[Inspector Peach 13] - Wild Justice Read online

  The man who came to see Hayes this morning behaved like that. He parked his shabby Ford Focus carefully a hundred yards away from the casino and checked all movements in the street around him before he entered. He looked watchfully around the floor of the big room, deserted at this hour, ignored the cleaners, nodded automatically at the one face he knew, that of a man in shirt sleeves who was reading a tabloid newspaper behind the bar.

  Leroy Moore was of Jamaican parentage, but he had never seen that remarkable island. He had never known his father and he was not sure how genuine his first name was. Though he had long ago accepted it, he had a vague memory that his mother had conferred it upon him in place of something more mundane when he began his patchy school experience at five.

  Moore had spent the first twenty of his twenty-four years in the Moss Side area of Manchester. As a consequence, he was not just streetwise but slum-wise, even sewer-wise. He had a mass of black, frizzy hair. He was black, squat and almost perpetually smiling. The smile was the impression you carried away from a first meeting with the man; it was accentuated by his large and perfectly white teeth, so that it seemed to linger for a moment when he departed, like that of a sinister Cheshire cat.

  Leroy never went anywhere without the knife he regarded as one of the tools of his trade. He felt its comforting presence in the pocket of his leather jacket as he went in to see his employer.

  ‘You’re late, Moore. Do you think that time doesn't matter?’ asked an unsmiling Hayes.

  Leroy hastily removed his habitual smile. ‘Sorry, boss. It took me time to park.’

  They both knew it was a token excuse. But Hayes had made his point. ‘I’ve work for you to do.’

  ‘Name it, boss.’ Moore looked at the single chair on his side of the table but the man in the suit did not ask him to sit down. ‘Simpson. He’s behind with his rent. Again.’

  ‘He paid last time, Mr Hayes.’

  ‘Yes. After a warning. This time he’s had his warning and hasn’t responded. He needs a sharper reminder.’

  Leroy let his smile steal back in the face of this humour. It didn’t do to miss a boss’s joke. ‘I’ll see to it.’

  ‘You will, yes. It’s what you’re paid for. It’s what you do.’

  ‘It’s what I do well, boss. You won’t have cause to complain.’

  ‘Discreetly, mind. I don’t want the fuzz making any connection with me. Which means I don’t want them making any connection with you. Understood?’

  ‘Understood perfectly, boss!’ Leroy thought of flicking a quick salute at him, then decided against it. His smile broadened as he said slyly, ‘What degree of reminder would you like, Mr Hayes?’

  Tim allowed himself a small, grim smile, recognizing the attempt at subtlety from an unusual source. ‘No deaths. Not even broken bones, unless it’s a jaw or a rib. A severe roughing up. I’d say. A sharp reminder, as I said.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Weekend, I should think. Away from work, so that any connection won’t be clear. Don’t take any risks - there’s no immediate hurry.’ Hayes smiled the smile of a man in control who appreciated his power. ‘In the unlikely event of him paying up in time to save himself, I’ll let you know.’

  Moore nodded three times emphatically, as if registering some complex thought instead of a simple instruction. ‘I’ll see to it, Mr Hayes. Do I let you know when it’s done?’

  ‘No. I’ll hear about it, soon enough. And if you need help, choose carefully. I don’t want gorillas who don’t know when to stop. And I don’t want thickos who sound off to their mates about what they’ve done or can’t keep their mouths shut if they’re questioned.’

  ‘OK, boss. You can rely on me.’

  ‘I hope so, for your sake.’

  It was a dismissal. Moore, who had looked so carefully to right and left as he came through the almost deserted casino, looked straight ahead and this time ignored the curious gaze of the man behind the bar. He slipped out quickly, as if he hoped that a swift exit would not be noticed.

  Chapter Three

  Detective Chief Inspector Denis Charles Scott Peach, universally known to his CID colleagues in Brunton nick as ‘Percy’, was having a difficult Wednesday.

