3.

The masked gunman kept his barrel trained on the old git and the younger woman on the sofa. The old biddy on the armchair in front of him was not a problem; if she made any kind of move, he’d shoot her in the back. Simple as. The old git was peering at him intently; the gunman didn’t like that. He presumed the old git was the nark’s father and the old biddy the mother. The younger woman was a copper - the gunman knew that much. Well, he’d been following her for weeks. Probably the nark’s bit of skirt.

“Well, well, well, all of his nearest and dearest in one cosy room!” The gunman’s mask muffled his voice. He knew he should have enlarged the mouth slit. And it didn’t half make your face sweat! Bloody hell. He considered removing it. And why not? None of these bastards would be leaving the room alive so why bother concealing himself a second more?

It was all about the moment.

He wanted the nark to come in and see his loved ones blasted to kingdom come in front of him. He wanted to see the look on the nark’s mush when the mask was peeled off to reveal the killer of his parents and his dolly bird.

And - icing on the fucking cake - he would take great delight in saying that the dolly bird had been dicking around behind the nark’s back. With another copper, no less. And that was the truth!

You can’t trust anyone these days.

“Now, listen here,” the old git began in a voice designed to initiate hostage negotiations. “I am sure we can come to an amicable arrangement.”

“Amicable my fucking arse!” the gunman grumbled. “I arsked you a question. Please don’t make me repeat myself. I hates repeating myself. D’you hear me? I hates repeating myself.”

That shut the old git up.

The gunman realised he would have to repeat his question.

“He’s not here,” the lady copper piped up. “His room’s empty. We just went up there.”

“For a shag, did you? Knocking off his dad as well as his workmates, are you?”

The lady copper’s face showed confusion. Her cheeks reddened. Touched a nerve, the gunman congratulated himself.

“And when will he be back?”

This question was met by three shrugs.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” The old git. Smarmy old git. He’ll be the first.

“Looks like we’ve got us another edition of the waiting game then, don’t it?” The gunman sneered. “I ain’t got no other engagements for today.”

“Listen; if it’s a question of money...”

“Shut it! Money! I got money, you silly old fuck. I got more money than you have, truth be told. I could buy and sell you ten times over. But don’t try and engage me in chitchat. Keep your trap shut and we’ll wait for your pride and joy to get back. Then it’s blam, blam, blam and goodnight Vienetta.”

“Oh dear.” The old biddy was trembling.

Perhaps he ought to shoot her first. Out of kindness.

***

“From the state of you, that lunch was of the fucking liquid variety.” Chief Inspector Karen Wheeler was displeased, to put it mildly. She had that numpty Stevens and his sidekick Woodcock in her office.

Stevens belched beerily.

“To be fair, Chief,” Woodcock raised a hand, “we thought we’d knocked off. It’s not like we were on duty or anything.”

Wheeler conceded the point. She clutched at her close-cropped hair and scratched her scalp.

“I suppose,” she grumbled. “But you know we’m short-handed. With Brough on long-term sick and Miller swanning off after him.”

Woodcock reddened and cleared his throat, readying himself to step in to defend his lady’s honour, should the need arise. Thankfully, it didn’t.

“So why have you called us back in then, boss?”

“Yeah,” Stevens belched again. At least he had the good sense to appear embarrassed.

“Seems like your area of expertise, gentlemen, and I use every word of that phrase in the loosest possible sense. The pubs of Dedley are under attack. There’s been a third one.”

Stevens and Woodcock exchanged a glance. Stevens’s eyebrows dipped as he tried to count in his head.

“Don’t strain yourselves, gentlemen. The first...” She slapped a photograph on the desk. The men leaned forward to see it. “The Duke of Windsor. Empty for years. Burned down last week. Suspected arson. The second you know about. Having just come from there.”

“I don’t understand,” said Woodcock.

Stevens punctuated this remark with a beery fart. Wheeler looked ready to murder him.

“You said ‘under attack’?” Woodcock prompted, saving his partner’s life.

“I did, ar.” Wheeler revealed a photograph of the Barge Inn. “See them on the roof?”

Woodcock peered at the photograph.

“Hoof prints... We noticed them at the scene, didn’t we?” He nudged Stevens.

“And now this...” She produced a third photograph. “The Jolly Collier.”

Woodcock picked up the picture and looked at it. He passed it to Stevens who stared at it, bleary-eyed.

“More hoofs,” Wheeler nodded. “Or is it hooves?”

Woodcock shrugged.

“Hoofs on the roofs. Or is it hooves on the rooves? Any road. You two fine fuckwits am going to look into it.”

