Antisocial behaviour, p.3
Antisocial Behaviour, page 3
‘Detective Sergeant.’
‘That’s me,’ said Hope, turning to see a man close by holding out his hand.
‘Sergeant Hooper,’ he said, ‘traffic. I just thought that I’d bring you up to date because clearly, this is going to be handed over to you and not coming with us.’
‘Thank you,’ said Hope. ‘Jona said you’ve identified a second vehicle.’
‘Well, there’s some tread indicating a vehicle pulled up at speed beside the victim’s vehicle. We’re not sure if there were any shenanigans before that. What I can say is that that car didn’t crash and then go alight.’
‘Jona has confirmed that,’ said Hope. ‘She said it was set alight, fuel of some sort doused in.’
‘Exactly. Look, I’ll send over the tyre prints and the rest to Jona. I’ll also send you a copy of what we find, but to be honest there’s not much else we can do for you.’
‘No,’ said Hope. ‘We could start by finding out where that car came from.’
‘I’ll report it then and we’ll see if we can get a hit. I suspect not though. From what I understand, they take these cars in the early hours of the morning. Therefore, everyone’s in bed and they’ve been ditched before anyone gets up.’
‘Well, thanks,’ said Hope. ‘I’ll let you get on. Like you say, it’s over to me now.’
The man nodded almost in sympathy and shook Hope’s hand.
Hope spent the next half an hour surveying the scene and organising colleagues back at the station to start searching through CCTV images on the surrounding area. She got a number plate for the car and the make and set in motion a tracing action to find out where it had been stolen from, but what she really wanted was the second car.
Alan Ross approached her as the dawn was finally coming through, enough to chase the dark away and a red sky was greeting them.
‘I found them,’ said Alan. ‘Managed to round up all the family. Identified the four kids in there. It’s pretty much a mess. It seems that the four of them hung around together quite a lot. One of the mums said that they may have broken the rules but they didn’t do anything bad. They certainly weren’t into drugs, but she isn’t surprised that they might have taken a car. They had spoken to them several times about this, each time they promised it wasn’t them, but their mothers suspected. I’ve got a family support officer with them now, so waiting to hear some more information. I haven’t told them that we think it’s murder yet. I thought we’d save that for the interviews.
‘Good idea,’ said Hope, and advised Alan what she’d done in terms of tracing action. From behind her, she heard someone shouting.
‘Oi, you, are you in charge?’ Hope spun on her heel, glowering over at a woman who seemed to be wrapped up in a coat over the top of a dressing gown.
‘Yes,’ said Hope. ‘Do you have something you need to say?’
‘Those wee glyps needed that,’ said the woman, almost coldly. ‘It’s about time someone got their comeuppance raking through here. The wee hours in the morning and they’re doing this. Do you know what it’s like trying to get a baby to sleep when all you’ve got is these youths driving back and forward, shouting on the pavements? They don’t disappear until the early hours in the morning. Then we have to get up and go to work, but what are they doing? Skipping off school, lying in bed. It’s about time something like this happened to them. Don’t even know how to drive a car.’
Hope registered that the woman thought this had been an accident, and she certainly wasn’t about to dissuade her.
‘You tell them, Annie,’ said another woman. ‘You tell them. That’s Gilmartin’s kid, isn’t it, that’s in there? Always getting into fights, pulling stunts, used to nick off the shop on the estate as well, just because he’s an Indian gentleman. Think they can just walk in and do what they want instead of trying to make a living like anybody else.’
Hope put her hands up. ‘While you’re all very entitled to your opinion, can I just make it clear that I’m investigating this? If you wish to make a statement about what’s happened, indeed if you saw anything that happened prior to this incident, then please contact my detective constable. He’ll gladly take a statement from you.’