  After a morning in court with a bench of magistrates he found particularly uninformed and unworldly, he had seen three young bully-boys get away with suspended sentences or community service for crimes of violence. They had departed after thumbing their noses, literally as well as metaphorically, at him and at DC Brendan Murphy, who had arrested them at the cost of facial injuries and bodily bruising. The world, in Percy Peach’s considered and informed opinion, had gone mad.

  He had passed on that view to his chief when summoned to his penthouse office on the top storey of the massive new police station. This structure was itself an acknowledgement of the fact that crime was a growth industry in the twenty-first century. And Thomas Bulstrode Tucker, Chief Superintendent in charge of the CID section at Brunton, was in Percy’s view an arse- hole. This is a technical police term for a senior officer of bungling incompetence with self-interest as his only guiding principle.

  The man Peach had long ago rechristened as Tommy Bloody Tucker had been absent for the first two days of the working week and was now demanding that his DCI bring him ‘up to speed’ on everything important that had happened since his last appearance at the station on the previous Friday. Tucker had not caught up with modem technology and saw no reason to do so, with his retirement only two or three years away, so that emails and the like remained things of mystery to him. This at least allowed Peach to be selective in what he chose to highlight; he was now seeking furiously for items which might bring him a little light relief.

  ‘We had a preacher in the station on Sunday night, sir,’ he said mysteriously.

  ‘A preacher?’ Tucker spoke with the wonderment which might have greeted the mention of an animal previously thought extinct.

  ‘Yes, sir. A man who delivers sermons and gives moral or religious advice. Sometimes formally from a raised enclosed platform known as a pulpit, but also often from—’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know what a preacher is, you idiot! What - what denomination was he, this preacher?’

  ‘Methodist, sir.’

  ‘Not very important nowadays, the Methodists.’

  Peach toyed for a moment with a delicious vision of John and Charles Wesley rising from their graves as militant evangelists to strike down this pillar of ignorance with the weighty Methodist hymn book. He contented himself with a modest, ‘They have a proud history in Brunton, the Methodists.’

  ‘Fuck history, Peach.’

  He’s like Henry Ford, but without the scholarship and intellectual distinction, thought Percy. ‘Yes, sir. Is that the latest official police policy towards our national inheritance?’

  ‘Don’t be impertinent, Peach. I was merely recognizing a fact of life. Merely reminding you that the Methodists are not as important on our patch as they were fifty years ago.’

  ‘I follow you, sir. You were taking account of history, as you might say, sir.’ Peach nodded twice and donned the expression of innocent puzzlement he reserved specially for his chief.

  ‘Take it from me, Peach, no Methodist carries any real clout nowadays.’

  ‘Five and a half thousand hymns he wrote, Charles Wesley.’ Percy stared dreamily at the wall behind Tucker and shook his head in admiration.

  ‘Not a Methodist yourself, are you?’ Tucker stared at him as if accusing him of some unspeakable sexual perversion.

  Peach came delightedly back to the real world and gave his chief his most impish smile. Beneath his shining bald head and jet-black moustache, this was a chilling phenomenon. ‘I’m not sure you’re allowed to ask me that, these days, sir. But as we’re such good chums, I don’t mind telling you that I have no connections with Methodism. I’m more of a lapsed Papist myself, sir. Altar boys and celibacy and incense and A-level guilt, in my day, sir. I understand that some or all of these have now b
een abandoned.’

  ‘Your religion is of no interest to me, Peach,’ said Tucker loftily, effortlessly ignoring the fact that he had just enquired about it.

  ‘Yes, sir. Most C. of E. people say that.' Peach enjoyed the odd gnomic pronouncement. He stared at a point two feet above Tucker’s head with an inscrutability which would have been the envy of a poker player.

  ‘Don’t distract me, Peach! You’re diverting me from the facts. Why was this Methodist preacher in our station?’

  ‘He was involved in a punch-up, sir.’

  ‘I see.’ Tucker steepled his hands and pressed the tips of his fingers together in the gesture he had lately adopted to indicate that he was coming to a balanced decision. After several seconds he said abruptly, ‘I think we should throw the book at the bugger!’

