Paul Finch - Stolen

‘Seriously, Lucy?’ Peabody groaned. ‘All this for a dog-collar?’

‘Anything we can hit this bastard with, we have to do it,’ she said.

‘Won’t he have sold it on by now?’ another copper asked. ‘I mean, if it’s worth that much … why would he hang onto it?’

‘We’re not walking away from here without having a good look around,’ she said simply. ‘That dog-collar’s too valuable.’

More irritated expressions; more shuffling feet.

‘At least,’ she said, ‘that’s going to be the official line.’

Immediately, their expressions changed. Feet stopped shuffling.

‘Pricks like this guy Mahoney always have their fingers in more than one illegal pie,’ Lucy said. ‘So that’s what we’re really looking for. Anything else we might be able to use, but it’s got to be good.’

‘Aren’t we only supposed to be looking for stuff relevant to the case?’ someone queried.

‘Section 19, PACE,’ Lucy said. ‘A constable engaged in a lawful search of a premises may seize anything if he or she has reasonable grounds for believing that it is evidence in relation to an offence he or she is investigating … or any other offence .’

They pondered this.

‘Why do you think he’s coughed to the dog-fighting so readily?’ she asked them.

‘’Cause he’s no choice,’ Peabody said.

‘Maybe, but maybe also because he wants us out of here quickly … before we find something else.’

With a greater degree of enthusiasm than previously, and now under Lucy’s direction, the team went at it again, this time more robustly. First, they did the bedrooms, which were odious pits of filth and slovenliness, moving bookcases so they could look behind them, yanking out the contents of wardrobes and doors, checking under beds, lifting rugs and carpets, even dislodging loose floorboards and peering underneath. Downstairs, they investigated the under-stair closet, which was filled with what appeared to be rubbish, though there was a double-barrelled shotgun there. Knowing Mahoney, it was almost certainly unlicensed, but it was unloaded, and a vigorous search of the under-stair crawlspace provided no cartridges either, while the weapon itself looked so ancient that it might even be classifiable as an antique, which would exempt it.

In the cottage’s living room, they lifted more carpets, checked under more sideboards, dug behind and underneath the upholstery on the couch, probing through welters of crumbs and tattered newspaper. They prodded thick tufts of fluff gathered behind radiators, and pried loose skirting boards away, only for mice and cockroaches to scamper free. Some shelves next to the television were stacked with unmarked DVDs. They played a few of these and found they were nothing more than pirate copies of recent movies. Peabody suggested that this was another charge they could add, but Lucy called it ‘Mickey Mouse stuff’.

She was getting tired herself now, and deeply frustrated. The clock was ticking on her prisoners, and she couldn’t keep these officers on duty for ever. When she glanced at her watch and saw that it was nearly three in the morning, she was ready to call it off. She was standing at the top of the cottage stairs contemplating this, when a voice came up to her from below. She went back down and found PC Darlington in the doorway to the ground-floor privy.

‘Could this be what we’re looking for?’ Darlington wondered.

Curious, Lucy stuck her head into the cubicle, where another PC, a tall lad, had stood on the toilet lid to check inside the cistern, which was high on the wall, and in so doing had accidentally hit the ceiling with the top of his head, dislodging a concealed but loose panel, from behind which a bulky plastic sack had tumbled. He’d already opened the sack and discovered maybe a hundred sachets of white powder, which he offered to Lucy in two gloved hands.

For the first time in two or three hours, she smiled.

Forty minutes later, Lucy was back in the Custody Suite at Robber’s Row police station. A few of the lesser miscreants, those who didn’t own dogs themselves, were already lined at the counter, being charged with attending a dog-fight and making bets.

DI Beardmore, who ought to have gone home hours ago, stood to one side, arms folded, looking sallow-cheeked. He’d even removed his jacket and tie and unbuttoned his collar, which was not his normal form. When he saw Lucy, he frowned all the more.

‘Can we get this show on the road, please?’ he said grumpily. ‘We’re running out of space in here, Lucy. The night shift have started nicking real criminals and we’ve nowhere to put them.’

‘Sir … Mahoney’s a real criminal.’ And she told him what they’d found at the cottage, and the phone-calls she’d made afterwards as she’d headed back here from Wellspring Lane.

A short time later, she walked down the cell corridor, produced a bunch of keys and unlocked one of the doors. Inside, Mahoney was lying on the narrow mattress, arms folded behind his head. He sat up and yawned. ‘About fucking time.’

‘Sorry about the delay, Mr Mahoney,’ she said. ‘We’re almost finished here.’

‘Don’t know how lucky you are, love. If I was as bad at my job as you are at yours, I wouldn’t make a penny. But you get paid anyway, don’t you? There’s the public sector, eh?’

‘The situation’s simple,’ she said. ‘You’re shortly going to be charged with causing dogs to fight, receiving money for admission to these fights, publicising these fights, accepting bets on these fights, possessing materials in connection with these fights, allowing your premises to be used for these fights, possessing videos of other dog-fights, and, to top it all off, causing unnecessary suffering to protected animals.’

It was quite a laundry list of villainy, but Mahoney shrugged indifferently, as if this was only to be expected.

‘But I wouldn’t make any plans to go home just yet,’ she said.

A man sidled into the doorway alongside her, wearing a sweater and jeans. He was tall and lean, with a shock of black hair and rugged, lived-in looks. He fixed Mahoney with a hard but unreadable expression.

‘This is DCI Slater of the Drugs Squad,’ Lucy said. ‘Once we’ve charged you with those offences, he’ll be re-arresting you on suspicion of possessing controlled drugs with intent to supply.’

The colour drained from Mahoney’s brutish, bearded face. He leaped to his feet.

‘If I were you, I’d think about getting lawyered up after all,’ she added.

She closed the door with a clang, though the prisoner’s voice all but punched its way through the heavy steel.

‘You flatfoot bitch! You can’t do that!’

Lucy walked back down the corridor, Slater, an old colleague, ambling alongside her.

‘Got a lot of tired officers going off-duty now, sir,’ she said, ‘who’d thoroughly appreciate it if you nailed that bastard’s bollocks to the wall.’

‘No promises, Lucy,’ Slater replied. ‘But that tends to be what we do.’