Hope glanced at Alan, wondering if he was giving her dagger eyes, but as per usual, Ross had that determined grin on his face; one that said he was professional in all things. Hope watched Ross step forward and begin to talk to the women and calm down what was rapidly becoming a very heated debate. As she watched, from the corner of her eye, she saw a man stumbling forward with a quarter bottle of booze in his hand, supping down hard on it. He was at least six feet four, built like someone born to be a labourer, and from the way his eyes were spinning, it looked like he had consumed much more drink earlier on this evening.
A constable moved to head off the man, advising him that there was an incident, but the man reached out a hand, pushing the constable backwards. The constable took three steps and promptly landed on his backside before he jumped up.
Hope strode across, put a hand up to the constable indicating he should just stand back for a moment, and she looked at the man who had stopped in his tracks on seeing the red haired, six-foot sergeant in front of him. It wasn’t always right, but Hope understood that sometimes the use of feminine charm could resolve the situation far quicker than any heavy hand.
‘Excuse me. I’m Detective Sergeant Hope McGrath. With an incident going on behind us, you need to stop where you are, sir.’
‘They said Johnny’s in there.’
‘Johnny?’ asked Hope. ‘Who’s Johnny?’
‘Johnny’s my son,’ said the man. ‘Let me see my son.’ He shoved out with a hand, but Hope stepped to one side, caught the wrist and spun the man’s arm up behind his back.
‘You take it easy,’ said Hope. ‘We don’t go any closer. You don’t want to see what’s in there.’
‘Don’t you tell me what I want to see. I want my Johnny. Is Johnny in there? Let me see if Johnny’s in there.’
‘Do you have a photograph of Johnny?’ asked Hope.
The man reached with his free hand inside his jacket. ‘Do you mind letting me loose a minute? I’ll see if I can get it.’
He fumbled about, dropping his wallet twice before producing a picture and handing it to Hope. There was a woman, possibly only eighteen or nineteen, holding a baby. ‘That’s Johnny,’ he said. ‘That’s Johnny.’
‘Do you have anything more recent, sir?’ asked Hope.
‘Only that. I thought I would teach him to drive. I said that, I said, “Don’t do it yourself,” I said, “I’ll teach you to drive.” He was going to get a job driving a bus. Good job that, you know?’ said the man. ‘Is my Johnny inside?’
Hope stood in front of the man. ‘I don’t know yet, sir. We’re still finding out all the details.’
From behind them, there was a cry and a man marched up towards them. He was shorter than the both of them, but he was spitting feathers.
‘Is that you? You dare come round here again?’ The tall man turned around. Hope watched the little man march right up to him and shove a finger in his chest.
‘You got told to leave Jane alone. I told you. I said ,“You come round here again, I’ll do you.” Didn’t I say that?’
‘Johnny is in there,’ said the big man, his eyes welling up. ‘Johnny’s in there.’
‘Well, good riddance to him,’ said the little guy, causing the big man to begin to rock.
‘As for you, you can take this for laying a hand on Jane.’
Hope hadn’t clocked the crowbar up the man’s back but she did as he swung it towards the man’s head. She intervened with a strong hand that pushed the large man onto his backside, the crowbar missing by a few inches. The little man then went to jump on the big man, lifted the crowbar up above his head and Hope snatched it, pulling it violently, almost ripping the man’s arms out of their sockets. He gave a loud cry and Hope stripped him of the crowbar, throwing it on the ground before reaching and grabbing a wrist, driving it up behind his back. The constable who had been held in check previously by Hope’s hand, ran over and cuffed the little man.
‘Take him somewhere else. Find out who he is, why he’s doing this, and then take him down to the station. See if he can cool off,’ said Hope.
‘Will do,’ said the constable, and marched the little man out of the area. Hope turned back to the large man who was writhing on the floor.
‘Johnny,’ he said. ‘Johnny.’ He rolled over and began to pick the dirt from his clothes. Hope looked around her. What a mess, she thought. What a ruddy mess.
