We were passing the cups round when Lima Tango came back on the air.
"Victim despatched in ambulance. Two other children were the only witnesses. Have them in the car and taking their details. We'll, er, need the FatAcc Investigation boys over here. Will you arrange it, please."
They were referring to the standard procedure that swings into action after a fatal accident.
"Understood, will do," replied the sergeant, gravely. "Do you know his identity?"
"Yes, from these other two."
"How old was he?"
"Thirteen."
"Do his parents live nearby?"
"Yes, in the maisonettes."
"Sorry to ask you this, lads; but how do you feel about…"
"No!" Gilbert held his hand out and interrupted the sergeant. "Tell them to stand by. I'll be there in a few minutes. It's about time I made myself useful."
None of us said anything. We were all afraid he'd ask us to go with him.
The heroes of the chase began filtering back to the station. The India Romeo crew were from City, so they were doubly pleased at making a good arrest on our territory. Their euphoria soon subsided when news of the young boy was given to them. We handed out tea and thank yous and wondered what Gilbert was finding to say. A constable brought me a big handgun in a plastic bag, found in the offender's car. It was at least a foot long. I held it up to feel the weight; its lightness told me it was obviously a replica. The others gathered round to gawp at it it was a fearsome looking brute. You could almost hear "The Call of the Faraway Hills' welling up in the background. I looked at a constable who I knew to be an authority on such things.
"What do you reckon, Buntline Special?" I asked him.
He examined it through the plastic bag. "Navy Colt," he declared.
"Worth a fortune if it'd been real."
"I bet the poor girl in the bank wet her pants when he stuck it under her nose," someone said. "It scares me just lying there."
The villain was called Shawn Crabb, with a couple of other, fancy names in the middle. I stood in the doorway of the charge room as he was being processed. The custody sergeant read him his rights, emptied his pockets and made him sign for the contents, then charged him with armed robbery. He complained that he was ill; said he had 'flu and needed a doctor.
"Were you injured in the crash?" asked the sergeant.
He shook his head.
"I'll ring for the doc," I said, and phoned Sam Evans. He could buy me a drink out of his call-out fee.
The press were soon on the phone and I found myself fending them off with the standard platitudes. "Further charges may follow' usually satisfies their readers. When Sam arrived I went down to the cells with him. Crabb, wearing one of our neat paper one-piece overalls, was sitting on the bunk, wrapped in a blanket. He said he was cold. Sam gave him a comprehensive examination, mainly to ensure he hadn't been hurt when he rammed the bus. The true cause of his sickness was plain to see: both arms were covered in needle scars and new sores.
"You've got to give me something, Doc," he moaned.
Sam pointed to the scars. "What are you injecting?" he demanded.
"Smack," Crabb replied, his head lolling forward.
"Heroin?"
He nodded.
"How much? Do you know?"
He shook his head. "No, all I can get. It's all shit nowadays."
"I'll leave some pills with the sergeant," Sam told him. "They'll make you feel better." Upstairs he rummaged in his bag and put a few white tablets in a container. "Give him two of these every four hours," he instructed.
I picked them up. "What are they?" I asked.
"Aspirin," he answered, with a bleak smile.
Cold turkey is not regarded as the ogre that it once was. It's not pleasant, but it's no worse than many everyday illnesses. At one time methadone was prescribed to ease devotees away from heroin, but the latest thinking is that this is a more addictive drug, with even more evil side-effects. Crabb was expecting methadone but he was in for a disappointment. I volunteered to take him his first dose.
"These are the pills the doctor left for you," I told him, after I'd been let into his cell again. He reached out for them, but I clenched my fist around the bottle and pulled back from him.
"First of all, I want some information from you. Who do you get your drugs from? A name for a tablet; that's a fair exchange."
He begged, pleaded and cried, but he wouldn't give me a name. He bought them from a bloke in a pub. He wasn't sure which pub. I thought about wiring his testicles to the pelican crossing outside, but I doubt if it would have helped.
"Does the name Cakebread mean anything to you?" He swore he'd never heard of him. "Okay," I said, pocketing the tablets, 'have it your way," and shouted for the jailer to let me out. Upstairs I placed the unopened bottle on the custody sergeant's desk. "Give him another couple in four hours," I told him.
Chapter Twenty
It was after dark when I arrived home. It had been a long day. I had a tin of soup, then showered and shaved and drove to the General Hospital. She was propped up on her pillows. Apart from the dark shadows beneath her eyes, her face was as white as the bed linen. The ward was buzzing with visitors, but none were by her bed. She watched me approach.
"Hello," I said. "Remember me?"
She gave a little nod, but seemed unsure.
"I'm the policeman you duffed up in the New Mall a few months ago," I explained. She stared blankly at me. There was a cage over her legs, holding the blankets off them.
"I, er, brought you a couple of magazines." I put Just Seventeen andElle on her cabinet. "The man in the news agent said they were suitable. I got some funny looks, reading them on the bus. Do you mind if I sit down?"
I pulled the chair alongside the bed. "I haven't come to ask you any questions, Julie. I know your mam and dad can't make it at night, and I don't do much on a Saturday, so I thought I'd come to see you. It was either you or the telly, so here I am."
She didn't say anything.
"Is it hurting?" I asked. She nodded. "Do you want me to ask the nurse to give you something?"
She shook her head. "No thank you," said a little voice.
"Do any of your school chums come to see you?" Another headshake. I wasn't wording these questions very well.
"They don't!" I exclaimed. "Why do you think that is?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know," she whispered. "I think they don't know what to say to me."
"Well, you've got a point. I'm not sure what to say to you myself.
Mind you, I've no kids of my own. The only time I speak to teenagers is to say "Don't do that" or "Put that back" or "Bugger off or I'll nick you"."
She gave a hint of a smile. I delved my hand into my jacket pocket and pulled out the little teddy bear. "Oh," I said, "I nearly forgot. He said he was missing you, so I brought him along."
She reached out and took him from me. This time the smile reached a little further. He was the scruffiest of all her teddies, so I guessed she'd had him the longest, loved him the most.
"I wondered about bringing you some chocolates," I told her, 'but they didn't have any for under fifty pence, so I decided you were probably on a diet and wouldn't have appreciated them anyway; so I didn't buy you any." I took a deep breath. "That's my excuse."
She looked downcast. "There's no point, is there?" she mumbled.
"No point in what?" I asked.
"Being on a diet."
"No, not for someone as skinny as you, but I thought you girls were always on diets."
Her eyes flickered towards the cage over her legs. "Nobody will want me now," she said, her eyes filling with tears.
"Of course they will. There's someone waiting for all of us, somewhere. It's taking me a long time to find mine, but that's another story."
"Not when you've only one leg."