Jack Slater - No Way Home

‘Pete, it’s Bob.’ The duty sergeant at Heavitree Road police station. ‘I’ve just had a call from Plymouth. They’ve got Tommy.’

Pete felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. ‘What?’

‘Your lad. He’s at Crownhill. He was spotted working on the fair, down on the Hoe.’

‘Jesus Christ. Thanks, Bob. I’ll give them a call.’

He put the phone down in a daze.

‘What is it?’ Louise’s voice sounded like it was coming through a long tunnel. ‘What’s wrong? Pete!’

‘Huh?’ He blinked, staring at her dumbly. ‘They’ve…’ His eyes closed for a moment as his brain tried to process the information. Then he opened them, looked at his wife again. ‘They’ve found Tommy. He’s…’

He stopped as a wail erupted from her throat. He took her hands, stared into her tear-filled eyes. ‘He’s alive, Lou. He’s OK. They’ve got him in Crownhill station in Plymouth.’

‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. He’s OK? Where’s he been? What’s he doing in Plymouth, for God’s sake? He’s in…? What’s he doing there? Have they arrested him? What’s he done?’ She clung to him, pleading for answers that he couldn’t give.

‘I don’t know, Lou. Give me a chance, I’ll find out.’

‘Dad? Mum?’

Pete hadn’t heard Annie’s feet on the stairs, but now she stood in the doorway, dressed in her favourite Winnie-the-Pooh nightie. He glanced down and saw that her feet were bare.

‘What’s all the ruckus about? Have they…?’ She swallowed, unable to go on.

‘Yes, love. They have.’ Pete held a hand out to her. ‘They’ve found Tommy. Alive and OK.’

‘Oh, God, that’s brilliant!’ She ran to him, clasping him into a desperate hug. ‘Where is he? When’s he coming home?’

‘I haven’t got any details yet, Button. All I know is, he’s at the police station in Plymouth. He was working on a fairground.’

‘But…’ She stopped, too confused to even form a question.

‘I need to give them a call and find out what’s going on.’

She blinked owlishly. Pete took a step back, directing his wife and daughter into each other’s arms while he made the call. They clung to each other, both watching him intently.

Pete found that his hands were shaking as he tried to dial the number from memory. Then he couldn’t remember the correct order of the last three digits. ‘Shit. What’s the bloody number? Hang on.’ He went out to the hall, found their personal phone listing and flipped it open at the letter P.

Quickly, he finished dialling and held the phone to his ear. It rang once, twice, a third time, a fourth. ‘Come on,’ he muttered.

There was a click. ‘Devon and Cornwall Police, Plymouth. How can I help?’

‘Hello. This is DS Gayle, Exeter CID. I’m told you’ve got my son there: Thomas James Gayle.’

‘One moment, sir.’ More clicks, half a ring. A different voice.

‘Custody suite.’

Custody? They’ve got him in the cells? What the hell has he done? ‘He…’ His voice clogged up and he coughed to clear it. ‘Sorry. DS Gayle here, Exeter CID. I’ve been put through to you from your front desk. I understand my son’s there, in the station.’

‘Gayle? Thomas James?’

‘That’s right. What’s the deal?’

‘He was brought in a couple of hours ago. A patrol officer recognised him from the misper notice, but he didn’t come willingly. Hence he’s in the cells here. Assaulting a police officer; resisting arrest; possession of an illegal weapon, specifically a knife. We thought that would do for now.’

‘Jesus!’ Pete shook his head, bewildered. What the hell was going on? What had Tommy got tied up in? ‘I was told he was found at a fairground. What’s the story there?’

‘Seems like he’s been with them since Easter. Just mucked in when they needed it, helped out and became part of the setup by default. Saw the chance of a new life, I suppose. It never ceases to amaze me, the number of kids who run away to join the circus or the fair. I don’t know what it is about that kind of lifestyle that’s so attractive. Seems like a lot of hard work and rough living to me.’

‘And the charges. Is there anything we can do there? I’m not trying to get him off because I’m in the job. We need him as a witness in a child-sex case.’

‘I knew the name was familiar. You’re the one that cracked that big paedophile ring, right?’

‘Yeah, that’s me.’

In the course of his first case after returning to work, Pete and his team had uncovered a ring of paedophiles that extended from Cornwall north to the West Midlands and east to the Home Counties. Thirty-seven arrests had been made by seven different forces just the previous month, some of them of prominent men in local government and even the police itself.

‘Well done, mate. I know it reflects badly on the force, but we were glad to get rid of Markham. The bloke was a self-aggrandising arsehole. No more use as a copper than I’d be as a brain surgeon.’

Pete knew he was talking about Chief Superintendent Markham, who’d been in charge of the Plymouth station until his arrest last month in a coordinated series of operations that had closed down the whole ring in one morning’s work, organised by his own station chief, DCI Adam Silverstone.

‘Well, that’s what you get for letting politics into policing, eh?’

‘Yeah, along with empire-building, jobs-for-the-boys… Still, what can we do, eh?’

‘That’s right.’ Come on , Pete thought. Answer the bloody question.

‘Anyway. As far as the knife, facts are facts. He was carrying. But, the rest of it can go away if it needs to. If he’s a witness in a case like that... Happens all the time, doesn’t it?’

‘I don’t want him let off just because he’s my son,’ Pete said firmly. ‘If he’s got things to answer for, he’ll answer for them. But yes, we do need him as a witness.’

‘Firm but fair, eh? Only way to be, I reckon. Bit of discipline never hurt anyone. Well, it might have stung a bit at the time, but you know what I mean.’ He laughed.

‘Yes, so…’

‘Get your boss to send the paperwork through and we’ll transfer him to Exeter custody. Might be worth letting him stay put until morning. Just my opinion.’ Pete could almost see the custody sergeant shrug. ‘Teach him a bit of a lesson.’

‘Right. I’ll get onto my chief. Thanks, mate.’

‘No worries.’

Pete ended the call, looked up and saw both Annie and Louise standing in the doorway of the lounge, watching him, their expressions, one above the other, identical. He couldn’t help but smile.

‘So…?’ They said together.

Pete’s smile became a chuckle.

Although Annie’s temperament was much more like his than her mother’s, she got more like Louise every day, in all the good ways.

He shook his head. ‘God, I love the pair of you.’

‘But what about Tommy?’ Annie demanded.

‘Well, I love him too, of course.’

‘Answer the damn question, would you?’ Louise joined in. ‘What’s happening with Tommy?’

The smile stayed on Pete’s face. ‘He’s in Plymouth nick. I need to get hold of Colin, get him to arrange a transfer to Heavitree Road and we can go from there.’

‘So, he’ll be home soon?’ Annie demanded.

‘Well, it depends on your definition of soon, but potentially, yes.’

She squealed and ran to him, wrapping her slender arms around him and squeezing with all her might.

*

Louise was less easily pleased.

Looking over Annie’s head as she clung to him, Pete saw the doubt in her eyes.

‘Why do you need to arrange for a transfer? Has he been arrested or something?’