Chapter 04
Macleod paid a visit to Hope at her crime scene before making his way back to the station. Interviews were being done, CCTV was being checked, and the general running of two murder investigations was well underway. Macleod was content that his team was on top of this, even though it was the early days of the investigation.
No one had witnessed either event, so therefore, they had to drill through who had seen their victims last and where they’d been going, who they’d been talking to, and what trouble there was.
Something bothered Macleod though. In both instances, the weapons used had not been that of the street. Had Peter Olive been knifed to death with a butterfly knife or some sort of similar item, he would have been quite content that they were looking for someone else on the estate. But Peter Olive had been gutted with a weapon more suited to the army. The car also had been taken out with a grenade. It was nearly impossible to get hold of an item such as that in Inverness or maybe it was simply something that had been acquired or found by another person on the estate. But it took quite a bit to operate it in that fashion.
Can you pull up in the car? Can you throw it in through the window and then be out of the way before it exploded?
Macleod prepared himself for a day of reading reports and trying to work out what was going on. He’d left Hope and Clarissa on scene while Ross had returned to the station, briefly organising the interview data and the acquisition of important evidence. It was quite something to have somebody like Ross who could do all this. He made sure all the details were covered, allowing Macleod to sit back and ponder. After all, that’s what he got paid for, wasn’t it, going through the detail and picking out what was important and what wasn’t.
He received a phone call from Jane at approximately midday, and part of him drifted back to the early morning shower. It had only been fifteen minutes, but then again, fifteen minutes was better than nothing. She cheekily told him when he left the force, he could have mornings of this. One part of him felt, ‘Why not? Hadn’t he done enough already?’ He wasn’t some sort of reward loyalty card that you added the stickers on and then decided to return.
A part of him still felt he was needed. Hope needed him, still required that refinement before she took over, but he also needed to retire because he was gaining too much notoriety. Too often, he was turning up the crime scenes and he could hear them saying, ‘That’s Macleod.’ The unkind ones instead saying, ‘That’s the ugly one. Where’s the redhead that works with him?’ Macleod would saunter past, laughing at the comment.
He stood up from behind his desk to look out into the office. As he approached the door with his coffee cup, he saw Ross already there at the machine.
‘Fresh batch just going on, sir.’
He’d never been able to stop Ross calling him ‘Sir’. To tell you the truth, he had stopped trying. As Macleod handed over his coffee cup, his phone began to ring. He paced back to his desk to answer it. ‘Detective Inspector Seoras Macleod.’ He stared at the illuminated telephone screen. It was an internal call.
‘Sorry, it’s Seoras.’
‘Seoras, it’s upstairs here.’
Upstairs was how the DCI addressed himself, just to make sure that you understood that you were downstairs. Macleod had worked with many DCIs, but this one was beginning to grit on him. If it continued, he may even be forced to retire to get rid of the man.
‘Seoras, I’ve got someone coming up to meet you.’
‘Coming up to meet me?’
‘Yes, Simon Mackenzie. He’s a local councillor. With what’s just going on recently on those estates, he wants to come up and have a word. He’s got quite a good idea, but I’ll let him talk to you about that. Of course, you’ll need to say yes to it.’
Macleod shook his head. Chief Inspector Calhoun was proving to be a bigger pain than Macleod ever thought. One of the problems Macleod had was that he didn’t call Macleod to give detail about the cases he was working on, but rather, every time he pestered him was to brandish some new idea. Macleod was all for passing information on about a case to a superior, for at the end of the day, that’s what it should be about. This man asked Macleod for all sorts of things, things about how to change policing, what a modern Facebook page would look like for the Constabulary. Macleod had absolutely no idea nor any inclination to learn about such things.
‘I’m working now. Two cases on the go,’ said Macleod.
‘Seoras, you know as well as I do that a lot of these things get solved out there with the public.’
This was news to Macleod.
