John Harvey - Rough Treatment

“So he hooks up with this outfit for a few envelopes stuffed with flyers, that what you’re saying?” Lennie Lawrence shook his head in disbelief.

“I don’t think it’s that at all,” Resnick replied. “I doubt that he’s had any contact with Grice or Grabianski. I hope he’s never taken money from them. No, I think Fossey’s what interested him. Whatever else Fossey is, he’s a good talker. Eye very much on the main chance. If he saw the way things were going in the security business three years back, the spread of private police out into the general public, he could have got Jeff Harrison excited enough to want to keep him sweet.”

“What was he hoping to get from Fossey?” Tom Parker asked.

“Contacts. Names. Enough up-to-date information so that when he went in to talk to people he had it all at his fingertips. All his years in the force plus a good knowledge of state-of-the-art surveillance techniques.”

“In exchange for which,” said Prentiss, “this Fossey wanted the occasional favor.”

“A blind eye.”

“An investigation that stalled before it got out of the drive.”

“Like the Roy burglary.”

“Exactly.”

“Jeff would do what he could, not much skin off his nose, all the time waiting for the right moment to jump ship.”

Skelton was on his feet and walking, stiff-backed. “There’s an awful lot of conjecture here, gentlemen.”

“We’re not thinking of touching Harrison yet anyway, I presume,” said Tom Parker.

Resnick shook his head. “Not until we’ve lifted Fossey and Savage.”

Graham Millington allowed himself a short laugh. “See what happens when we shake their tree.”

“And Grice and Grabianski? If they find out we’ve moved in on their informants, they’ll be gone.”

“Grice we’ll take the moment he leaves his flat,” said Resnick.

“The other one? Grabianski.”

“Ah,” said Norman Mann, speaking for the first time, “your DI and myself, we’ve got plans for Mr. Grabianski.”

The unmarked car slowed to a halt fifty yards back from the Fossey house, the opposite side of the street. Millington leaned his elbows on the front seats and opened radio contact.

“In position?”

“Ready to go.”

“The back covered?”

“Three uniforms.”

Millington checked his watch, twenty minutes shy of seven o’clock. No indication that Fossey ever left the house before eight. The morning paper was still half in the letter-box, half out. Two pints of milk on the step. One of the advantages of living out here, Millington thought; we get ours in cartons and never till eleven.

Millington lifted the handset to check with Divine, on watch outside Savage’s house. “You’re sure Savage is inside?”

Divine used his elbow to shift condensation from the car window. “Far as we know.”

“How far’s that?”

“His car’s here.”

“Lights on in the house?”

“Nothing.”

“Jesus,” said Millington. “What we don’t need-one without the other.” He looked again at his watch. “Unless he tries to leave, give it a couple of minutes.”

“Right, sir,” said Divine and signed off.

Savage had a maisonette down at the fashionable end of the canal; young executives with over-powered motors and small boats moored in the marina. Divine guessed the narrow brick buildings would have been described as individually designed, architecturally enlightened. Not enough room inside to hoist a sail. Mind you, they wouldn’t hurt when you were trying to pull a bird. Waltz her straight out of happy hour in the Baltimore Exchange and on to the waterbed.

“What d’you think?” Lynn Kellogg asked, seated alongside him.

“Don’t know if I could get used to all that squishing.”

“Eh?”

“Waterbeds.”

“Savage, you think he’s in there?”

Divine cleared away a little more condensation; sixty seconds and they’d find out.

Graham Millington tapped Naylor briskly on the shoulder, nodding in the direction of the house.

“Sir?”

“Go.”

Naylor swung the car across to the other side of the road and brought it to a standstill at the end of the open path leading up towards the front door. As soon as the handbrake was set, he and Millington were smartly out and on their way. Less than five yards on and the door opened and Fossey’s wife was standing there, dressing gown over baggy silk pajamas, struggling to free the paper from the letter-box. She recognized Millington at the second glance and ran back inside, shouting her husband’s name.

Naylor was faster than his sergeant and had the underside of one foot wedged inside the door while Mrs. Fossey was still trying to push it shut.

“Lloyd, Lloyd! It’s the police!”

From inside there came the sound of at least two radios playing, tuned to different stations; a banging of doors and feet heavy on the stairs.

Naylor pushed his warrant card around the edge of the door. “I’m Detective Constable Naylor,” he said, “and this is Sergeant Millington. We have a warrant …”

“Watch it!” shouted Millington and landed his left shoulder midway up the door so that it sprang inwards, knocking Fossey’s young wife back to the foot of the stairs.

“Shit!” yelled Millington.

Fossey was on his way out through the French windows, still zipping up the front of his trousers. He had a briefcase under one arm, car keys in his hand and no shoes on his feet.

“Lloyd Fossey,” Millington began, but Fossey wasn’t listening. So much the better. The sergeant wasn’t as fast as five years ago, but over the length of your above-average suburban garden he was fast enough. One fist grabbed Fossey’s collar and jerked him back hard. Case and keys tumbled towards the winter lawn and Millington’s other arm tightened into a head lock.

Kevin Naylor had finished helping Fossey’s wife to her feet and guiding her in the direction of a box of multi-colored tissues; as he came down the garden, the cuffs were ready in his hand.

“What d’you reckon?” Divine asked for a third time, sullen-faced.

Lynn Kellogg shrugged and looked towards the upstairs windows.

Divine used the knocker sharply, pounded on the woodwork with his fist. The back door had yielded nothing either.

“He can’t have slept through this lot,” Divine said angrily.

“Doesn’t mean he’s not in there,” said Lynn, “hoping we’ll just go away.”

“Fat chance!”

He was giving serious thought to battering the door down when the black-and-white pulled up just ahead of the CID car and Andrew Savage got out.

“Look who’s back from a night on the tiles,” said Divine softly, the smile returning to his face.

Savage had taken a few paces away from the curb before he realized what was going on. The cab had begun to pull clear and Savage jumped back at it, waving an arm and shouting. He landed one blow on the roof as the driver gave him the finger and accelerated away.

Savage made a run for it, sprinting towards the bridge that humped over the canal. Car headlights drew gold and silver lines along the boulevard beyond. Already there were two fishermen hunched beneath green tarpaulin alongside the water. Divine loved all this. It was Saturday afternoon again and Savage was the opposing wing forward, desperate to make the winning try. Divine’s mouth was open in a full-throated roar as he dived, tackling Savage sideways into the railings of the bridge. No sooner were the pair of them down on the pavement than Divine was scrambling up again, knee hard in Savage’s groin, foot on his forearm, fingers poking straight for his face-all good sporting stuff.

Savage cried out and tried to wave his arms, signaling enough.

Divine hauled him up and whirled him round, throwing him smack against the upper railing, bending him down over it, one hand firm to the base of his neck while he wrenched his arms behind his back.