James Craig: The Enemy Within

Oh, it’s ‘Ian’ now, is it? she thought, anger blooming in her chest. You’re on first-name terms, now that you’ve killed the poor lad? Balling her hands into two small fists, Millicent dug her fingernails deep into her palms as she fought an almost overwhelming urge to jump up and scratch the inspector’s eyes out. ‘Fuck you,’ she hissed. Without waiting for a reply, she turned on her heels and fled, in search of some fresh air and some sanity.

Careful to avoid standing in the slowly evaporating pool of piss in the corner of the phone box, Martin Palmer looked out through the broken glass. Assuming that the clock next to the station entrance was correct, his train to London should be arriving in just under ten minutes.

‘So that’s it then?’ said the voice on the other end of the phone.

‘Yes, sir.’ Palmer grabbed a ten-pence piece from the pile of coins he had placed on the shelf by the phone and fed it into the slot. ‘With the Williamson boy dead, the case is now officially closed.’

‘Good, good.’ There was a pause while his superior thought of something else to say. ‘I suppose that’s what we wanted. If nothing else, it’s one less thing to worry about.’

‘Yes.’

‘And he did it, you think?’

‘What? Kill the Slater woman?’ Palmer made a face. ‘The police seem to think so. Otherwise, they wouldn’t really have finished their investigation, would they?’

‘Quite, quite.’

Martin tried not to sigh as he endured another of the pained pauses that his boss specialized in.

‘It’s just that it’s not quite what we had in mind when we sent you up there.’

Palmer thought about that for a moment. ‘No.’

‘But, I suppose,’ he repeated, ‘under the circumstances. .’

‘Yes, under the circumstances. .’ How much longer could they keep going round in circles? ‘Anyway, I’m just about to get on my train.’

‘Second class?’

‘Pardon?’

‘I hope you’re going second class,’ his boss explained. ‘There’s a big clampdown on expenses at the moment. We’ve got to save money, you know. I don’t think I could sign off first class.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Martin said soothingly, ‘I haven’t bought my ticket yet. I’ll make sure I get the right one.’

The good news seemed to perk up his boss considerably. ‘Fine, fine,’ he trilled. ‘Jolly good. So we’ll see you back at Gower Street tomorrow morning.’

‘Ye-’ But before Martin could get the word out there was a click and the line went dead.

No ‘thank you’, then? Palmer thought sourly. No, ‘well done’? Returning the handset to the cradle, he scooped up his remaining change and dropped it into his jacket pocket, next to the pair of soiled cotton panties that he had kept as a memento of his trip. The thought of them nestling there sent an embarrassed tingle through his groin, making him smile. ‘Martin Palmer,’ he mumbled to himself in a cold American accent, ‘licensed to kill. .’

Duran Duran’s ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’ began playing in his head as he picked up his holdall, pushed open the phone box door and stepped back out on to the narrow pavement. Stepping into the gutter to give way to an old woman carrying a bag of groceries, he glanced again at the clock. His train should be here in five minutes. That should be just enough time to grab a ham roll, a Kit Kat and a cup of tea from the station cafe before heading for home.

It had remained overcast all day, but warm and humid with it. Police Constable John Carlyle yawned as he watched a shabby-looking black and white cat saunter across no-man’s land, a small rodent clamped between its jaws, apparently uninterested in the massed ranks of men on either side.

‘Incoming!’

Looking up, Carlyle watched as a half-brick sailed through the air towards them. A few moments later, it exploded at the feet of a surprised constable further down the line. With a yelp of surprise, the officer jumped a foot into the air and fell backwards onto his arse, to the general amusement of his colleagues nearby.

‘That was close,’ Dom observed. ‘You don’t want one of those bouncing off your bonce.’ He gestured towards the massed pickets, lined up twenty yards or so away across the same depressing scrap of waste ground that they had been fighting over day after day. ‘There’s a lot of the buggers here today.’ He shook his head. ‘You’d think they’d have got bored with all this bollocks by now, but no, these stupid bastards keep on coming back. I didn’t think the scabs were going to get in this morning.’

‘Where were you last night?’ Carlyle asked grumpily. ‘I thought you were coming back to the pub.’

‘Sorry,’ Dom grinned sheepishly, ‘I got a bit. . waylaid.’

‘And I got a bloody beer bottle in the face.’

‘Nasty.’ A sympathetic look drifted across Dom’s face. ‘Sorry, mate.’

‘And then I got bloody arrested!’ Carlyle gestured off to his left where their sergeant was pacing backwards and forwards, doing his Napoleon act in front of a bunch of suitably unimpressed constables. ‘Sodding Charlie Ross had to bail me out.’

‘That was good of him.’

‘I suppose,’ Carlyle admitted grudgingly.

‘Look at it this way,’ Dom grinned, ‘at least you got to see what we do from the other side. Think of it as a learning experience, a training exercise. Now you have first-hand experience of what it’s like to be on the receiving end of some police hospitality.’

‘Like that makes me feel better.’

‘Come on, lighten up. At least you weren’t found dead in your cell.’

‘That’s-’

A rumble of discontent went through the nearby ranks, followed by a cry of ‘WATCH OUT!’

Carlyle looked up to see another half-brick hurtling through the air, this one coming directly towards his head. Taking a step backwards, he closed his eyes, ducked and half-turned away.

Then there was a sickening crack.

The rest was darkness.