have you done?'
She wriggled out from under him, and fetched something from her handbag, a small package wrapped in red paper and tied with a pretty bow.
'It's a gift to say how much I love you.'
He removed the paper to find a small plastic device, used to store data from a computer.
'Is this what I think it is, the files on the council contracts?' He seemed nonplussed, 'How did you know which ones to take?'
'Well, since you refused to tell me which ones were yours, I had no option but to take everything to do with contracts and tenders for the last six months. Are you mad at me?'
'No, of course I'm not mad at you, this is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me.'
He almost seemed close to tears.
'Please tell me you can't get into trouble for this, I would hate to see you lose your job.'
'It's all right, it was actually easier taking a copy of everything, that way I was able to make it look as if I was doing a routine virus scan. The only thing is, there is a lot of confidential material in there, I'm trusting you not to look at anything you shouldn't.'
'Of course you can trust me, I would never do anything to betray you, I love you.'
And he took her in his arms and kissed her, and they made love again on the rug in front of the fire.
Chapter 5
Allan was throwing dirty football kit in the washing machine when Julie got home. Their son John played for his school's football team, and they had obviously just returned from Saturday morning's match.
'Hi' he said looking up.
'Hi yourself,' she replied, leaning down to give him a peck on the cheek,
'Win lose or draw?' she asked, indicating the dirty kit.
'Win! John scored a goal. He's chuffed to bits but trying to act casual about it.'
'Where is he now?'
'He went straight out to see his friends, so they can tell him how great he is. Mandy's next door on the computer. How was your night of being treated like royalty?'
'Fantastic, I could live like that all the time,' (Not lying, she told herself), 'How was your night, what did Chalky want with you?'
'Oh.....just a neighbourhood watch kind of thing, I told him I wasn't really interested. Fancy a cup of tea?'
'Love one, I'll just say hi to Mandy before I nip upstairs to change.'
Life, it would appear, was carrying on entirely as normal in the Ross household.
North Street police station was relatively quiet on a Saturday, Ian Hopkins was the only detective occupying a desk in the CID room.
'Hi Ian, you're just the very man I'm looking for.' He looked up to see Amrita Bachchan approaching.
'Wow, I've been waiting all my life for a gorgeous woman to say that to me!'
'Yeah, right, I bet it happens to you all the time,' she laughed, 'But what I should have said was, “Just the detective sergeant I'm looking for.”
'I can't say I'm not disappointed, but still, what can I do for you Amrita?'
'I need you to look at something on the MyPals social networking site, decide whether it's worth investigating.'
'Let's take a look.'
She placed the laptop she was carrying on his desk.
'A couple of people mentioned this to me when I was in the Craigends this morning.'
PC Bachchan was the community officer for the Craigends area, and she was liked and trusted by the more honest residents who made up the majority in the district. This was no small achievement considering the animosity experienced by many officers called to incidents in the area.
'This is Benny Patterson's page, showing a video which was posted last night. Apparently he sent texts to lots of people, saying stuff like,
”Check out my page guys, see how stupid I look”, “Hear how I got a girl killed, see me shit my pants”, that kind of thing. When I say he sent them, I mean they were sent from his phone. I somehow don't imagine he would be very keen for people to see this!'
She clicked on a button and the video began to play. Ian Hopkins watched, fascinated, as a very frightened looking Benny Patterson was questioned about the death of a teenage girl and the supply of drugs by the Hills. He visibly winced when the concrete block was dropped from the window.
'Well, well, well, what have we got here then, a bunch of vigilantes trying to do our jobs, and getting a bit more entertainment from it than us!'
'Ssssh, better not let her upstairs hear you say that, you're supposed to be outraged by that kind of behaviour.'
'Oh she's all right, she'll probably feel the same way, she just won't admit it.'
'Yeah well, I would still watch what you say,' she warned, 'Anyway, what do you make of it?'
'That is Benny Patterson, minor drug dealer, pimp, and general good-for-nothing, as you probably know. He is an associate of Darren Hill, which again, you probably know.' Amrita was nodding in agreement.
'The incident being referred to here was the death of Linda Hope, fifteen years old, who died from a drug overdose, and her friend Liz Kingsley, who ended up in hospital. As they say in the video, the drugs were supplied by Darren Hill.'
'So you know all this already?'
'Sure do. We just can't prove it. Nobody wants to grass on the Hills family. And if you listen to Patterson, he doesn't really admit to anything useful.'
'Is this of any help to you at all?'
'Doubt it. You can't possibly use any of this in court. A guy with a concrete block tied to his dick, “Tell us what we want to hear or we throw the block out the window”, bye bye wedding tackle! His lawyers, and the Hill's, would just laugh at us. Of course he's going to tell them what they want to hear, what man wouldn't? Did you hear anything else about the Hills when you were out and about?'
'There was a rumour that old Gerry Hill bashed some kid in a shop recently when he was back home on a visit, but when I enquired, I got the old three monkeys reaction.'
Ian nodded knowingly,
'See no evil, hear no evil, and most definitely, speak no evil. This gang of vigilantes would probably have more luck than us when it comes to getting people to talk about incidents like that!'
Amrita frowned,
'So
