Cath Staincliffe - Ruthless

‘No comment.’

‘We have reason to suspect you acquired a firearm from Greg Tandy on Tuesday, is that true?’

‘No comment.’

‘Where did you get the petrol?’

He scratched his side. ‘Petrol station.’

‘When?’

‘Coupla weeks back,’ he said.

‘What did you carry it in?’

‘Petrol can,’ he sneered.

‘Which petrol station?’ Janet said.

‘Shell, on the ring road.’

‘What were you wearing on Wednesday evening?’

‘Hoodie, jeans, trainers.’

Janet produced the evidence bags. ‘Are these the items?’ She read the evidence log numbers for the tape.

‘Yeah, them’s mine.’

Everything fitted. She saw no reason to prolong the interview.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You will now be formally charged and remanded in custody. You will appear before the magistrates’ court in the morning. Is there anything you wish to add?’

He gave a slow smile, his gums showing. ‘One down.’ He raised his hand. Made a pistol shape, pointed it at Janet, mimed shooting and made an explosive noise. ‘A million to go.’

While Lee and Kevin went to execute the warrant at Shirelle’s, Rachel paired up with Mitch for Stanley Keane’s. They took a couple of uniformed officers with them.

Stanley Keane’s house was a new-build on an open-plan development. Tiny houses, big cars, 4x4s in several of the driveways, outsize satellite dishes on each house.

The uniforms went round to guard the back and stop anyone trying to exit.

Mitch knocked on the door and they waited for a response. When none came, he banged again, more loudly.

Rachel saw movement out of the side of her eye, a woman next door peering out of the window, probably alerted by the police cars parked outside, blocking Keane’s driveway and his car.

Sudden commotion from the back sent them both racing around the side of the house to the rear. Stanley Keane had apparently opened the back door, seen the welcome party and bolted back inside with the uniforms trying unsuccessfully to gain entry.

Rachel rolled her eyes at Mitch and at that very moment realized the front of the property was now unprotected. Shit!

She ran back round, vaulting over the little garden wall and scouring the street. There he was. Running. Perhaps two hundred yards ahead, just before the road bent to the right, an impression of bulk, dark clothing. Rachel gave chase, willing herself on, the houses passing in a blur, her footsteps loud on the paving stones, breath coming fast. He was soon out of sight. Reaching the T-junction, breathless and sweaty, she looked right and left, alert to any movement, but there was nothing save for the two or three cars travelling along it. She listened, tried to discern anything beyond the thud of her heart and the swoosh of blood in her ears. There was no sign of the man. Fuck!

Back at the house, her windpipe tight from the run and the sweat now cold on her back, she found Mitch and the two others had forced an entry. Harder these days when everything was made from PVC and double glazing.

‘Check down here,’ Mitch said to the uniforms, ‘we’ll take upstairs.’

The stairs led up to a short landing, where the door straight ahead was most likely the bathroom. Rachel waited to one side while Mitch swung it open. Empty. Two steps took them up on to the main landing with three doors, back, middle and front. All closed. Mitch gestured to Rachel that he’d take the front ones. Keane lived alone as far as their intel went, an assumption that was reinforced when Mitch gave her the thumbs-up from his end of the corridor.

Rachel opened the door of the back bedroom on to a small space that smelled strongly of cigarette smoke. The single bed was rumpled, the ashtray on the floor at its side half full. Clothes, men’s clothes, were draped over the chair by the window to her right. An old-fashioned wooden wardrobe on the wall opposite was the only other furniture. Rachel walked round the bed to reach it. She was almost there when she heard the rustle of movement behind her, felt the change in the air as a man darted out from behind the bedroom door and ran.

Rachel yelled, ‘Stop! Police, stop,’ and flew after him, aware of Mitch in her wake.

He raced downstairs and had reached the front door when Rachel, halfway down, jumped the remaining distance. She felt the giddy sensation of flying and then the solid impact of the man as she landed on his back, smashing him into the door, banging her knees and shoulder.

‘Bloody hell!’ said one of the uniforms.

‘Lara Croft, innit,’ the other one added.

Rachel ignored the jarring pains and yanked the man around. Slick black hair, red cheeks, startled eyes. The bloke from the CCTV at Bobbins, the one meeting Neil Perry. Greg Tandy. Missing for days. He was twitching, poised to bolt. Rachel shoved him round again. ‘Hands behind your back. Now. Do it.’ She snapped the cuffs on, her hands shaking from the adrenaline.

After losing Stanley Keane, Rachel took great satisfaction in arresting Tandy on suspicion of firearms offences. And sending him to the police station with the uniforms.

Rachel and Mitch searched the house. They found a substantial quantity of illegal drugs, glassine bags containing white powder, various forms of cannabis and an array of brightly coloured pills.

‘Pick and mix,’ said Rachel.

In the back bedroom, on top of the wardrobe, they found something else even more interesting.

Rachel rang the boss. ‘We’re at Stanley Keane’s,’ she said. ‘Guess who’s been sleeping over?’

‘Goldilocks?’

‘Greg Tandy,’ said Rachel, ‘we just picked him up. Greg Tandy and a bag full of guns.’

Godzilla called Rachel in as soon as she got back. Janet was already there.

‘The gun we want, it’s not with the cache of arms, so it’s still missing,’ the boss said.

Rachel had a thought. ‘It could be at Tandy’s own place.’

‘We’ll look, I’ll apply for a warrant,’ the boss said. ‘Janet, can you step out a minute?’

Janet nodded, no argument.

Once she’d left, Her Maj said, ‘Searches at Shirelle Young’s turned up Class A and Class Bs as well as some unclassified, Paradise and meow meow or some version of. From what you told me earlier I think we can show that she was dealing. Same as the drugs you recovered from Stanley Keane’s house.’

‘He was supplying Shirelle,’ Rachel said, just like she’d guessed. ‘Shirelle gets the goods from Keane’s and goes off on her rounds. Maybe Victor and Lydia were one of her stops.’

‘Never mix business and pleasure,’ Gill said.

‘And all that stuff about not seeing Victor since January, that’s bollocks. She’s just trying to cover her tracks. Though she’s in the clear for the murders.’ Rachel thought for a moment. ‘Greg Tandy knows the Perry brothers, he sells them the gun, he also knows Stanley Keane – well enough to be staying there.’ She considered the connections.

‘Why did Tandy leave home?’ Godzilla said. ‘And when? Suspicious to do so when he’s out on licence, as is hoiking a case of firearms about. Find out.’

If Neil Perry reminded Rachel of a malevolent teddy bear, Greg Tandy made her think of a ventriloquist’s dummy. The large round eyes under the monobrow, the dark slicked-back hair, round cheeks splotched with colour, too many teeth in his mouth. He stank of fags, and he’d buggered up his lungs with it because he wheezed and whistled with each breath. Prison, one of the few public institutions where you could still smoke.

‘Mr Tandy, you have been arrested on suspicion of supplying a firearm and for possession of a firearm as a prohibited person.’ She read him the caution and then said, ‘Before we begin, do you understand the charge?’