“You’m sending us to the pub?” Stevens couldn’t believe his luck.

Wheeler directed the rest of her instructions towards Woodcock alone.

“Speak to the landlord. Talk to the regulars. See if there’s anyone who’s in the habit of frequenting these shitholes.”

“You think there’s a connection. With the first one too, I mean?”

“Well, that’s what I want you to fucking find out, sunny Jim.”

“Um, it’s Gary...”

“Perhaps the first one was a rehearsal. Some joker putting hoove prints on the roove... Got out of hand. Went up in flames. Or perhaps, he wanted the other two to go up and all, except they fizzled out. Leaving these tracks.”

“Hmmm,” Woodcock nodded. He gathered up the photographs and nodded to Stevens that they should leave.

“Oh, and see that Benny fuckface here gets some black coffee inside him. And keep him off the beer. Looks like there’s already enough arson about as it is.”

She laughed.

Woodcock smiled uneasily and bundled Stevens out of the office.

Wheeler sat down, still chuckling. Arson about.

Should have been on the fucking telly.

***

As soon as they had left the Serious Crimes building, Stevens perked up. He tapped the side of his nose and nudged Woodcock’s arm with his elbow.

“What?” Woodcock was puzzled. “You’re suddenly sober all of a sudden.”

“Ah, you see, Gary my lad,” Stevens grinned, evidently pleased with himself. “It pays to let the bigwigs think you’re not quite up to it. Then when you deliver the results, POW! Ker-blam! They can’t believe their eyes. Keeps them guessing, you see. They’re never sure what you’re capable of.”

“Hmm,” said Woodcock. “As an approach to police work, I’m not entirely convinced.”

Stevens scowled.

“’Not entirely convinced’” he repeated in a mocking voice. “Hark at you. Mister Competent, all of a sudden. Ever since you took up with that bird -“

“Piss off,” said Woodcock. He got into the driving seat. “Leave Melanie out of this.”

Chastened, Stevens got in. The boy was touchier than he used to be. That bloody woman’s doing. Softening him up.

Stevens kept quiet all the way to the Jolly Collier, apart from crunching a handful of extra strong mints, mainly to annoy his detective sergeant.

They found the pub caught in a spider’s web of scaffolding. Men in baggy dungarees were swarming on the roof, cleaning or replacing the burned slates.

“Here!” Stevens called up. “Should you be doing that?” He turned to Woodcock. “Should they be doing that? Evidence, that is.”

Woodcock made a face.

“It must have been cleared. Besides, evidence of what exactly?”

He intercepted a workman who was about to drop a half dozen tiles into a skip.

“Forensics should be looking at those,” he reckoned.

The workman huffed.

“Go for your life, mate.”

Woodcock dithered. He decided to abandon the slates; Detective Inspector Stevens was already making his way into the public bar. Woodcock hurried to head him off before any drinks could be ordered.

***

Across town, outside the Council House to be exact, Trevor Nock was pacing the broad stone steps that led up to the main entrance. He chewed at the skin at the base of his thumbnail and looked up at the great arched windows, wishing he could see what was transpiring in the council meeting on the other side of the panes.

The sky was turning greyer by the minute and a breeze was gaining in strength and persistence. Trevor zipped up his anorak and put his hands in the pockets. He kept up his pacing. He supposed he could wait in the bus shelter across the road if it started raining, but he didn’t want to miss Gerry when he came out. Trevor wanted to hear from the horse’s gob himself what the decision was. The telephone was no good. Gerry had taken to missing his calls. Trevor was sure that bitch of a secretary had been trained to say ‘He’s just stepped out’ as soon as Trevor said who was calling. And it was no good giving a false name; she always recognised his voice. No; accosting the councillor was the most efficacious way. Gerry had brought it upon himself, being so elusive. Or did he mean evasive?

While Trevor was pacing up and down, wondering which of the two words he meant, the front doors were pushed open and members of Dedley Council began to pour out, with something of the air of schoolchildren being released for their summer holidays. It had been a long meeting.

Trevor had to dodge and duck in order to keep his eye on the doors. He jumped up, straining to see.

A thought struck him. What if Councillor Dixon had snuck out by a side door? Had he looked out of one of those grand arched windows and spotted Trevor out there?

Trevor began to panic.

Gerry wouldn’t do that, would he?

Surely Gerry would want to spread the news and tell Trevor the decision as soon as possible, if only to get Trevor out of his hair - such as it was?

But no; there he was: Councillor Gerald Dixon, standing in the doorway, gazing up at the sky and wondering if he should fish the collapsible umbrella out of his briefcase.