  Peach was amazed once again by Tommy Bloody Tucker’s ability to leap to the wrong decision without any attempt to assemble the facts. He contented himself with a dry, ‘Admirably decisive, sir.’

  Something in his junior’s manner alerted Tucker. With an unusual burst of perception, he said, ‘You’ve let the sod go, haven’t you?’

  ‘He was only in the station for two hours, sir. In my opinion, he should never have been here.’

  Tucker smote his empty desk theatrically. ‘We need a crackdown on violence, Peach. The public is calling for it.’

  ‘Yes, sir. In that case it might be a good thing that the assailants of this elderly man are still in custody.’

  ‘Assailants?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Peach decided that it was high time that his chief superintendent learned at least some of the facts of the matter. ‘The Methodist lay preacher was a man named Thomas Douthwaite, sir. A man of seventy-two years who attempted to protect a young lady who was being threatened with sexual assault by the two young men we still have in custody. Mr Douthwaite, who is of impeccable reputation and previous conduct, sustained a cut over his left eye and some bruising to the chest. He should in my opinion have been taken to A. and E. at the hospital, but the young uniformed officers brought him here. Apparently he was anxious to make a statement denouncing his attackers.’

  Tucker frowned hard at the backs of his hands. ‘These young thugs mustn’t be allowed to get away with this, Peach. You’re much too soft on incidents like this, in my opinion.’

  The notion of Peach being soft on anyone, least of all young thugs, would have caused widespread astonishment among Brunton’s criminal fraternity as well as its police service. ‘I’m sure we can prepare a case which even the Crown Prosecution Service will be prepared to take on, sir.’

  ‘They’ll have me to take on if they don’t, Peach.’ Tucker jutted his chin aggressively, and for a few seconds the two men were united in the police contempt for the pusillanimous lawyers who would take on only cast-iron prosecutions.

  ‘These hoodlums are awaiting a final interview, sir. Would you like to do that yourself, and show them the full force of Brunton CID in action?’

  ‘No!’ Tucker as usual shied away with horror from any direct contact with the crime face. ‘You know I make it a policy never to interfere with my staff in the day-to-day business of the CID section.’

  ‘I do indeed, sir. In that case, I may see them myself.’

  ‘That seems a very good idea, Peach. And you have my permission not to pull any punches in the interview. My orders, if you wish to phrase it that way.’

  ‘Oh yes, sir, I think I might. Show the less experienced lads and lasses downstairs that there is a firm and fearless hand at the top.’

  ‘Fearless?’ Tommy Bloody Tucker did not like that word. ‘I’ll certainly let Messrs Iqbal and Hussain know that there is to be no quarter given and that these tactics come directly from the top. I might well—’

  ‘Those are Asian names, Peach.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thuggery knows not the boundaries of race and religion in the twenty-first century.’ Peach was rather proud of that; his fiancee’s injunction to order the Guardian was paying off already.

  ‘This puts rather a different complexion on things, you know.’

  ‘I agree, sir. It gives us the chance to show that race and creed don’t matter when it comes to policing crime. That whatever the colour of your skin and whatever the religion you purport to follow, there is no escape from the long arm of the law in Brunton.’

  ‘Perhaps we should consider whether there might be mitigating circumstances in this particular—’

  ‘None whatsoever, sir. I’ve made sure Mr Douthwaite’s injuries were fully photographed. There is quite an appealing range of colours apparent in the chest bruising. I’ll make sure the press officer knows that you were the driving force behind the prosecution when he briefs the local hacks. It might even make the nationals, if we stress the hard-line policy. You might even consider one of your famed media briefings to explain yourself fully. “The copper who has no time for political correctness and racial soft soap,” I expect they’ll call you. Something along those lines, anyway.’

  ‘Peach, you’d better put the full details of this in writing and bring it to me for an executive decision. In the present sensitive climate of opinion, I might well need to review the—’

  ‘Too late for that. I’m afraid, sir. The young villains have been charged with common assault. Come before the magistrates tomorrow morning. The young lady’s agreed to give evidence against them. Open-and-shut case, I’d say.’

