Stuart Pawson - The Picasso Scam

She didn't look very impressed.

"Mind you," I added, 'nobody liked him he was a complete arse hole of a bloke."

She tried to laugh between the sobs. I think I cheered her up. I asked her if I could call again, and she said I could. Better still, I offered to send along some of the handsome young bobbies I worked with.

She blushed at that prospect.

I should have eaten, but I had no appetite. I rang Gilbert to give him moral support. A chief superintendent from Huddersfield was investigating the death of the youngster on the bike. There was plenty of evidence that our car was well back, not involved in a Hollywood-style chase, and the chopper hac videoed the whole incident, but no doubt we would be criticised from the usual quarters. I felt I needed a drink, so I poured myself a generous Glenfiddich. I don't like whisky, so it couldn't really be called succumbing to temptation.

Then I fell asleep in front of the television. TV does that to me I don't even have to switch it on.

Next morning my mouth felt like the inside of a dead marsupial's pouch.

I ate my favourite breakfast of double cornflakes, with six sugars and the top off the milk, with tinned grapefruit for pudding, and drove to the news agent for a couple of the Sunday heavies. Two hours later, as I was trying to decide which set of patio furniture to send for, Mike Freer rang.

"Hi, Sheepdip. Didn't think you'd be up yet," he said.

"Then why did you ring?" I replied.

"Too much bed is bad for you. Did you know that Fangio said he was scared to go to bed, because most people died there?"

"He must have had a big bed. Did you ring for a reason, or are you just determined to keep me from pruning my herbaceous shrubs?"

"No, or to put it another way, yes. Talking about herbaceous shrubs, has it been a good year for your Gloxinias?"

"I don't know. You'd better ask our Gloxinia."

"Ah, yes; wonderful girl. I tried to ring you yesterday, but you were up to the goo lies in it, from what I gathered. What happened?"

It sounded as if we were talking business now, so I related the story of the chase and its consequences to him. When I'd finished he said:

"It sounds as if Crabb has been growing desperate over the last few days. I'm not surprised. We got the analysis of that wrap you brought in, and it's not a pretty picture. That's what I rang to tell you about." i, i "Go on."

"Well, for a start, it was about ten percent heroin."

"That doesn't sound much."

"It's not. Thirty or forty percent is the norm. Which means that your average everyday addict has to inject three times as much for a decent high."

"Which is bad news for them."

"It is. For a start, if they ever buy some of the good stuff they could accidentally overdose. Meanwhile, they're pumping vast doses of the contaminants into their bloodstream, which is even more worrying."

"I see. Tell me what was in it."

"Well, the main constituent is milk powder. Not too dangerous in itself. Dilute milk won't carry a lot of oxygen around your body, but it won't poison you. Then there was flour the stuff you make bread with; and, lastly, plaster of Paris."

"Plaster of Paris!" I exclaimed.

"Yep, or something similar, such as Polyfilla."

"But that could harden, couldn't it?"

"It tends to settle out. Actually the flour is just as bad. They both cause blockages."

"Jesus. What's happening? Are the pushers growing too greedy?" I asked.

"Not sure. Maybe not. It could be that demand is so high that a few occasional users have decided it's a good way to make a quick buck, by cutting their own supplies with any white powder they can find under the kitchen sink and selling it on. Kids flogging it in the playground to finance their own habit, that sort of thing. It's called enterprise."

"Market forces."

"Exactly."

I thought about what he'd told me and remembered the conversation I'd had with Billy Morrison of the Fraud Squad. I asked: "Mike, what's the chances of hitting Cakebread with the Drug Trafficking Act?"

"You mean the Drug Trafficking Offences Act, 1987?"

"That one."

"Slim. There've been one or two prosecutions, but the drug end of it was well proven. You'd have to do that first, before you could strip his assets. When Cakebread was turned over he was clean, wasn't he?"

"Like Mother Teresa. What happened to the parcel that was planted in my car?"

"Your half-kilogram of Bogota's best; it's been incinerated, along with a load of other stuff. Listen, Charlie; I hope you're not thinking what I think you're thinking. If you are, forget it. Hear me?"

"It was just an idea."

"Well don't have any more like it. They're not worth it, Charlie. Keep repeating "Pension, retirement, pension, retirement". Okay?"

"I hear you. Thanks for ringing."

It was definitely too cold to prune the shrubs, so I put a CD on the player and stretched out on the sofa to listen to it and relax. In deference to the sabbath I'd selected my Thomas Tallis. I played it loud, to impress God and the neighbours. I like the English composers, even if some of them have names that wouldn't make the Jockey Club members' enclosure. It's good music to think to; sort out your mind and make decisions. Inspirational, even.

Too many people were being hurt. We were catching the little fish, victim ising the victims, while the hammerhead swam free. I lay staring at the ceiling as the choir's final, triumphant chord faded into the ether; then I slipped into my trainers and leather jacket and went out to the car. I'd decided to go shark fishing.

Sunday afternoon is probably as quiet as it ever gets down at the station. Most of the squad cars were in the yard, one bearing a dented wing, evidence of a memorable Saturday night for someone. The front door of the building was locked; I spoke into the microphone to gain admittance.

Sergeant Jenks was in the charge room, with a PC and a miserable wretch who was being fed into one end of the sausage machine that would cough him out into the magistrates' court on Monday morning. Jenks looked up when I poked my head round the door.

"Hello, Mr. Priest," he said. "We weren't expecting you. Anything special?"

"No, Sergeant. I've just called to collect something from my office."

I nodded towards the frightened little man. "What's he in for?"

Jenks shook his head and tut-tutted. "Trumping in church, sir," he said.

I glared at him, long and mean. "Hang the bastard," I pronounced.

Upstairs, I pulled open my bottom drawer. The brown envelope addressed to our late Chief Constable was still there. I reread the note it contained. The mysteries of PH and PM were solved; now was the time to exorcise the rest of it. I wrote the number for the alarm, 4297, on the back of my hand with a ball-pen, and pocketed the three keys.

Ten minutes later Heckley was falling behind and below, as I gunned the car up the moorland road that led into Lancashire. The radio tuned itself in to the local station and I sang along with the music, slapping time on the wheel with my fingers. All the songs were new to me, but you feel you'd heard them in the cradle after the first two lines. I felt good; activity is the best antidote for depression.

Even on a bad day the moors look all right. Today was still and clear, for a change, and they were at their benign best. It was only temporary, though: moody malevolence was never more than a breeze away.

A million years of rain and wind has smoothed off every sharp edge, every jutting crag or soaring pinnacle. The hills roll and curve sensuously, with the valleys cutting deep cleavages between them. The shapes they make are animal, rather than geological.

Man's tentative grip is seen only in the valleys. Bold mills stand foursquare to the elements, their chimneys long grown cold. Rows of solid workers' terraces are now the homes of painters and the makers of thick wooden jigsaws and other primitive toys; guaranteed to make your children believe that Santa Claus hates them. Cotton and worsted that once clothed and carpeted the world have been replaced by politically correct dolls and pottery that grinds the enamel off your teeth. I love it all.