hard not to think about. Six weeks earlier, I’d been on a surveillance job with a few others from the office, trying to catch a big-time heroin dealer called Quentin Davey, who lived in Hollingdean.
What we didn’t know at the time was that he had just blagged a load of heroin on tick, and that, if he didn’t get the money sorted out, he was in big trouble. So when we jumped him, instead of putting his hands up or running away, he pulled a knife and stabbed Jimmy Holdsworth, my partner of three years, piercing a lung and putting him on life support for two weeks before he began to recover.
Of course we’d taken Davey down, but it looked like Jimmy wasn’t going to get a payout, as he hadn’t been wearing a stab vest – everyone knows you can’t wear one on surveillance. Nothing screams copper like a covert vest; you look like the Michelin Man and move about as fast too.
So that day was the day of the court case and I was the star witness, having been inches away when it happened. Every time I thought about it I got butterflies in my stomach and goosebumps, so I was doing my best not to.
I smiled at our researcher, Sally, as I sank into my chair in the drugs pod. The room is split up into various different pods, or work areas, demarcated by brown felt dividers that stand to about chest height. I glanced around my littered desk, covered in reports both new and old, all filed with the care that only eighteen-hour days can produce. It was a pigsty.
The divider wall next to my computer was covered with pieces of paper, some tacked over others, showing the faces of local criminals, pictures of me and the lads on skiing and fishing holidays and a picture of a huge bride being fed cake by an equally large husband on their wedding day, with the legend ‘nom nom nom’ printed underneath. I had that up there so that I would see it every time I fancied a doughnut.
I’d been fighting to keep my chest from sagging into my stomach for a while, and it was a battle I was finally winning.
‘Anything relevant?’ I asked Sally as I waited for my computer to boot up.
She smiled at me as she turned her chair, displaying a heart-shaped face framed by golden curls and eyes that I regularly wanted to fall into. She should have been a model, not a police researcher.
‘Not really, Gareth, just a few serials about that BMW in Whitehawk again, and one about dealers in East Street by the taxi rank; they’re probably coming over from the YMCA.’
Nothing new there then. Despite the fact that the YMCAs were set up to help people living on the streets, they had quickly become hotbeds of crime, mainly heroin and crack dealing and petty thefts, and you could guarantee that wherever a YMCA opened, the crime rate would rise. They seemed to be filled with people too stupid to realize that you didn’t shit on your own doorstep. Not that all of the occupants were like that, some of them were genuinely just down on their luck, but sadly they were tarred with the same brush as the majority.
The hamster that ran my computer finally woke up and started turning the wheel, allowing me to check my emails and update the intelligence sheets before the morning meeting.
The rest of the drugs pod was on a job in Hove, but I was exempt that day because I was giving evidence in court, so I got to do all their reports as well as mine. Not that it was a problem, since the previous day had been a series of dead ends and poor leads that amounted to almost no paperwork for once.
Paperwork is the bane of any copper’s existence. The poor bastards downstairs on uniform (and I mean no disrespect, I was one for years) are supposed to run about eight crime reports at a time per officer, as well as respond to calls and make enquiries, assisting the CID teams and generally doing all the other work that no one else has time to do. Most officers I know have somewhere over twenty reports each and are snowed under with paperwork. The truth is, you won’t get in trouble for not answering a 999 call, but you can lose your job for not doing your paperwork properly, so officers will turn their radios down and sit in the corner of the office, frantically trying to finish their reports before a sergeant finds them and turfs them out to pick up yet more jobs.
I felt more than lucky that I had managed to find a way into DIU. I had come somewhat of an unusual route, having gone onto Local Support Team, the LST, which specializes in warrants, riots, protests, bashing in doors and violent prisoners. Dealing with the latter, not bashing them in, I should add. After I’d been on the unit for a few months, our remit had changed and we had become half- plain clothes, half-uniform, so you could come in in the morning, do a drugs warrant in uniform, then change into plain clothes and go out hunting scallies in the town centre. I’d quickly discovered that I had an aptitude for the surveillance work, and when I got an attachment to DIU I’d just kind of stayed for a few years, and had no intention of leaving.
I really feel like I have my finger on the pulse of the city, and I probably know as much about what’s happening in it as anyone else in the world. It’s a funny feeling, but one that I’ve grown to love.
My inbox was full of pointless emails from other units with three-letter names and none of them applied to me. At least I’d hoped not, because as per usual I deleted them without really looking. If they had been important they’d have emailed me again.
Sally leaned over with a cup of tea as a waft of her perfume tickled my nose.
‘Thanks, Sally. How was the film last night?’ I vaguely remembered that she had been going out with one of the string of boyfriends that treated her like shit, despite our regular advice about the type of man she should go for.
‘Yeah, it was okay, but Darren made me pay for the film and dinner again. He’s such a jerk!’
Another voice floated over the partition, and I swung round to see Kevin Sands, one of the three detective sergeants that run the office, leaning casually against a nearby pillar.
‘Sally, I’ve told you before, all you have to do is dump him, and I’ll kick Mrs Sands out. You can have her half of the bed.’
From anyone else it would be harassment, but Kev has the ability to be rude, sexist, and generally as non-PC as you can get, yet make it clear that he doesn’t mean any of it. He had spent more than thirty years in the force and came back on the ‘thirty plus’ deal, which meant that he could do another five years. He’s one of the funniest men I have ever met. Not only does he have a mind that’s more devious than a politician’s, he has comic timing that Bill Bailey would kill for.
Sally laughed at him and went back to her desk while Sands took the empty chair at the desk behind mine.
‘You all ready for court this morning, Gareth?’ he asked, trying unsuccessfully to press the height lever on my chair with his foot.
I nodded. ‘I think so. What’s not to be ready for? I saw him stab Jimmy; if I’d been any closer I would have been the one that got stabbed.’ Just the memory of it made me angry, seeing again the look of pleasure on Davey’s face as he jammed the knife into Jimmy’s chest.
It’s a common misconception that most stabbings are done with combat knives. Nine out of ten are done with kitchen knives that you can pick up in almost any store for a few quid. Every other car I’ve stopped in my career has one tucked somewhere, whether it be in a tool box or hidden under the driver’s seat. But they rarely get turned on us.
‘Come on now,’ Kev said, obviously seeing my faraway look. ‘You know the drill; just concentrate on the questions they ask you and don’t babble. Answer “yes” or “no” if you can, and don’t try to explain unless you think they’re trying to lead you. Not that I’m trying to teach you to suck eggs.’
I
