The Follow Read online

  The Follow

  Paul Grzegorzek

  © Paul Grzegorzek 2016

  Paul Grzegorzek has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  Epilogue

  1

  I’D BEEN a copper for eight years the day I became an accessory to murder. But before I tell you about that, I need to go back to the beginning, back to the day that Quentin Davey walked out of court with a grin on his face and the blood of one of my colleagues still on his hands.

  The day started much as any other as I left my house on Wordsworth Street in Hove and drove to work, enjoying the morning sun streaming across the seafront. Early summer is my favourite time of year in Brighton; it makes it feel alive with the promise of things yet to come. I hummed along to the Snow Patrol track my MP3 player had selected, my Audi darting through the traffic as if it wasn’t there. In no time at all I was in the underground car park of John Street police station, trading jokes with people who were leaving from the night shift, their white shirts crumpled and their faces sagging as they finally shucked off their paperwork for another twelve hours.

  I bounded up the stairs and through the locker rooms, then up two more flights of stairs to the first floor reserved for the CID teams and headed through into the DIU office.

  The Divisional Intelligence Unit, in my opinion, is where the real heart of policing in Brighton sits. Intelligence from everywhere across the division, from coppers and the public, comes through the office and is sorted for relevance before being passed on to us, the IDOs, or Intelligence Development Officers. Everything in Sussex Police is a three letter code, and it makes a conversation between two coppers sound like gibberish to the layman.

  I strolled into the office, past the picture of our five-a-side team from last year that was still pinned up on the door, and the tension hit me like a slap in the face. The room holds about thirty people, officers and researchers with not a uniform in sight, but this morning all of them were muted as if waiting for something bad to happen. We’re the ones who sneak around town and chase drug dealers, car thieves, rapists and burglars, and it’s hard to do that if they can see you coming, so the office was full of jeans and t-shirts, much to the annoyance of everyone else in the building.

  The tension this morning was for a very good reason, a reason that I had been trying hard not think about. Six weeks ago, I’d been on a surveillance job with a few others from the office, trying to catch a big-time heroin dealer, Quentin Davey, in Hollingdean.

  What we didn’t know was that he had just blagged a load of heroin on tick, and that if he didn’t get the money sorted out, then he was in big trouble. So when we jumped him, instead of putting his hands up or running away, he pulled a knife and stabbed Jimmy Holdsworth, my partner of three years, piercing a lung and putting him on life support for two weeks before he began to recover.

  Of course we’d taken Davey down, but it looked like Jimmy wasn’t going to get a payout as he hadn’t been wearing a stab vest, despite the fact that everyone knows you can’t wear one on surveillance. Nothing screams copper like a ‘covert’ vest; you look like the Michelin man and move about as fast too.

  So today was the day of the court case and I was the star witness, having been inches away when it happened. Every time I thought about it I got butterflies in my stomach and goose bumps, so I was doing my best not to.

  I smiled at our researcher, Sally, as I sank into my chair in the drugs pod. The room was split up into various different pods, or work areas, demarcated by brown felt dividers that stood to about chest height. I glanced around my littered desk, covered in reports both new and old, all filed with the care that only eighteen hour days can produce. It was a pig-sty.

  The divider wall next to my computer was covered with pieces of paper, some tacked over others, showing the faces of local criminals, pictures of me and the lads on skiing and fishing holidays and a picture of a huge bride being fed cake by an equally large husband on their wedding day, with the legend ‘nom nom nom’ printed underneath. I had that up there so that I would see it every time I fancied a doughnut.

  I’d been fighting to keep my chest from sagging into my stomach for a while now, and it was a battle I was finally winning.

  ‘Anything relevant?’ I asked Sally as I waited for my computer to boot up.

  She smiled at me as she turned her chair, displaying a heart shaped face framed by golden curls and eyes that I regularly wanted to fall into. She should have been a model, not a police researcher.

  ‘Not really Gareth, just a few serials about that BMW in Whitehawk again, and one about dealers in East Street by the taxi rank; they’re probably coming over from the YMCA.’

  Nothing new there then. Despite the fact that the YMCAs had been set up to help people living on the streets, they had quickly become hotbeds of crime, mainly heroin and crack dealing and petty thefts, and you could guarantee that wherever a YMCA opened, the crime rate would rise. They seemed to be filled with people too stupid to realise that you didn’t shit on your own doorstep. Not that all of the occupants were like that, some of them were genuinely just down on their luck, but sadly they were tarred with the same brush as the majority.

  The hamster that ran my computer finally woke up and started turning the wheel, allowing me to check my emails and update the intelligence sheets before the morning meeting.

  The rest of the drugs pod was on a job in Hove, but I was exempt because I was giving evidence in court, so I got to do all their reports as well as mine. Not that it was a problem, since the previous day had been a series of dead ends and poor leads that amounted to almost no paperwork for once.

