Bloodline, p.3
Bloodline, page 3
‘Boss,’ Burton interrupted her, sensing where this was really coming from. ‘Charlie is safe now. You and Alistair, you’ve saved him from all that. He’s in a place where he can get all the help he needs.’
‘He’s not out of the woods yet, far from it. But we should have seen this coming, been there for him long before it even happened–’
‘You’re not to blame, the people who led him down that path are the ones to blame.’
She nodded without saying anything further, fighting hard to keep all her fragile emotions in check.
‘Right,’ he continued. ‘Fielding and I will get out there right now.’
It was good to see that the shop doorway was still secured off and nobody had been stupid enough to vandalise it. These days, with social media being so prevalent, any crime scene could easily be broken into and filmed on a phone to share online. The lengths people went to in order to gain online presence and popularity never failed to amaze Burton, and he wouldn’t have been surprised to have seen the seals broken and the blue-and-white police cordon tape torn away. He was pleasantly surprised to see that everything was as they’d seen it last, untouched and intact.
As expected, nobody they stopped and questioned had seen anything out of the ordinary. Of course they had seen homeless people. How could they not have, as the city was overflowing with them at present.
The general public was divided, it seemed. Some were callous enough to refer to them as an ‘epidemic’, a plague inflicted on the city’s streets, and Burton had fought hard not to inflict his anger on those unfeeling bastards by punching them in the face.
Others interviewed had been more sympathetic, and understood their plight, but the upshot was nobody had seen anything suspicious.
Or if they had, nobody was talking about it.
Chapter 4
DCI Richard Townsend was pale as he stood before the corkboard looking at the photographs of his deceased officer.
It was 8am in the squad room. After Burton had spoken to him the previous day he had made a difficult and distressing visit to the family of his late officer. Then he had packed a bag and caught the evening flight up to Manchester along with his detective sergeant, Frank Brewster.
On DCI Ambleton’s instructions, Burton had booked them both a room in the hotel nearest to the airport, met them when they landed and taken them to the hotel, and then picked them up first thing and brought them into the station.
When Ambleton came into the squad room at eight on the dot everyone was present, and those not in the know sat wondering what was going on.
She introduced herself to DCI Townsend, giving him her sincere condolences for the loss of one of his officers. Ambleton could only imagine how that situation was for Townsend. She had never lost one of her own, and she knew that it would be weighing heavy on both his mind and on his conscience, especially as he would have been the one to have sent Blackburn out on his mission.
The room fell silent, everyone waiting to see what would happen next. DCI Ambleton looked around her and spoke first. ‘It is with great sadness that we are here today. DCI Richard Townsend and DS Frank Brewster are with us from the Metropolitan Police in London following the death of one of their own officers during an investigation. The homeless man we found yesterday was Detective Constable Alan Blackburn, who was undercover here in Manchester.’
There were gasps from those gathered in the room who had not been told of the results of the fingerprint search the previous day. Ambleton raised her hands and the room fell silent again. ‘I’ll let DCI Townsend tell you how the late DC Alan Blackburn came to be on our patch.’ Ambleton sat down beside DI Burton and gave the floor to the man from the Met.
‘Thank you, DCI Ambleton,’ he said glancing at his counterpart and giving her a courtesy nod before continuing. ‘DC Alan Blackburn was working undercover based on intelligence we received from an informant three months ago. He had infiltrated the homeless community here in Manchester.’
‘What sort of intelligence was that, sir?’ Fielding asked.
Townsend continued in response to her question. ‘It came to our attention from one of our informants in London that criminals were infiltrating the homeless communities in several major cities around the country and offering employment to vulnerable people. And when I say “employment” the type of work offered is, of course, not of the legal type. Far from it. We have found cases of both men and women being offered substantial amounts of money to become involved in drug trafficking and prostitution, and it seems that many are taking up the offer. That’s where DC Blackburn came in. He went in trying to get to the source but…’ His voice trailed off as he turned and looked behind him at the young detective’s photograph pinned up on the board. ‘Well, as you can see, this is what has happened.’
There was silence in the room for what seemed a very long time, everyone taking in the facts behind the young detective’s untimely death and thinking that it could have quite easily been one of their photographs up there instead of his and their body now lying on the slab in the morgue.
‘Did he have any family, sir?’ DC Preston asked, hoping that the answer would be in the negative but suspecting that it wouldn’t be.
From the look on Townsend’s face the answer was obvious. ‘Alan leaves a widow and eight-month-old twins.’
‘Jesus,’ Wayman said quietly, almost to himself, but everyone heard him. The twenty-six-year-old had three young children of his own, and the thought of his own wife being deprived of her husband and his children of their father was too painful for him to even think about.