Trevor approached, taking two steps at a time. The councillor only saw him when it was too late to duck away.

“Ah, Mister Nock. Looks like rain.”

“Well?” Trevor was jumping up and down impatiently.

Gerry Dixon looked into Trevor’s eager eyes. The wrinkles at their edges spread in all directions, as though someone had flattened crane flies across the man’s weather-beaten face.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss council business,” the councillor harrumphed. “You know that.”

“Well, yes; but it’s only me. You can give me a nod. Tip me a wink, can’t you? Is it going ahead or not?”

Gerry Dixon sighed. This pest was not going to let him go without some kind of answer.

“The decision has been postponed; that’s all I will say. Good day to you, Mister Nock.”

He skipped down the stairs - quite a feat for a man of his bulk.

“So it’s not going ahead then?”

Oh, God. The pest was following him!

“Not just yet, no.”

“But it still might?”

“The decision has been postponed, I told you.”

Oh, good. There was Mrs Dixon with the car. The councillor picked up his pace. He was already puffing and panting.

“So, you’ve stalled them; is that what you’m saying? Bought a little time?”

Councillor Dixon glanced around nervously in case anyone was in earshot of this exchange. He fumbled with the handle on the passenger door. That nuisance Nock fellow was right at his shoulder.

“But we paid you to put a stop to it. Put the kibosh on it good and proper, once and for all.”

“Um, good day to you.” Councillor Dixon squeezed himself into the seat, his briefcase on his lap like an old woman’s handbag. He pulled the door shut.

“Hello, love.” Mrs Dixon inclined puckered lips towards his ruddy, sweaty cheek.

“Just fucking drive!” he snapped.

“Well, really!”

“To the hospital,” Councillor Dixon wailed, feeling a shooting pain up his left arm. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”

Mrs Dixon whimpered and pulled away, almost into the path of an oncoming bus.

Trevor Nock watched the car go. It wasn’t the result he’d hoped for. Still, a stay of execution, so to speak, was better than those godless idiots giving the go ahead to - to that - that.... Trevor shook himself to dispel the nastiness from his mind.

It looked like his campaign had a little longer to run.

***

D I Stevens was uncomfortable. He felt like a dog in a vet’s waiting room, surrounded by all sorts of animals but unable to stick his nose in any of them. He turned down the landlord’s offer of a fruit juice or a mineral water with the air of a martyr. Being in a pub and being on duty just did not mix.

The landlord, Leonard Dower, was a small man with a body like an international medicine ball smuggler. Stevens wondered how he could get close enough to the pumps to pull a pint, with that immense sphere of blubber hanging over his belt buckle. He expected the man’s over-worked shirt buttons to come pinging off every time the landlord breathed in. Stevens flinched, a hand ready to protect his eyes, just in case.

Woodcock, by contrast, was keeping his mind on the task at hand. He accepted a still water with a slice of lime, much to Stevens’s disdain, and led the questioning of Leonard Dower with probing efficiency. He gleaned that the Jolly Collier was independent, a ‘free house’ and had been a family run business for generations. Yes, there had been some regulars present when the roof was defaced but no actual witnesses for, as Dower explained with a chuckle, “When I say, which I hardly do, that the drinks am on the house, we all remain indoors.”

Woodcock laughed. It helped to keep one’s witnesses on side, encouraged them to say more. In the corner of his eye he could see Stevens making wanker gestures with his fist.

Woodcock took a list of names, although Dower seemed to know most of his regulars by nickname or what was their usual tipple. This list would be cross-referenced against the roll call of those present at the other boozer at the time of its defacement. Somebody somewhere must have seen someone or something.

“This is all bollocks,” Stevens grumbled as they returned to the car. “This isn’t the kind of thing we should be pissing about with.”

“Not ‘Serious’ enough for you?”

“Too fuckin’ right, it’s not serious. We’re Serious Crime. This is fuckin’ trivial pursuit. Give me a nice juicy murder. Like them at the old folks’s home. That was a proper case.”

“Which Brough and Miller solved,” Woodcock pointed out.

Stevens harrumphed. His opinions of Detective Inspector David Brough were well known.

“Which is why we need a case like that. Show we can do it and all.”

They got in the car. Woodcock nodded to a file on the back seat.

“Have a squint at that little lot. Might make you happier. Turns out that first pub, the um, Duke of Windsor was not unoccupied. There was someone in it. Burned to death, coroner said. Identity a complete mystery. Probably a homeless. Could be a nice crispy murder for you.”

Stevens stretched to pick up the folder. He flicked through it as Woodcock drove them back to base.

This was more like it.