  Paperwork is the bane of any copper’s existence. The poor bastards downstairs on uniform (and I mean no disrespect, I was one for years) were supposed to run about eight crime reports at a time per officer, as well as respond to calls and make enquiries, assisting the CID teams and generally doing all the other work that no one else had time to do. Most officers I knew had somewhere over twenty reports each and were snowed under with paperwork. The truth is, you won’t get in trouble for not answering a 999 call, but you can lose your job for not doing your paperwork properly, so officers will turn their radios down and sit in the corner of the office, frantically trying to finish their reports before a sergeant finds them and turfs them out to pick up yet more jobs.

  I felt more than lucky that I had managed to find a way into DIU. I had come somewhat of an unusual route, having gone onto LST (the Local Support Team, yet another three letter code), which specialises in warrants, riots, protests, bashing in doors and violent prisoners. Dealing with the latter, not bashing them in, I should add. After I’d been on the unit for a few months, our remit had changed and we had become half-plain clothes, half-uniform, so you
could come in in the morning, do a drugs warrant in uniform, then change into plain clothes and go out hunting scallies in the town centre. I’d quickly discovered that I had an aptitude for the surveillance work, and when I got an attachment to DIU I’d just kind of stayed for a few years, and had no intention of leaving. I really felt like I had my finger on the pulse of the city, and I probably knew as much about what was happening in it as anyone else in the world. That’s a funny feeling, but one that I grew to love.

  My inbox was full of pointless emails from various units with three letter names and none of them applied to me. At least I hope not, because as per usual I deleted them without really looking. If it was important they’d email me again.

  Sally leaned over with a cup of tea as a waft of her perfume tickled my nose. ‘Thanks Sally. How was the film last night?’ I vaguely remembered that she had been going out with one of the string of boyfriends that treated her like shit, despite our regular advice about the type of man she should go for.

  ‘Yeah, it was okay, but Darren made me pay for the film and dinner again. He’s such a jerk!’

  Another voice floated over the partition and I swung round to see Kevin Sands, one of the three detective sergeants that ran the office, leaning casually against a nearby pillar.

  ‘Sally, I’ve told you before, all you have to do is dump him, and I’ll kick Mrs Sands out. You can have her half of the bed.’

  From anyone else it would have been harassment, but Kev had the ability to be rude, sexist, and generally as non-PC as you could get, yet make it clear that he didn’t mean any of it. He had spent more than thirty years in the force and had come back on the ‘thirty plus’ deal, which meant that he could do another five years. He was one of the funniest men I had ever met. Not only did he have a mind that was more devious than a politician’s, he had comic timing that Bill Bailey would have killed for.

  Sally laughed at him and went back to her desk while Sands took the empty chair at the desk behind mine. ‘You all ready for court this morning, Gareth?’ he asked, trying unsuccessfully to press the height lever on my chair with his foot.

  I nodded. ‘I think so. What’s not to be ready for? I saw him stab Jimmy; if I’d been any closer I would have been the one that got stabbed.’ Just the memory of it made me angry, seeing again the look of pleasure on Davey’s face as he jammed the knife into Jimmy’s chest.

  It’s a common misconception that most stabbings are done with combat knives. Nine out of ten are done with kitchen knives that you can pick up in almost any store for a few quid. Every other car I’ve stopped in my career has one tucked somewhere, whether it be in a tool box or hidden under the driver’s seat. But they rarely got turned on us.

  ‘Come on now,’ Kev said, obviously seeing my faraway look. ‘You know the drill, just concentrate on the questions they ask you and don’t babble. Answer “yes” or “no” if you can, and don’t try to explain unless you think they’re trying to lead you. Not that I’m trying to teach you to suck eggs.’

  I smiled, appreciating the pep talk. I’d been to court dozens of times but each time I still got stage fright, especially in crown. Not only did you have a judge, the defendant and the lawyers to deal with, but you also had twelve members of the public staring at you, trying to decide if they believed you or not.

  One of the first things I had learned about court was that your evidence didn’t matter if you didn’t come across well. If you could convince the jury that you were solid, dependable and honest, they would believe you if you told them that the sky was green. If they thought you were bent, however, the case was lost no matter how compelling the evidence. You may think that’s an exaggeration, but trust me it isn’t. I’ve seen watertight cases lost because an officer got a bad bout of nerves and mumbled their evidence like they didn’t know what they were saying.

  ‘Oi, wake up,’ Kev said, leaning forward and pinching the fleshy bit of my arm above the triceps hard enough to make me yelp.

  ‘Ouch, that’s assault!’ I complained as he got up and ambled out of the pod, studiously ignoring me. I shook my head and turned back to finish the reports, hurrying as I glanced at the clock and saw that I had to be in court in little less than an hour.

  2

  HOVE CROWN Court looks more like a library than a courthouse from the outside, with dark brown brick and dirty white walls. It’s situated on the corner of Holland Road, with no parking for anyone other than workers, and it sits several streets away from any of the bus routes. It was as convenient and well thought out as the rest of the justice system.

