Authors: Roy Lewis
It was slightly open.
DS Parsons grinned. He reached for his radio to summon assistance and then thought better of it. Dawkins was a skinny young thug; Parsons had been middleweight boxing champion in the Midlands two years ago. And he tasted his own saliva at the thought of being able to give Dawkins a good hammering.
Resisting arrest. Yes, he would enjoy that.
He walked quietly down to the doorway, opened it, and the beam of his torch flickered around and over the accumulated rubbish in the old warehouse: rusty iron, discarded boxes, forgotten, disregarded detritus. He moved slowly into the building, flashing his torch beam into dark corners.
‘I know you’re in here, sonny,’ he called out. His voice echoed mournfully against the dark rafters. ‘Come to Daddy. I won’t hurt you. Not much, you young bastard.’
There was no reply, only the soft tread of his feet as he
moved deeper into the warehouse. DS Parsons moved on, watchfully. There was another scuffling sound ahead of him. ‘No way out, Sunny Jim,’ he growled. ‘You want to get out of here, you’re going to have to get past me….’
Broken pallets lay against the wall to his left. The beam flickered over them, and he thought he caught the movement. He shouted and ran forward and a moment later realized he had made a mistake. A rat scampered away with a squeal but at the same moment, as Parsons was swinging around, he made out a dark blur to his right, emerging from the old boxes against one of the tall iron pillars supporting the roof. He raised an arm, the flashlight picked out the white, scared face of the man he was chasing and then DS Parsons felt a blinding pain in his forehead. It was only one blow but it sent him to his knees. His senses swam and after a moment he slid slowly to the dusty concrete of the warehouse floor.
He was vaguely aware of the echo of running feet. There was a banging sound, a door clanging, and then he felt his eyelids growing heavy as he slipped into unconsciousness.
When he finally came to, he had no idea how long he had been unconscious. He was on his back; there was a wetness about his face, a thundering in his skull. Groggily he put out a hand and groped for his flashlight, but could not find it immediately. On his hands and knees he scrabbled about on the floor until his fingers encountered the rubber casing. He stayed there for a little while, breathing hard, waiting for the thunder in his head to steady and fade and then slowly he rose to his feet, staggering slightly. He was disoriented; he flicked on the torch and was relieved to find it was still working. Head down, he moved forward, hand held out as he walked towards the door. It was only when he reached it
that he realized he was walking in the wrong direction. It was an iron door. It was padlocked. He put his hand on the door, leaning, took a deep breath and stood there for a few moments, waiting for his mind to clear. Then he turned and began to make his way back towards the entrance through which Dawkins had escaped.
The bastard had got away. A sucker punch. The kind he’d avoided in the ring for years. But he’d get him. If not today, tomorrow….
DS Parsons stopped, stood still. Something bothered him. For a little while he stood there thinking, waiting for something to skip back into his mind. An oddity. Something out of place.
Slowly he turned. The beam of his flashlight danced, wavered over the iron door at the end wall, moved to the padlock. A padlock in an empty warehouse. The dull gleam of oil. An empty, disused, deserted building. A newish padlock. DS Parsons walked slowly back to the door, took the padlock in his hand, felt the smear of oil.
Oil? In a warehouse that hadn’t been used in years.
He stepped back, then flashed the light around until he saw the piece of timber that Dawkins had used to hit him. Beyond that he caught the dim gleam of rusted iron: it was as well Dawkins had not seen that, he thought grimly. He walked forward, picked it up, went back to the iron door.
He inserted the iron bar between the padlock and the hasp. He leaned on it, tugged. Something moved. His head was aching, there was a violent pain in his skull, but he remembered some of the ring battles he had been in, flexed his powerful shoulders, took a deep breath and heaved.
There was a grinding noise and then the hasp gave way with a scream. DS Parsons threw the lock aside and dragged open the iron door. It opened silently; no screaming, rusty
protest. Oil, again. He shone his torch ahead. A wooden staircase, rickety steps. He walked forward, moving carefully downwards.
And stepped into hell.
