. I’ll squeeze some more out of him tomorrow.’
‘Just be gentle on him. You’ve done enough squeezing.’
They walked up to the reception desk, where a stunningly pretty young woman with the most piercing eyes and neat cornrows leapt up from her desk and came and gave Scotty the tightest of hugs.
‘I’m so sorry about Lizzie,’ she said with genuine feeling.
Scotty shrugged awkwardly. ‘Er, yes me too, Ayo. My boss and I are here to see Nicola.’ Jo read the code which said, Don’t say too much in front of her.
Ayo understood, unlocked the embrace, smiled at Jo and disappeared out the back. A moment later, Nicola Merrion appeared. Unlike last time she’d seen her in ACC Mills’s office just after Lizzie’s murder, she was sporting a smart business suit, incongruous with her surroundings. ‘Come through, come through,’ she said with a painted-on smile.
Jo had only met Nicola twice here before and she’d forgotten how spartan her office was. ‘Scotty, grab another chair from the corridor will you?’ said Nicola. Jo was surprised at how he obeyed like a lapdog.
‘Nicola, thanks for making time,’ said Jo as Scotty dragged a plastic moulded chair in and flounced down.
‘Well we do seem to be in a bit of a crisis. Such a shame given all we’ve achieved.’ The words said one thing but Nicola’s expression seemed to disagree.
‘Well, I don’t think we need to get ahead of ourselves. To my mind, and Sergeant Scott here agrees with me’ – she glanced at Scotty, who returned a Do I? look – ‘we should be redoubling our efforts given what happened. 136We don’t know whether Lizzie’s murder and that of the two after the football are connected, but if they are, we need to get even tougher on the dealers and reduce their customer base by getting more through to recovery.’
‘Haven’t you been told to leave it well alone? For now at least.’
How would you know that? she thought. That was a private conversation between her and the ACC. She let it go for now.
‘Not in so many words. This is the perfect opportunity. After all, we’ve got the trial coming up which should send shockwaves through the gangs. It’s a perfect time to get our joint teams back on the streets while upping our covert efforts. We’re ready to go whenever you are.’
Nicola twisted her daith piercing, an irritating habit Jo put down to her buying time. ‘I’m not so sure. Most of the outreach workers are terrified they’ll be next. You have to remember they’ve lost a very dear friend. If Lizzie could be murdered with two police officers by her side’ – she looked accusingly at Scotty, then back at Jo – ‘then what guarantees can we give them?’
‘That’s a little unfair,’ said Jo as she felt Scotty rise from his seat. Still looking at Nicola, she put her right hand out to stop him. ‘We obviously need to review how we look after your staff, but surely they’ll understand that it was a one-off and we need to get back to what we were doing.’
‘As I say, we’ll think about it. We’ve got this Synthopate roll-out to grapple with too. It’s a difficult time. You said you were resuming the covert operations?’
‘Yes, as soon as we can get some more UCs we’ll be back in business. Be prepared to get busy.’
They spent the next ten minutes talking through the hotspots and the drug trends. Scotty’s grasp of both was phenomenal and Jo started to feel by the end of it that Nicola was coming back on board. Her worries were valid but they couldn’t give up at the first hint of trouble, devastating as it was.
‘Thanks Nicola, we won’t take up any more of your time. It’s been very 137productive.’ Jo stood and Scotty followed suit. ‘We’ll see ourselves out.’ They headed for the door and had turned the corner back to reception when Jo stopped and retraced her few steps. As she walked back in, Nicola looked up from her phone with a jolt like she’d been caught watching porn. ‘Sorry, just taking the chair back for you,’ Jo smiled, but she couldn’t shift the thought she’d interrupted her somehow.
When she was back in reception, Scotty was talking to Ayo, his face riven with concern. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll look into it.’
Jo smiled at them both. ‘We done?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
They walked in silence to the car. Once both doors were closed, Scotty spoke. ‘Did you know two of their patients were found dead from drugs overdoses this morning?’
‘Er, no.’
‘Ayo had just been told by the medical director. A bloke and a girl. Both found in their bedsits.’
‘Separate then?’
‘Seems so. I’ll look up the CAD.’
‘If the medical director knew, Nicola would have, surely?’ she said. ‘Yet she didn’t mention it. Suspicious or forgetful.’
‘Not the sort of thing you’d forget, is it, ma’am?’
‘My thoughts exactly.’ She started the car as her mind raced.
Jo still wasn’t convinced that Scotty was OK to work or would talk to anyone about his grief.
As they drove back to the station, they swapped theories about the drugs deaths and why Nicola hadn’t mentioned them. Neither came up with any concrete connection but both voiced how uncomfortable they felt.
Scotty tapped away at his mobile data terminal, or ‘phone’ as he called it.
‘That’s interesting,’ he said, more to himself than Jo. She let the silence 138settle. ‘Both of these were doing really well with their treatment.’
‘What, the drugs deaths?’
‘Yeah. They’ve both been in a holistic treatment programme for around six months. A few relapses but they’d got back on it and were looking really good.’
‘Still using though?’
Scotty shrugged. ‘I suppose they must have been. There doesn’t seem to be any third-party involvement …’
‘Except the dealer.’
‘Except that. Something must have triggered them both to relapse on the same day.’
‘But would a normal dose kill them, perhaps after a period of abstinence?’
Scotty shrugged again. ‘That’s why these ODs can be the almost perfect murder. Unless there is sign of a fight or some of the gear left behind to analyse, we never really know how much they’ve taken and why it’s killed them and not the next person.’
‘Is that what you reckon?’
‘My job is to stop them getting to that stage. Cleverer people than me decide what’s happened when they do.’
Jo thought about that. These could be nothing more than an unhappy coincidence. After all, they’d slashed drugs deaths over the last ten months from one a week to fewer than one a month. But now there had been three in a few days. She’d been around long enough to know that blips like this weren’t a forecast of things to come but were worth watching.
She pulled into the car park at Brighton Police Station and was intrigued to see a police community support officer standing sentry at the back door.
She and Scotty got out of the car and ambled over to where the bored young woman was standing.
‘Everything OK?’ 139
‘Power cut, ma’am. None of our passes are working.’ She pointed to the card reader next to the lock.
‘Oh. Been out for long?’
‘An hour or so.’
‘I’m sorry. It might not feel like it but you’re doing a great job.’
Jo walked past and called Gary. ‘You in the nick?’ she said as he picked up.
‘Yes, I’m with Amanda trying to work out how to get the leccy back on.’
‘Jesus. Is everything down?’
‘Yep, and it seems it’s just us. I tried UK Power Networks and they’ve confirmed it’s an isolated mains cable fault. As it is though, we have no lights, the comms are all dead and there’s no IT. If it goes on much longer we’ll have to trigger the contingency plan.’
She nodded a goodbye to Scotty and fast-walked towards the stairs.
‘You sure it’s just us? Have you checked American Express across the road?’
‘Jo, I’m not an idiot. Just trust me.’