  I paced up and down in the police waiting room trying not to annoy DI Jones, the officer in charge of the case. Normally, the OIC would be a detective constable but, since it was a police officer that had been stabbed, they had bumped it all the way up to an inspector.

  She looked very smart in a no-nonsense trouser suit, with her hair scraped back into a tight bun and just a hint of make-up to hide the strain of a four-week court case. She sighed as I walked past her for the eighth time in the tiny room.

  ‘Gareth, can you please sit down?’ she asked, looking threateningly at me over her glasses.

  ‘Sorry ma’am, I’m just nervous. I want him to go down and I’m a bit wound up.’

  ‘We all want him to go down, Gareth. But right now I’m trying to read through the file and you’re putting me off.’

  I stopped pacing and stood in front of the mirror, checking myself for the twentieth time since I’d been in the room. I wasn’t used to wearing a suit and it felt strange to be looking smart. I’d chosen a grey double-breasted affair with a lavender shirt and tie, and was extremely grateful that I’d remembered to shave that morning. Usually I didn’t, due to the fact that a few days’ stubble makes you look less like a police officer when you’re on the streets. I hadn’t, however, managed to get my hair cut and my brown locks were getting long enough that they were starting to curl over my ears.

  The door opened and a court usher stepped in, the black gown looking strange over the security-style uniform she wore underneath.

  ‘PC Bell?’

  ‘Here,’ I said, sounding like a naughty schoolboy as the nerves made my palms sweat and my stomach flip over.

  ‘They’re ready for you now. Would you like to swear or affirm?’

  ‘Affirm please.’ Not that I had a problem with swearing on the Bible but, not being religious, it felt to me like I would be lying from the outset which is not a good frame of mind in court.

  She led me across the corridor and into the court, situated right at the back of the building on the top floor. As I entered, I headed towards the stand, nodding at both the judge and jury as I went in.

  Once I had been safely escorted to my position, the usher placed a card in my hand and I read the words with barely a quiver in my voice. ‘I do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

  As I introduced myself, I let my eyes drift around the courtroom, taking in the jury, all trying to look thoughtful and solemn, the barristers in their ridiculous gowns and wigs and Quentin Davey himself, secure behind a Perspex screen.

  Davey was staring at me intently, with a half-smile that I didn’t like playing around his lips. Although not an imposing man at five feet and six inches, four inches shorter than me and only half my build, there was an air about him that made the hackles rise on the back of my neck. He had a blatant disregard for anyone or anything else, and that showed in almost everything he did. I had once jumped one of his runners, Peter Finn, a heroin user trusted just enough to sell small amounts of the drug for Davey, and had arrested Finn and seized the five bags of heroin he had left on him.

  For the loss of the £50 the drugs would have made, Davey had thrown an entire kettle of boiling water into Finn’s face, disfiguring him for life. Try as we might to get Finn to prosecute, some kind of twisted loyalty, or maybe just fear, held him and he still worked f
or Davey even now.

  And now the man that would scar someone for life and stab a copper was staring at me and trying not to laugh. He had to have something up his sleeve that I hadn’t thought of, but what?

  ‘PC Bell, did you get enough sleep last night?’ The judge’s voice brought my head round with an almost audible snap.

  ‘I’m sorry, Your Honour, I was just looking at the man who stabbed my partner.’ When lost, confused or cornered; go for the throat.

  The defence barrister shot out of his seat like a cork out of a bottle. ‘Objection!’ he called, putting one hand to the wig that had nearly slipped off during his heroic launch.

  ‘Sustained,’ said the judge, one that unfortunately I didn’t recognise. ‘PC Bell, I don’t want you leading the jury with unsolicited statements, am I clear?’

  ‘Yes, Your Honour.’ I did my best to sound repentant, but I could see a few members of the jury giving me looks of approval. Strike one.

  After my little outburst, I was given to the prosecution barrister first, who very neatly led me through my statement asking no awkward questions, but instead asking me regularly how I felt as I first subdued Jimmy’s assailant and then applied the first aid that had saved my colleague’s life. I spoke vividly of the minutes I waited for the ambulance, my hands covered in Jimmy’s blood as I held a credit card to the outside of his chest to prevent the lung from collapsing as it filled with fluid.

  I told the jury about the looks and threats that Davey had thrown at us as I laboured to save Jimmy’s life, about his laughter rolling over me as I was busy keeping my friend alive.

  I told them about the blood that had flowed down Hollingdean Road like a flood, staining the pavement while the ambulance crew worked on Jimmy, trying to stop the bleeding before they moved him. I knew as I glanced at the jury that I had them. I could feel tears in my eyes as I finished, and my fingers were white as they gripped the edge of the box. I glared at Davey as if daring him to challenge anything I’d said but he just looked right back at me, his thin face still struggling not to break into a grin.