Paul Gitsham - The Last Straw

Good! thought Warren. For too long, he’d felt on the back foot at Middlesbury and it was about time he took control of the situation.

Sutton finally pulled alongside him as they crossed the car park; he had his car keys in his hand.

“Put them away, Tony. You won’t be driving tonight.”

If Sutton had other plans for the evening, he wisely decided not to share them. Warren kept up the brisk pace down the high street; his longer legs meant that Sutton had no choice but to push himself hard to avoid breaking into an undignified trot and his breathing became slightly laboured.

Finally Warren spied what he was looking for: The Bricklayer’s Arms, a traditional-style English pub. Inside, it was exactly what Warren was after. Dark, slightly dingy with a long bar and, most importantly, tucked in the far corner, a few faded velour bench seats with tables and wooden dividers, giving at least the impression of privacy. At four p.m. on a weekday, the bar was quiet, the only customers two elderly men with rheumy eyes and flat caps sitting in silence behind halves of mild. A rolled-up newspaper, a single pack of Golden Virginia rolling tobacco, some cigarette papers and a battered box of matches sat between them like a barrier. Both glanced up at the newcomers, but made no comment, returning to their contemplative silence.

Without asking, Warren ordered two pints of Theakston Bitter. He’d have preferred something a little lighter, but he remembered from Monday that it was Sutton’s pint of choice. No change was forthcoming from his five-pound note and so he directed them to the corner booth. Sutton still hadn’t said anything beyond mumbled thanks for the pint.

Warren took a long swig of the strong, aromatic beer, wiping the foam off his top lip. Sutton did the same, politely nodding his appreciation. Time to start.

“What’s the problem, Tony?”

“Don’t know what you mean, guv.” His eyes flickered slightly, betraying the lie.

“Bollocks.” Warren’s voice was quiet and measured, but forceful. “Since when does a DI go to a superintendent to discuss a case behind his DCI’s back?”

“Don’t know what you mean — just being polite, is all. The super wanted a heads up on the case, you were busy, so I filled him in.”

“Really, and so it’s just a coincidence that when Grayson had me in his office he parroted, pretty much word for word, everything you said to me earlier?”

Sutton shrugged. “I’m not the only person who thinks you’ve got it wrong, sir.”

He took another sip of his pint.

Warren mirrored him, letting the silence sit between them.

“You don’t like me very much, do you, Tony?”

Sutton’s eyes narrowed as he looked for the trap. “You’re my DCI. You’re in charge, doesn’t matter if I like you or not.”

“Damned right it doesn’t matter. I’m your DCI and I’m in charge. If you’ve got a problem with the way I’m handling the case, you speak to me about it and my word is final. You don’t go over my head to the boss unless you think I’m incompetent or breaking the law. Do you think I’m incompetent?”

Sutton contemplated him for several heartbeats. “Not that I’ve seen.”

Warren nodded. “Good. We’ll leave it at that.”

The silence grew again, Sutton’s expression sullen. The air still felt tense. It wasn’t enough, Warren realised. All he’d done was mark a line in the sand and dare Sutton to cross it. Whether he did or he didn’t was merely a matter of degree. Warren still hadn’t tackled the core of the problem.

Fortifying himself with another swig of his pint — he was down to the last third, he realised — he started again. “You resent me being here, don’t you, Tony?”

Sutton said nothing, continuing to stare moodily into the dregs of his own pint. Warren motioned to the barman for two refills.

“From what I hear, you were expected to take Sheehy’s place when he retired next year.” Sutton’s eyes flashed at the mention of his former DCI’s name, but he remained silent. “Unfortunately that didn’t work out, did it? Sheehy went down last year and, after months of scrutiny, you were passed over. Bet it really pissed you off when some fucking Brummie turned up out of the blue and took over your job.” Warren’s tone was deliberately provocative.

Sutton scowled and shook his head. “You aren’t even in the ballpark. Sir.”

“Really? So tell me how it is, then, Tony. And forget the ‘Sir’ bullshit. We’re in the pub.”

Sutton took a big mouthful of his fresh pint. The barman had replenished it quietly, taking his payment without comment, experience telling him that he would be better off not interrupting the two men.

“You’re wrong about almost everything. I’ve heard the rumours too; that I was Sheehy’s golden boy, his heir apparent, next in line for the throne. But it’s bullshit. I’ve never wanted to be a DCI and Gavin knew that. I’m a beat copper, always have been, always will be.”

Warren shook his head. “No, you aren’t, Tony, you’re a detective and from what I hear a good one. You are no longer a bobby on the beat. By definition, when you joined CID you joined a team and you need to be a team player.”

Sutton interrupted. “No, you are wrong.” He shook his head vehemently. “This isn’t West Midlands Police, or the Met or even Devon and fucking Cornwall. This is Middlesbury. We are unique.” He waved his hand in the air, suddenly reminding Jones of Professor Tompkinson as he described his university.

“We are all beat coppers in Middlesbury. They won’t have told you any of this stuff when they posted you down here, because they wanted an outsider. Somebody to break up the status quo.”

Warren was starting to wonder if Sutton was paranoid or delusional. He sounded like a conspiracy theorist; Warren wondered who the hell ‘they’ were.

Seeing Jones’ sceptical look, Sutton calmed down slightly. “Let me explain what I mean. I come from a long line of coppers. My old man was a sergeant and his old man before him a constable. When he did his National Service he enlisted as an MP, following his own father’s footsteps, who did stints as an MP and as a civilian police officer in the interwar years. Two of his brothers also joined the force. The family history gets a bit hazy before the Frst World War, but my dad swears blind that there is an unbroken chain of us going right back to Robert Peel’s ‘Bobbies’ and the start of the Met.

“None of my ancestors ever made it past sergeant. None of them wanted it. And none of them were detectives. All of them were bobbies on the beat. My granddad got the George Medal after talking down an armed robber in the fifties. All he had was a wooden truncheon and handcuffs. Could have been promoted on the spot, but he turned it down. He didn’t want to leave his patch.”

For the first time since arriving at the pub, Sutton’s features took on something less than a scowl. “When I announced I was taking the detectives’ course, my old man nearly disowned me. That was until he came and saw where I worked and met Gavin and the team.

“Middlesbury has always been a small place, even with the outlying villages. Beat coppers really do know their beats and their beats know them. It’s about as close to Dixon of Dock Green as you’ll ever get in modern policing. Well, CID isn’t much different. We all know our patches, who our grasses are, who is dodgy and who can be trusted. The fact is, it works. By any measure, we punch above our weight when it comes to solving crimes, you know that.”

Warren nodded; it was true. Middlesbury had an impressive clear-up rate, putting it amongst the top-performing CID units within the country. He admitted as much.

“Yeah, well, tell that to the penny pinchers. A few years ago, Herts and Beds decided to pool resources and move all CID units to Welwyn Garden City. Gavin was devastated. You see, to Gavin’s way of thinking, Welwyn is too far away for that sort of community policing. We’d almost be better off joining up with Cambridgeshire. In the end he made his case strongly enough that it was decided to make Middlesbury CID a local first-response unit, responsible for Middlesbury and the surrounding towns. We come in, assess the situation, use our local contacts where appropriate and request back up from Welwyn as and when we need it. But we are constantly under scrutiny. We’ve set ourselves a high benchmark in terms of our performance figures and any deviation away from that could spell the end for the arrangement.”