The attack of influenza started at the front desk but within days it swept through the headquarters building at Ponteland. As always, Elaine Start’s toughness seemed to leave her untouched by the virus; Charlie himself also seemed immune. But as the roll call of officers taking time off for recovery from the bug increased, the schedules were thrown badly out of kilter and Charlie found himself struggling to cope with the surveillance demands placed under his responsibility. It was no longer possible to have two men in a squad car following Raymond Conroy on his little jaunts. Charlie had considered asking Elaine if she could help fill in some of the difficult slots but decided against it: he had to admit she aroused a protective streak in him that he had never before recognized. And in any case, in view of the criminal acts Conroy had been charged with, keeping the man under a watchful eye was, in Charlie’s view, a job for a man.
‘Fascist pig!’ Elaine muttered to him when he mentioned it to her.
‘Who? Conroy?’
‘No! You!’ she smouldered at him, eyes narrowed in resentment. ‘If you had your way women would be kept in the kitchen and the bedroom!’
‘Hey, that’s not fair,’ Charlie expostulated. ‘I treat you right, don’t I? Is looking after you a bad thing?’
‘Protecting me from big bad wolves, you mean?’ she sneered.
Charlie took a deep breath and counted to ten. When he argued with Elaine he usually ended up being defeated. She was exemplary in her attitude towards him professionally; he had no cause for complaint on that score for she kept their professional relationship on an appropriate, respectful keel in view of the disparity in their rank. But privately, it could be a different matter. Particularly when they were in bed, as was the case at the moment. She was not above suggesting he was a racist, sexist, antediluvian throwback to the Middle Ages. And now, a fascist pig, simply because he had admitted he didn’t really want her involved in the Conroy case.
On the other hand, he was now short of officers he could use on the surveillance. He sighed, placed a hand between her thighs, stroked her soothingly. ‘All right, then, if that’s the way you see things, I could use your help, with so many of the guys off sick. What about Friday night?’
She wriggled, removed his hand from her thighs, turned over on her back, stared abstractedly at the ceiling. ‘Can’t be done,’ she asserted.
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve got a day’s leave coming.’
‘So take it some other time!’ Exasperated, Charlie snapped, ‘Hairdressing appointments aren’t unbreakable, for God’s sake!’
She raised her head and regarded him coldly. ‘Hairdressing my arse! I’m taking a day’s leave to attend a hen party. It’ll be starting lunchtime on Friday, and there’s no doubt we’ll be getting smashed that evening somewhere in the city centre or on the Quayside or whatever. And it’s no good looking at me like that! You get boozed up yourself
with your mates whenever you want, and Shirley’s an old friend of mine, went to school together, and there’s no way I’m not taking the day off to give her proper support before she puts on the manacles.’
‘Is that how you see marriage?’ he demanded sourly. ‘Like getting clapped in irons?’
She stared at him for a few seconds then shook her head. ‘You’re not going to start on that tack again, are you Charlie? You and me, we’re all right as we are.’ She reached out and grasped his hand, then slapped it firmly back between her thighs. ‘There! You all right now?’
There seemed little point in continuing an argument thereafter.
By Friday another two men had been forced to take days off with the virus, and Charlie’s schedules were struggling. He tried discussing the matter with ACC Charteris but was met with no sympathy. Charteris snarled at him. ‘They’re nothing but big girl’s blouses, this crew! When I was on the streets there was no way officers would back off duty with a head cold! You have to carry on, Spate, with what you’ve got. Even if it means getting your own backside out into the cold, hey?’
Charlie scowled, kept his mouth shut, and got on with the job.
At least the routine changed little. Raymond Conroy left his rented accommodation according to his standard schedule: breakfast, lunch in the Bigg Market or The Gate, an evening visit to the Northumberland Arms, the Steam Shovel, the Prince of Wales or the Victoria and Albert. He was clearly aware of the manner in which he was being shadowed, even though unmarked police cars were used as often as not. He had probably developed a sixth sense as far
as a police presence was concerned. Once or twice he had actually stopped and spoken to the officers, asked them for a light for his cigarette, obviously completely contemptuous of their dogging his footsteps. But Charlie guessed he would be edgy, nevertheless, resentful of the attention he was getting, irritated by the constant police harassment.
Charteris reiterated his words regularly. ‘I want that bastard off our patch!’
