Stuart Pawson - The Picasso Scam

It was after midnight when I went to bed, annoyed that Gilbert hadn't rung. Earlier, I almost called Molly, to see if he was home, but I realised that would only make her as worried as I was. I was still awake when I heard a car in the road, followed by the doorbell ringing.

I knew straight away, from Gilbert's pallor, that something had gone wrong. I poured him a stiff Glenfiddich, with a very small one for myself. He downed his in one.

"Hey, this isn't Japanese muck, y'know," I told him, pouring another.

"Cheers, Charlie, I needed that."

When he'd composed himself I asked: "How'd it go?"

He sat looking at his hands, as if wondering where to begin, then said: "Bad, Charlie, really bad. I'd made it clear on the phone that he'd better see me. I think he had an idea what it was about. His wife was out, at a meeting, or something. I told him about the tunnel and the fingerprints. He said: "It's that Priest, isn't it, making wild accusations?" I said: "No, it's me, and there's nothing wild about that." I showed him one of the photos, one taken from the paperknife. I didn't bother explaining. He stared at it and started trembling."

I had a sip of my drink and waited for him to continue.

"I asked him how well he knew Cakebread; thought I'd give him an opening. He didn't answer. After a while he said he needed a drink, did I mind if he fetched one? He stood up and went into the kitchen.

While he was gone I had a look round the room, like you do. It's cluttered with all that stuff you see in the supplements; mass-produced special editions, as if he didn't know what to spend his money on. Then I saw the drinks cabinet in the corner. You'll never guess what he drinks."

"What?" I asked, remembering the Macallan I'd seen in his office.

"Macallan," Gilbert replied.

"Well at least he's got taste in whisky," I said.

"I walked over and opened the door to the kitchen," he continued. "He was standing at the far end, with his back to me. It's a long room. I said: "Mr. Hilditch," and he turned round. He was holding a shotgun, with the end of it in his mouth."

"Oh, no!" I groaned.

"He just looked at me for a moment, then pulled the trigger."

"Jesus Christ!" I said, putting my head in my hands.

"Do you mind if I have another?"

"Of course not." I gestured towards the bottle. "Help yourself, I'll run you home."

"That wasn't the end of it. I was on the phone, trying to get some sense out of the local wallies, when I heard a car outside. It was Mrs. Hilditch. I went out and locked the door behind me. She became hysterical. We had to drag her into a neighbour's. I think that was the worst part."

I didn't have anything to offer, so I sat in silence. Gilbert took a sip and said: "I'll say one thing, Charlie: it was bloody quick. He was dead before he hit the ceiling."

Another aspect of the backlash caused by our successes with the heroin pushers was that raids on chemists' shops increased. The user who can't obtain a regular fix of his chosen pick-me-up has a pharmacopoeia of alternatives. The ingenuity of the desperate addict, or the greedy pusher, knows no limits. Drugs that were discovered or invented to induce sleep, kill pain or calm the raging mind were soon found to produce very different effects when taken in massive doses, or mixed into cocktails.

The barbiturates are the most favoured alternatives to heroin. They also cause more deaths than all of the others put together except booze and fags, of course. The problem is that the fatal dose is not many times greater than the effective dose. As the taker builds up tolerance he has to pump in more and more to get the same buzz.

Unfortunately the lethal level does not increase in the same way. One day the two lines cross and another dope head takes a one-way trip. We find them hunched in squalid bed sits or sprawled in public urinals, choked on their own vomit. It's a long way from that first, laughing drag on a joint at someone's party.

As soon as we recognised an increase in raids on pharmacies we visited all those on our patch and advised them to improve their security. Some chemists were amazingly complacent, but we eventually reversed the trend. This led to an increase in domestic burglaries, and then armed robberies. We felt as if we were standing in the middle of the Serengeti Plain, waving our arms about, trying to stop the wildebeest migrating. Serious violence was hiding in the long grass. Fortunately, the figures soon settled down to something like the norm, but it wasn't due to our efforts: it was because supplies began to filter through again and the price dropped.

After long delays due to adjournments to allow for 'further investigations', the inquests into the deaths of O'Hagan and Hilditch were held. "Expedient' is the kindest thing I can say about the first verdict. He'd been lawfully killed by a police officer who was not named, as it was not in the public's interest to do so. It wasn't in my interest, either, so I didn't argue. He'd fired the first shot, and suffered the consequences. Nobody mentioned that he didn't have a second.

If this was a whitewash, Hilditch got the full interior decorator treatment, complete with flock wallpaper. He was an overly conscientious officer, at the pinnacle of his profession, who had suffered a breakdown due to overwork. The rising crime figures, and his inability to stem them due to lack of resources, had caused him great distress. The Coroner said he'd borne an intolerable burden, and the Force would have difficulty replacing him. I wasn't there; I just cut the bits out of the paper and put them in the file.

Superintendent Wood had given evidence to Her Majesty's Inspectorate, and they interviewed me. They took copies of everything in the Picasso file. Nothing spectacular happened, but over the next few months and years jobs would be shuffled around, strangers from afar appointed in key positions, and traps set to snare the renegades. All most of us would ever know about it would be the odd, unexpected resignation.

We held our own inquests, of course. After hearing the shots, Sparky had come running into the bedroom, not knowing what to expect. Nigel, who wasn't armed, had followed close behind. We'd been lucky this time, but under different circumstances it could have turned into a three-nil defeat. Gilbert gave me carte blanche to nail Cakebread.

All Monday mornings should be wet and foggy, particularly in November.

This one set the standard for the others to be designed around. I'd just fired a rubber band at the window to see if I could make the raindrops run down faster when Nigel poked his head round the door.

"Can I have a word, boss?" he asked.

I swivelled my chair back to the desk. "No, I haven't heard anything."

"It's not about promotion," he said, coming in. "I was wondering if you watched Northern News on Saturday?"

"No, I didn't. My cup of tea was going cold, so I watched that instead." The onset of winter brings out the jollity in me.

"Pity. You won't have heard, then, that Percy the cat has turned up."

I was worried about Nigel: he'd adopted a role model, and I wasn't sure that I approved. "Close the door," I told him, resignedly. "Sit down and tell me all about Percy the cat."

"Well," he began, hardly able to contain his enthusiasm, 'apparently, last Thursday, there was a fire in a small warehouse, near the middle of Oldfield. Nothing special, didn't make the local news.

The only casualty was Percy the cat, who was thought to have perished in the blaze. In fact, they blamed him for knocking over a heater and starting it."

"Fascinating," I said. It was marginally more riveting than racing raindrops on the window.

Nigel went on: "Well, on Saturday, to everybody's relief, Percy turned up without a singe. That's a story. Made Northern News and an interview with Linda Lovett."