Simon Banks looked across at his colleague. At forty-two he was the eldest of Burton’s team of constables and his own daughter was now two. The two men just looked at one another with an expression of both shock and anger. He simply said, ‘We need to get the bastard who did this to one of ours.’ Nobody in the room disagreed with him.
‘Was he able to report back to you with anything?’ DCI Ambleton hoped that at least his death hadn’t all been for nothing.
‘We’d set up a meeting point in the city for him to go to and pass on information to us, and he told us three days ago that one of the men he’d befriended at the shelter he was staying in had been approached by a man who had asked if he was interested in earning some good money. Told him to ask around amongst other homeless people to see if they’d be interested as well. The friend had been told that there was a company taking on people who didn’t ask questions and weren’t too bothered about how they earned their money. Also said that it was all cash-in-hand so it wouldn’t affect any benefits they were claiming. Sadly, we know from experience that if people are desperate for money they will turn their hands to just about anything to get it, regardless of the work being legal or not. It would seem like a dream come true for some people and I advised Alan to go along with it, but that was the last communication that we had from him.’
‘If you want us to work together on this one, we can send somebody in from here.’ Ambleton looked around at all her officers. She knew them well enough to know that any one of them would volunteer without question in order to catch the person, or what now looked like a thriving new illegal criminal organisation, who had tragically cut short the life of one of their colleagues. She saw Burton nodding, Fielding as well.
‘We would appreciate your help on this one,’ Townsend told her. ‘This looks like it’ll turn into something big if we don’t nip it in the bud now. These people on the streets and in the hostels are vulnerable enough as it is without some criminal gang coming in and trying to enlist them into a life of crime and prostitution. I don’t know who’s running it, or where they’re running it from, but that’s something we need to find out and put a stop to as soon as we can.’
‘We’ll do what we can from our end,’ DCI Ambleton assured him.
As Ambleton took DCI Townsend and DS Frank Brewster up to her office to talk further, Burton sat his team down and discussed what should happen next.
‘I think that we’re going to be a bit restricted at the moment as to what we can let the public know. We mustn’t give away anything more to them than we have to, but I believe we should do an appeal for anyone to come forward who may have seen DC Blackburn in the doorway or, hopefully, someone with him there.’
‘I agree,’ said Fielding, ‘especially with the high number of homeless people in the city.’
DC Jane Francis offered a suggestion. ‘We’ll have to think of a cover story and obviously not name him.’
‘Without a doubt,’ Burton agreed. This was the type of case that no police officer ever wanted to work on, to have to find the killer of one of their colleagues. But one thing was sure, like any other murder case they were on, they would see it through to the end no matter what. Only this time it was more personal to each and every one of them.
‘Do you think one or two of us will be going undercover?’ DC Phillipa Preston asked, feeling certain that there would be plenty of volunteers for the position.
Burton rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept very well the previous night; the bad news was sufficient to make him restless. He realised all too well that it could have easily been him or any one of his team.
‘I think under the circumstances two would be best,’ he said at long last. ‘But let’s see what Townsend has to say. He may even want to put his own officers in again.’
‘Well, I want to get involved,’ Wayman stated, face like fury and still thinking about the poor man’s wife and young children.
‘We all do, Sam,’ Burton reassured him. ‘And I think a male and female officer pairing would be the best way to go – one for the drugs side of things and one for the prostitution.’
Wayman’s hand was in the air as soon as his boss had finished talking. ‘I’m volunteering… for any part of it.’
‘That’s good to know.’ Burton looked around the room; everyone was in agreement, either nodding their heads or putting a hand up in the air to join Wayman’s. He knew his team well, and it was the very least he would have expected of them. His eyes finally fell on Fielding.
‘I think we all want to be part of this,’ she told her DI, feeling that she was speaking for everyone, including him.
Chapter 5
It didn’t take long for DCI Ambleton to return with the two visiting detectives. Whilst in her office they discussed how best to proceed, and what they had all decided between them was two officers from the Manchester force would take over from where Alan Blackburn had left off. Ambleton rang Burton and asked him to set the ball rolling by selecting two of his team to go into the field working undercover, as Blackburn had done.
The press would only be informed that the person murdered was a member of the homeless community and no more than that.
This way, they’d get a second shot at getting to who was running the whole business in Manchester and they hoped that would get a lead to who or what was behind it all. Any good leads and the Manchester officers would be pulled out and the Met would follow up from London – which is where they suspected the main ringleaders were based.
As they headed over towards Burton’s office they saw that he already had two of his officers seated around his desk. Ambleton had been correct in her assumption of who he would send out into the field. DS Sally Fielding and DC Jack Summers were the two obvious choices, no matter how much it must have grieved Burton to have made the selection. He tried to hide it, and he did hide it well, but she knew that Burton’s fondness for his sergeant went way beyond her being his trusted partner. There was a definite spark there, and she also believed that given different circumstances they would have already been together as a couple. But, although the police force did not prevent the fraternising of its officers, Burton knew that it could lead to serious complications – especially in the line of duty, when a situation could be compromised if thoughts of saving a partner were put before anything else.
