A couple of other thefts followed the same route. Only small amounts, but a great help all the same. And then a mobile phone was handed in by one of the smelly town centre drunks who was always in the station, either under arrest for being drunk and disorderly, or simply because he could not stay away from the cop shop. It drew him like a magnet and he was often escorted off the premises. His boozed up breath even made it through the security screen the day he came in when Ellen was on duty. He had obviously been imbibing for a number of hours. His words slurred loudly and he rambled on about being certain two lads had robbed him. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure if he’d spent his money, but could definitely recall a dream in which two youths had been through his pockets and nicked his cash — and his cider. Later that night, he’d been staggering through the streets when he kicked something on the floor, which turned out to be a mobile phone someone had dropped.
He pushed it on to the sliding tray, then turned and rolled out of the station, waving dismissively. A drunk like him had no use for such a device.
Ellen took the phone, saw it was a good model, put it into her locker to sneak home later. The appearance of the firearms PC asking awkward questions about a phone had spooked her and she decided she had better take it home, just in case further inquiries were made.
It didn’t matter if the phone had been blocked.
Lee knew someone who could unblock it, then it could be sold on and would be worth quite a few quid.
Though Ellen had only come on at four that day, she wanted an early finish. Lee had been on to her continually, calling and texting her frequently on her mobile, pleading for her to come home. Pack in the stupid job. Come home and fuck, then go out and get rat-arsed together. The kid had been farmed out to her mother, so that wouldn’t be anything to worry about. He was high or drunk or both, and the problem was, Ellen wanted to be too. The quick answer was to throw a sickie. She simply told the communications room sergeant she was going home because she felt nauseous with women’s problems.
She left at nine thirty with the phone in her bag. Curiosity made her switch it on as she got into her battered Ford Fiesta in the car park. The message that came up said, ‘This phone is barred from use.’ No surprise there.
They ran out to their cars. Henry to his Mondeo, FB to his massive four-by-four Lexus, Bill Robbins to the Ford Galaxy belonging to the ARV unit, Bent to his VW Golf, Donaldson and Jerry Tope to the Fiat 500, and Rik Dean to the Mercedes Coupe that actually belonged to Henry’s sister.
Henry stopped mid-track, seeing the Keystone Kops side of this surge of manpower. ‘I think this is a bit of overkill, don’t you fellas?’ He gestured with a shrug and his hands.
FB said, ‘You guys get on with it — I don’t do operational,’ effectively withdrawing himself from the job, much to Henry’s relief.
‘Bill, Jerry, Alex and Rik — you jump in the Galaxy. Karl, you come with me.’
The relief in the American’s face was evident. He had given Jerry Tope a ride to the mortuary in the Fiat 500 and the shoehorning of the two men into it had not been a pretty sight.
‘We can come back for the other cars as and when,’ Henry said and they all piled into the allocated vehicles. Henry flicked open the glove compartment and grabbed his PR, switching it on. He called into comms. He told them who was in each vehicle and said, ‘Please go ahead with the directions from the phone company. And I want a dedicated operator on this for the time being,’ he ordered loftily. The power of a superintendent.
‘Roger, that will be me,’ the operator responded.
‘Update, please,’ Henry said.
‘At the moment the phone signal is still moving northwards, still in Blackpool.’
‘Roger that,’ Henry said.
‘DI Dean, I also received that,’ Rik said over his PR on behalf of the crew in the Galaxy.
‘Superintendent Christie to DI Dean, let’s get moving then, please.’
The two cars sped off the mortuary car park and headed towards Blackpool.
‘You OK,’ Henry asked Donaldson as the Mondeo shot through a set of lights outside the hospital.
‘So-so… shaken and stirred,’ Donaldson admitted. ‘I can’t believe what I think I know… and that e-fit, hell, that made me shiver… the likeness. That lad Carter must have good eyesight.’
‘To see and remember, and be able to describe a face in such detail… he must have eyes like a shithouse rat.’
‘Hey, babe,’ Lee Clarke slurred as Ellen Thompson entered the living room of their tiny house on north shore. She pulled off her coat and tossed it across the dining table on top of a pile of other clothes. ‘I knew you’d come… babe, I missed you. I hate you working.’
‘Well if I didn’t, we’d have nothing at all, would we?’ She sat down, unzipped her tight boots and peeled them off with gratitude. They were killing her feet.
Clarke was smoking a joint and Ellen sniffed appreciatively. ‘Good shit,’ she said and waggled her fingers at him in a ‘gimme’ gesture.
‘Last one,’ Clarke said sadly, inspecting the spliff. She waggled her fingers more urgently. ‘Oh, babe,’ he whined.
‘Give.’
Reluctantly, he handed her the joint and she took the last drag, holding the smoke deep in her lungs, feeling the wonderful euphoria of the drug seep into every part of her body. She exhaled slowly and sat back.
‘You got some dosh?’ Clarke asked.
‘Few quid.’
‘Enough for a few pints and some more good shit?’
‘Dunno, dunno.’ The cannabis had made her feel out of it already.
‘Nobody handed any cash in today for you to take a percentage?’
‘No… oh, I did get something…’ She crossed unsteadily to the dining table, rooted in her coat and found the mobile phone. She handed it to Clarke. ‘You can get something for this, can’t you?’
Clarke inspected it. He had stolen and fenced many a mobile phone and knew their worth. ‘Found property?’ he said with a knowing chortle.
‘Our property,’ Ellen said.
‘Hey, this is a good phone,’ he said appreciatively.
‘How much?’
‘Forty quid, I guess. It sells in the hundreds.’
‘Can you get that tonight?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘So we can party, party, party?’
‘Oh yeah.’
She stood in front of him, still dressed in the knee length, but tight, skirt and white blouse of her PEA uniform. She hitched up the skirt and straddled him. ‘Let’s start how we mean to go on,’ she said, slowly unbuttoning the blouse.
Clarke’s eyes misted lustfully over as he reached up and grabbed her generous boobs. She leaned into him and mashed her lips on to his, forcing her tongue into his mouth.
The pounding on the door was a rude interruption.
Clarke pulled his head away and gasped. ‘I hope that’s not Tweedy,’ he said, referring to his dealer. ‘I owe him some money, but coming round here is bang out of order. Ignore him.’
But the knocking persisted in an authoritative way. Whoever it was, wasn’t going to go away in a hurry.
‘Shit,’ Clarke said and pushed Ellen to one side, extracting himself from underneath her. She moaned with annoyance as Clarke got up and said, ‘I’ll piss him off.’
‘How much do you owe him?’
‘Dunno. Twenty, I guess. Not a lot.’
For Mark Carter it might as well have been another police cell. Out of one, into another, the only difference being this one was en-suite and the bed looked half-comfortable and inviting.
‘You’re lucky,’ the social worker had told him on the way.
‘And why would that be?’ he asked harshly. The social worker, God bless him, came across as a decent kind of guy, trying his best to do a thankless job with a stroppy teenager. However, Mark had no intention of making anything easy for him.