Peter Cave - War on the Streets

Despite his befuddled brain, Nigel’s face was instantly suspicious. His eyes narrowed. ‘Charlie? Charlie who?’

Glynis shuddered again. Her voice was edgy and irritable. ‘Aw, come on, man. Don’t piss me about.’ She paused briefly. ‘Look, I was at Annabel’s tonight. A guy called David told me I could score here tonight.’

So it was out in the open; no need for any further pretence. They both knew exactly what Charlie she was looking for. C for Charlie – the code word for cocaine among the Sloane Ranger set.

Still grinning, Nigel shook his head. ‘You’re too late, darling. Charlie’s been and gone.’ He spread his hands in an expansive gesture, giggling stupidly. ‘Hey, can’t you tell?’

Another violent spasm racked Glynis’s body. A look of despair crept over her face. ‘Oh, Jesus!’ she groaned. She looked up at Nigel again, her eyes pleading. ‘Come on, somebody’s got to be still holding, surely? The money’s no problem, OK?’

Nigel shook his head again. ‘Not a single snort left in the place. We all did our thing a couple of hours ago.’ He reached out, grasping her by the arm. ‘But don’t let that bother your pretty head, darling. We’ve still got plenty of booze left. Why don’t you just come in and get chateaued instead?’

Glynis shook free of his grip with a sudden, violent jerk. The sheer intensity of her reaction wiped the grin from Nigel’s face for a second. He stared down at her more carefully, noting the perspiration starting to show through her make-up, the nervous twitching of little muscles in her face.

‘It’s really that bad, huh?’

Glynis nodded dumbly. She looked totally dejected and pathetic. Nigel looked at her dubiously for a while, finally coming to some sort of a decision.

‘Look, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Got a pen and paper?’

Glynis nodded again, this time with a flash of hope on her face. She rummaged in her handbag and fished out a ballpoint pen and an old clothing store receipt.

Nigel took them from her trembling fingers. Holding the scrap of paper against the door-frame, he began to scribble.

‘Look, this guy is strictly down-market, and he charges way over the odds on street prices…but he can usually come across, know what I mean?’

The girl nodded gratefully. ‘Yeah. And thanks.’

She turned to go back down the steps. Nigel called after her. ‘Hey, look, don’t forget to tell him Nigel M sent you. It puts me in line for a favour, know what I mean?’

Glynis didn’t answer. Nigel remained in the doorway for a few moments, watching her as she climbed into the Porsche and backed hurriedly out of the narrow street. A slim female hand descended on his shoulder, and a pair of red lips which smelled strongly of gin nuzzled his ear.

‘Hey, come on, Nigel. You’re missing the party.’

Nigel turned away from the door, finally.

‘Who was it – gatecrashers?’ his companion asked.

Nigel shook his head. ‘No, just some junkie bird chasing Charlie. I sent her to Greek Tony.’

His girlfriend pulled an expression of distaste. ‘Ugh, that slimeball? She must have been pretty desperate.’

Nigel nodded. ‘Yes, I think she was,’ he muttered.

Detective Sergeant Paul Carney sat at his desk, sifting through a growing pile of paperwork. Several empty plastic cups from the coffee machine and an ashtray filled with cigarette stubs testified to a long, all-night session. There was a light tap on his office door, and Detective Chief Inspector Manners let himself in without waiting for an invitation. There was a faintly chiding look on his face as he confronted Carney.

‘Didn’t see your name on the night-duty roster, Paul,’ he observed pointedly.

Carney shrugged. ‘Just catching up on some more of this fucking paperwork, when I ought to be out there on the streets. Bringing this week’s little tally up to date.’

Manners clucked his teeth sympathetically. ‘Bad, huh?’

Carney let out a short, bitter laugh. ‘You tell me how bad is bad. In the last four days we’ve snatched five and a half kilos of coke at Heathrow alone. That means a minimum of twenty-five kilos got through. This morning we pulled a stiff off an Air India flight. Two hundred grand’s worth of pure heroin in his guts, packed in condoms. One of ’em burst during the flight. What you might call an instant high.’

‘Jeezus, I thought those things were supposed to stop accidents,’ Manners said.

‘Not funny, Harry,’ Carney muttered. ‘Christ, we’re under fucking siege here. Provincial airports, the ferries, commercial shipping, private boats and planes, bloody amateurs bringing back ten kilos of hash from their Club 18-30 holidays on Corfu. And we haven’t got a fucking clue yet what’s going to come flooding in through the Channel Tunnel. There’s shit coming at us from all sides, Harry – and we’re being buried under it.’

‘We…or you, Paul?’ Manners asked gently.

Carney shrugged. ‘Does it matter? Caring goes with the job.’

Manners conceded the point – with reservations. ‘Caring, maybe. Getting too personally involved, no. You’re getting in too deep, Paul. Maybe it’s time to think about a transfer out of drugs division for a while.’

Carney blew a fuse. ‘Dammit, Harry, I don’t want a bloody transfer. What I want is to get this job done . I want every dealer, every distributor, every small-time school-gate pusher out of business, off the streets, and in the nick.’

‘That isn’t going to happen, and you know it.’

Carney nodded his head resignedly. ‘Yeah. So meanwhile I’m supposed to just tot up the casualties without getting uptight – is that it?’ He paused, calming down a little. ‘I suppose you know we’ve got a batch of contaminated smack out on the streets in the SW area?’

Manners shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t,’ he admitted. ‘How bad is it?’

‘Bad bad,’ Carney muttered. ‘Two kids dead already and one more in a coma on a life-support system. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. We don’t know yet how much more of the stuff is out there, or how widely it’s already been distributed. And on top of that, there’s this new synthetic shit which has started to come in from Europe. Early reports say that it’s really bad medicine.’

Manners smiled sympathetically. ‘OK, Paul, I’ll get you what extra help I can,’ he promised. ‘Meanwhile, you go home and get some sleep, eh?’

Carney grinned cynically. ‘We don’t need help, my friend – we need a bloody army. That’s a fucking war out there on the streets.’

‘Yeah,’ Manners said, and shrugged. There was nothing he could say or do which would make the slightest amount of difference. He turned back towards the door.

‘Oh, by the way,’ Carney called after him. ‘You think I get too personally involved. You want to know why?’

Manners paused, his hand on the door-knob.

‘The kid on the life-support system,’ Carney went on. ‘His name’s Keith. He’s fifteen. His parents live in my street.’

Glynis Jefferson studied the row of sordid-looking tenements through the windscreen of the Porsche with a distinct feeling of unease. This was definitely not Sloane Ranger country. This was ghettoland. Under normal circumstances, she would have jammed the car into gear and driven away as fast as she could. But tonight she was not in control; all normal considerations were driven out of her mind by her desperate craving. She checked the address on the slip of paper, identifying the block in question. Glancing nervously about her, she stepped out of the car and walked up to the front door. Rows of bells and small cards identified the building as divided into numerous bedsitters and flatlets.