‘I think the more people we can get on side, especially local council, the better. I’ve said that he can come up to meet you now. Just hear what he has to say and then be a good man and agree to it. It’d be good for you anyway. I think you’ll enjoy it.’
‘I’ll enjoy what?’ asked Macleod.
‘You’ll see.’ The other end of the phone went dead. Macleod placed his receiver down as well. He looked up out into the outer office and saw a man enter, and Ross intercepting him. He wanted to call Ross, tell him to send the man packing, but he’d be dutiful and hear what the man had to say. Macleod opened his office door and saw Ross directing the man over.
‘Detective Inspector, this is Simon Mackenzie. He’s a local councillor.’
‘I contacted the DCI,’ said the man. ‘I asked him if I could come up and speak to you.’
‘Ah, that one,’ said Macleod. ‘I’ll take you through now. Ross, if you wouldn’t mind, bring a couple of coffees in. It’d be much appreciated.’
Ross nodded. As soon as Simon Mackenzie turned his back, he looked at Macleod, raising his eyebrows. Macleod did his best not to roll them, given that the man was standing in front of him.
‘If you’d come in, Mr Mackenzie. Take a seat there. Would you like a coffee?’
‘I thought you’d basically instructed for one to arrive anyway.’
‘Well, I can always drink two,’ said Macleod. ‘Up to you.’ With a smile, Mackenzie nodded. Ross appeared less than thirty seconds later with two coffees, placing one down in front of the inspector and another in front of Mr Mackenzie.
‘I hope you don’t mind, Mr Mackenzie, I’m a very busy man. If you could just tell me what this is all about.’
‘Well, it’s actually about the case that you are now investigating. Thing is, you’re the back end of the stick, aren’t you? The end of the trail when it comes to these things. We have these estates that are running amok. Things spiral out of control, somebody dies, and then you get called in. Ideally, we don’t want you to get called in at all. We want to do a bit of work to make the estate safer and are quite keen for you to get involved.’
Macleod stepped back. Was this a genuine attempt at sorting at the community or was this the constant politician need to be seen to be doing something?
‘What are you intending?’ asked Macleod.
‘For you to go on television; you need to be our lead, promoting it from the front, reaching out to the kids and the youth. You’re a well-known figure these days, Inspector.’
‘I’m a well-known detective inspector. I hardly think it appropriate for me to sort of dance around.’
‘I think you’ll find I’m not dancing around, Mr Macleod.’
‘I need to run a murder investigation. I’m afraid my time’s very limited.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ve instructed the DCI that I need someone, and he said it’s okay for you.’
‘No,’ said Macleod, ‘no way. Why on earth would anybody want me on their TV screen?’
‘Hear me out, first of all. Seoras, can I call you Seoras?’
Macleod wanted to say no, absolutely not. The term is detective inspector, and he was not to call him by any other name. Unfortunately, the DCI made it quite clear that Mr Mackenzie was someone to be entertained to some degree, and so Macleod simply nodded reluctantly.
‘The thing is you have a certain persona. You seem to be getting results around the city. Everything you seem to step up to ends up sorted. The only one I think got away was that coach bomber.’
Macleod kept a straight face. He knew who had done the coach bombing, a case that had been ended with a man being shot dead in the belief that he was the coach bomber. Macleod knew the woman who had done it and he’d followed her out to another country to tell her so. However, he couldn’t prove it and he couldn’t bring her back.
‘Spoiled goods,’ said Macleod. ‘No point in having me on. Can probably bring that up every time, like you just have.’
Simon Mackenzie replied, ‘Oh, I’m sure we all make mistakes, Inspector.’
That was one, thought Macleod. That was one.
‘The thing is, you have a unique position. You’re old enough that the older generations trust you and yet, you’re successful enough and, dare I say it, quirky enough that even the young people seem to dig you.’
Dig me? thought Macleod, a word that never seemed to be used with him and one that he wasn’t quite sure he fully understood what it meant. He certainly didn’t have a fan club running.