The officers in the cars kept in touch with Charlie on their mobiles. He found it a wearisome task, monitoring their calls. When he hadn’t heard from the patrol for a few hours he would call them; occasionally he would visit the site himself, just to check what was going on. It was what he found himself forced to do on the Friday evening.
He hadn’t seen much of DS Start during the last few days. She had her own workload to deal with, enhanced as a result of the virus that had swept through the building. And she hadn’t bothered telling him where she would be going for her hen party. Fridays, of course, he often ended up at her place, but that would not be the situation this week. She would take the hen party seriously as she did everything: she would be well smashed, and would be unlikely to appreciate his company. So when the patrol car hadn’t called in for an hour beyond the scheduled time, exasperated, Charlie phoned the officer concerned, DC Donovan, on his mobile.
The phone rang for a considerable time before Donovan answered.
‘Where the hell are you?’ Charlie demanded. ‘Why haven’t you rung in?’
There was a spluttering sound, a sneeze. The reply was thick: Donovan clearly had a problem in speaking. ‘Sorry, sir, I’m parked down at Whitley Bay, outside Club 95.’
‘Changed his routine, has he?’ Charlie grunted. ‘Conroy inside?’
There was another spluttering sound. ‘Went in an hour ago, sir. There’s only me on duty so I couldn’t go in to keep an eye on him. So I’m waiting in the car.’ There was a short pause. ‘Lot of birds gone in tonight, sir.’
That no doubt would be it. Raymond Conroy, Zodiac Killer, on the prowl. Charlie grunted, reflected on the matter. As Charteris had stated, maybe it was time he stirred himself. ‘Right, just hang on there. I’ll join you as soon as I can.’
Fifteen minutes later he was driving down the coast road, coming off the roundabout to Whitley Bay. Club 95 lay just off the promenade: summer evenings drunken habitués were known to stagger out of the front entrance and disport themselves on the long sands of the beach. Maybe even tonight, Charlie thought, but guessed not as the stiff sea breeze buffeted his car along the length of the promenade.
He caught sight of Donovan’s car parked on a piece of wasteground near the front entrance of the nightclub. Charlie pulled his car in behind him. He switched off the lights, cut the engine, got out and walked to the driver’s door. DC Donovan wound down the window. ‘No sign of him coming out yet, sir.’
‘Bit early for that,’ Charlie grunted. He stared at the police officer seated in the car. ‘You all right?’
Donovan grimaced, grey-faced, handkerchief held to his mouth. ‘Not really, sir. Got the bug, I guess. Feeling rotten. I’ve been sick as well … over there behind those bins. Feel good for nothing.’
Charlie Spate was not a charitable man given to generous impulses. But as he stared at Donovan it was clear he was in no fit state to be sitting in a car late at night. He needed to be
home in bed.
‘Whisky,’ Charlie said. ‘Whisky, hot water, lemon. Bed. And a hot woman, if you can manage it. Get off home, son. You’re doing no good here. I’ll take over your shift, see our friend Conroy home safe and sound.’
Donovan was surprised but grateful and relieved also. He stuttered his thanks, sneezed, and a few moments later was edging out into the road, turning his vehicle towards Cullercoats as Charlie went back to his own car, hunched in his seat, swore, and resigned himself to a lengthy wait.
Just to satisfy bloody Assistant Chief Constable Charteris.
A number of women and a few men entered the club during the next hour, but no one emerged. Charlie was chilled; he rubbed the back of his neck and stared out of the window sourly. He was half minded to pack it in, and to hell with Charteris’s instructions. But at that moment a small group of women came out of the club. They were drunk, as far as he could tell, shrill-voiced, giggly, falling about. They stood there in a tight group, talking loudly amongst themselves, their incoherent voices carrying down to the windswept promenade. A taxi drew up, then a second. The group had fallen to two women. Charlie saw them put their heads together, reaching some kind of agreement, and then they hugged each other, their affection causing them to lurch and stagger about on their high heels while they burst into hysterical laughter. Then they separated.
Charlie sat up and peered through the windscreen. What if Raymond Conroy came out now? A single, drunken woman going off in one direction, probably to her car; a second heading down towards the promenade. Maybe this was how Conroy selected his victims; maybe this was why he had deviated from his routine, leaving the city pubs to come out to a club in Whitley Bay. Charlie stared fixedly at
the club entrance. No one emerged.