DS Fielding was a logical choice and so was DC Summers. Both his officers were unattached, not in a relationship at present, and had no family ties to speak of.
All eyes turned to Ambleton and the Met detectives as they entered the office.
Ambleton sat but the two men stood while Burton continued discussing the matter with his two team members. After he finished giving them the basics DCI Ambleton took over.
‘This is going to be a hard one,’ she said with more than a hint of sorrow in her voice. ‘But I know that we will do our damnedest to get the bastards responsible for this. We’ll put a stop to this vile gang trying to make the life of our poor homeless community worse than it already is. We have to stop this, and stop it now before it gets any worse.’
Everyone nodded and she continued, directing her conversation to Fielding and Summers. ‘DS Brewster will brief you both on your contact, who will convey anything you need to pass back to us. He’ll also fill you in on all the information we have so far on the case.’ A brief pause. ‘Now you don’t need me to tell you that this is going to be an extremely dangerous case, and if there is a sniff of danger, no matter how small or how insignificant it seems to either of you, I want both of you out of there without taking a second to think about it.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Fielding said speaking for both her and Summers.
‘Okay then,’ Ambleton looked over towards DCI Townsend, ‘if you’d like to come back upstairs to my office, Richard, then we can discuss how to finalise this joint force operation through the proper channels.’
Sally Fielding looked long and hard at herself in the mirror. She looked a mess. She looked like she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards and then repeated the whole process. Even when she was at home on her own and not planning to go out she still applied a coat of mascara on her blonde lashes. This was one of those very rare occasions when she did not. Even her two cats, Sooty and Sweep, looked up at her strangely, sensing that something was going on, and they didn’t seem to like it one little bit.
She was wearing the clothes that she’d hurriedly picked up in a charity shop on the way home the previous afternoon, something cheap and cheerful – only they could hardly be described as cheerful. The only things she had on that actually belonged to her were her bra, a pair of briefs, socks, and a T-shirt; even the trainers she wore had been pre-owned, along with a parka jacket with a hole in the sleeve, a pair of faded jeans, and a baggy oversized jumper both she and DC Summers could have fitted inside.
She was so deep in thought that the sudden touch of a hand on her shoulder coupled with Burton’s face reflected in the mirror made her start.
‘You look the part,’ he said looking her up and down. ‘Although I must say you need to pick yourself up a bit as you’ve let yourself go of late!’
She knew that he was trying to make light of things for her sake, although the death of one of their own preyed heavily on both their thoughts. It had been a long time since she’d had to play a part like the one she was about to embark upon, to infiltrate and blend into the surroundings in order to try to prevent crime. It was a daunting task, and she knew the importance of the roles both she and Summers were about to play. One wrong move by either of them and they could meet the same fate as poor DC Blackburn.
‘We’ll have to forego our coffees for a while,’ Burton said, regret in his eyes.
Yes, that was something that she would miss too. Their coffee ritual had almost turned into a Japanese tea ceremony, taking place at least once daily and roughly at about the same time. Neither of them had any idea how long she’d be out in the field, but if Burton knew one thing it was that his sidekick got on with any task handed to her with no questions asked. As reliable as the sun coming up in the morning and setting at night, that was his Sally Fielding. If there was anything to be found out, she would be the one to discover it.
‘Are you ready?’ he asked, hoping that the next few days, or even weeks, would go over as quickly as possible for her as well as him.
‘As I’ll ever be,’ she replied, then her thoughts went to her two cats. ‘Are you sure you’re okay to take them over to yours?’
‘Yes, sure. They’ll keep me company.’ He began gathering together all the things she had put out for them to take with him: their baskets, litter trays, food, electronic feeders, and a few toys. ‘It’ll be like a holiday for them.’
At least they’ll be having a holiday, she thought. She knew that it would be no holiday for her where she was going. Grabbing her backpack, which she’d already filled with bare essentials, she followed her DI down to the car. The immediate plan was a quick stop at Burton’s apartment to drop the cats off, then pick up DC Jack Summers from his home.
Burton would then drop both of them off on the outskirts of the city to commence their undercover work.
If they thought that she’d drastically changed her appearance then another shock was in store when they pulled up at Jack Summer’s front door. The clothes looked similar to hers, but it was his haircut that gave them the biggest surprise. They’d never seen him with close-cropped hair before as he normally kept it longish, though still neat according to police regulations. He’d taken his electric clipper and put on the second to shortest attachment then simply run the thing over his entire head.