  Tucker smiled wanly and made a final attempt at rebuke. ‘I can only hope the magistrate will be more aware of the delicate state of race relations in this town than my detective chief inspector appears to be.’

  ‘I think we can rely on satisfyingly severe sentences, sir. Custodial, if these thugs have previous histories of violence.’

  ‘Thugs? You really should moderate—’

  ‘Your word, sir, if I remember right.’ As I invariably do, in your case, you old fraud, thought Percy with bitter satisfaction.

  ‘Who - who is Chairman of the Bench tomorrow?’

  ‘Councillor Abbas, sir. Believes in making an example of people who share his Pakistani origins and his Muslim faith. I think we can be confident that justice will be done tomorrow morning. Good afternoon, sir.’

  Percy paused by the window as he went back down the stairs to savour the clear and brilliant red of the January sunset. Not such a bad day, after all.

  * * *

  Matthew Ballack had known Tim Hayes for more than twenty years. Each of them knew more about the other than any other person on earth.

  They had started Hayes Electronics together over a quarter of a century ago, making computer parts in premises which had once been a grocer’s shop but which had failed with the relentless advance of the supermarkets. They had recognized the importance of the microchip which was to drive forward the domination of the personal computer, and obtained early concessions and supplies. They had prospered until the nineties, when the British silicon valley had spread out along the M4 in Berkshire and Wiltshire.

  They had used the early profits from Hayes Electronics to fund other and more dubious enterprises, so that the slowing of their PC profits did not damage them. Even the collapse of the dot.com boom in the early years of the new century did not greatly affect them, since by that time they were reaping rich returns from gaming and betting shops. The risks here were high but the profits for the successful were even higher, whilst the possibilities of money-laundering for returns from fraud and the sex industry were almost infinite. Neither of the men admitted their involvement in such things, even to their intimates. And both of them had realized early in their careers that they should have very few intimates.

  Hayes was careful as well as intelligent, but Ballack had an Achilles heel. He was a gambler himself. He brought to the partnership an unrivalled knowledge of the betting industry and its possibilities. When a Labour government anxious to replace the tax on smokers had first relaxed the laws on gambling and then positively encouraged it, Hayes and Ballack had b
een in a position to use their profits from electronics in this new, squalid, but highly profitable expansion.

  Unfortunately for him, Matthew Ballack had not been able to kick his gambling addiction.

  He had made a grandiose announcement of his rejection of his habits, pointing out ponderously the truism that business and pleasure did not mix, that a man could no more be a gambler and run betting shops than he could be a publican and a drinker. Tim Hayes listened, and doubted, and studied carefully what happened next.

  Matthew Ballack did not defraud his partner. He never attempted to fiddle the books of their shops or to take what was not his from them. But he dissipated the handsome profits he was making from businesses new and old by betting huge sums with the big chains like Ladbrokes and William Hill. And like all addicts, he believed the great coup, the huge betting success which would wipe out all his previous losses, was just around the comer. He staked ever larger and rasher sums and lost most of his considerable fortune.

  And all the while, his partner watched and waited. The partnership had begun with only the minimum of written agreements, so that when Tim Hayes judged that the right moment had come and Matthew Ballack was at his lowest, he had divested himself of its trappings and taken control of the business himself. That moment had been five years ago.

  ‘I’ve been a fool!’ Matthew Ballack had declared vigorously but conventionally. Like most addicts, he thought he had been pursuing his vice in secret, when those close to him knew that something was wrong and Tim Hayes had been following his every move for months.

  ‘A fool indeed,’ nodded Tim calmly. ‘I warned you off betting many years ago. Matt, but you ignored my advice.’

  It was the nearest he would come to an apology for what he was about to do. He did not cut Ballack off completely: somewhere, a written agreement of partnership still existed. Rather than try to destroy that, he simply ignored it. The man knew too much about the more dubious side of their moneymaking for him to fling him out completely. Besides, if anything went wrong in the future, if questions were asked about drug-dealing or prostitution, it might be useful to have a convenient scapegoat to hand.