Stuart Pawson - Chill Factor

“Somebody mugged a Big Issue seller,” he said.

“I know. I’ve seen the report from downstairs. Any ideas?”

“No, but I could borrow a couple of bags and a dog, and we could have a day in the field, undercover, while the weather’s nice.”

I looked down at my jeans and check shirt. I dress the same nowadays as I did when I was an art student, before the Flood. “I wouldn’t have to borrow any clothes,” I said, before he could.

“That’s true,” he confirmed, adding: “or have a haircut.”

I changed the subject. “Where’s young Jamie Walker these days?”

“Ah,” Dave began. “You’ve noticed the small blip in the stolen vehicles chart, with the emphasis on older cars with low-tech ignition systems.”

“So where is he?”

“He finished his youth custody yesterday. Jeff and Annette have gone round to his mam’s to see if he’s there.”

“The little bastard,” I hissed. “We could do without him ballsing up all our figures and budgets.”

Jamie Walker was fourteen years old and weighed seven stones. Our file on him was so thick he couldn’t see over it. He’d spent nearly all his short life in care and his disregard for the law was total. We couldn’t touch him, couldn’t hurt him. He’d never had anything so he didn’t know what loss was. His mother was a slag who only remembered his dad as an obligatory but unsatisfactory tumble with a lorry driver in his cab on the way back from a Garry Glitter concert.

Jamie was bright and cocky. The uniformed boys would slip him a fag while he was in the cells, and have a chat with him. They talked about cars and football, man to man, and invited him to the youth club for a game. He said he’d come, but he never did. Table tennis and five-a-side can’t compete with handbrake turns and police chases. Milky coffee doesn’t give you the same buzz as Evostick.

I hated him. Dave and the others saw the victims as they sat in their homes, shell-shocked, and asked: “Why?” Why was he so mindlessly destructive? Why did he have to torch their car? Why did magistrates allow him out on the streets to commit offence upon offence? It was nothing for Jamie to be arrested while on bail, while on probation, while awaiting to appear before the youth court, for a string of separate offences. More than once his hearing had ground to a halt because the prosecution thought they were in court for a stolen car, the defence were all wound up about a burglary and the child psychiatrist had spent most of her weekend analysing why a fourteen-year-old brought up by his grandma would steal her pension book. We had a computer programme dedicated solely to sorting his progress through the system because it was too complicated for the human mind. He was on first-name terms with all the duty solicitors and they loved him.

I didn’t. He made a mockery of my overtime budgets, ruined my clear-up statistics and wasted resources that could have been used to solve proper crime. Or what I thought of as proper crime. I hated him, but not for that. Not for any of that. I had other reasons to hate him.

“Fancy going for a pint tonight?” Dave was asking.

“Oh, er, yeah. Good idea,” I replied. We went for a pint nearly every Wednesday night.

“We could go to the Spinners Arms,” he suggested.

“That’ll make a nice change,” I said, because we always went to the Spinners Arms. “Ring Nigel and tell him we’ll see him there,” I added. Nigel Newley was one of my hotshot proteges who’d recently moved on to HQ in the quest for fame and glory.

“I’ve tried, but he’s on holiday. Shirley said she might come.” Shirley was Dave’s wife, who didn’t usually come out with us but it was all right by me.

“OK,” I said.

“And Sophie might, too.”

“Good,” I said, trying not to sound too pleased. Sophie was his daughter, my goddaughter, who I regard as my nearest family. She would be going to university in October and she is tall, graceful and beautiful. When God smiles on some people he really gives them the works. Sophie coming along was definitely all right by me, but I didn’t let it show. Dads can be touchy about their daughters. I shuffled the remaining papers on my desk into a neat bundle and shoved them back into the in-tray. “Tell you what,” I began, “let’s do some proper policing for the rest of the day.”

But I didn’t get a chance. The phone rang and I spent the next hour talking to a Prosecution Service solicitor about some evidence we had on a serial thief who specialised in stealing underwear from washing lines. It doesn’t sound great crime, but it unnerves the victims, and can lead to other things. We’d marked some stuff and left it hanging out in his usual area of operations and he’d risen to the bait. Trouble was, the underwear we used was bought from the back room at the Oxfam shop, and it was hot stuff. Open crotches, black and red frills, suspender belts. Phew! Now the CPS solicitor was saying that unnecessary temptation might be a good defence. He wasn’t keen, but I persuaded him to let it run. We might not get a conviction, but we’d be sending out the right messages.

Five o’clock the War Cabinet was having a cup of proper coffee in the super’s office when the phone rang. He listened, looked at me, said: “He’s here,” and grunted a few times. The word ominous flashed through my mind as he replaced the phone.

The War Cabinet comprises of Gilbert Wood, the superintendent and overall boss at Heckley nick; Gareth Adey, my uniformed counterpart; and me; plus any sergeant or other rank who didn’t escape quickly enough at the end of his shift. We try to meet at the end of the day for a relaxing cuppa, a general chinwag and to discuss the state of play with the villains and population in general on our corner of God’s Own Country. Today we discussed Jamie Walker, our one-small-person crime wave, and regretted not having the power to drive him to a remote corner of the country and push him out of the car. Cape Wrath would do nicely. Sometimes, in the absence of possible avenues of action, we descend to fantasy.

“Go on,” I invited Gilbert. “Tell me the worst.”

“Right up your street,” he replied. “Chap rung in to say he’s done a murder. They’re making it easy for you, these days.”

Gareth rose to his feet asking: “Is somebody on their way?”

“It’s Marborough Close, on the West Woods,” Gilbert told him, “and there’s a car handy.”

The West Wood estate was the first flush of post-war private housing to hit Heckley, back in the Sixties. They were mainly semis, bought by young couples who believed that marriage came before children, even though this was supposed to be the permissive age. The real revolution in morality came twenty years later, but nobody sang about it. They all had kids at the same time and for a while the place became one giant playground. But youngsters have this habit of growing into teenagers, and the West Woods featured more and more in our statistics, until they all eventually matured, like the leylandii trees in their gardens, moved on and had kids of their own. Things evened out, and now the estate is a pleasant backwater, with a good mix of ages and races.

“I’ll go down to control,” Gareth announced, finishing his coffee in a gulp and leaving us. He likes to create an aura of efficiency and bustle, but mostly he just makes splashes.

“Get the biscuits out, please, Gilbert,” I said. “The chocolate digestives you keep in the bottom drawer. I’ve a feeling that I might not be eating for a while.”

Eight minutes and four biscuits later the phone rang again. Gilbert listened for a while then told them that we were on our way. “It’s genuine,” he told me. “Grab your coat.” Going down the stairs I learned that there was one dead male at the house on Marlborough Close, with another male, alive, sitting in a chair saying he did it.