I ambled up the path, occasionally calling to my non-existent hound, and got up to the Nissan without so much as a raised eyebrow from the occupants. It was parked at the side of the café, well hidden from the main road with the engine off and both the windows wound down, while the occupants enjoyed what smelled like very good quality weed. As I drew nearer, I could see that the passenger was a man whom I knew well but who didn’t know me.
That’s the joy of my particular job: you know all the faces, places and cars, and no one recognizes you in turn unless you blow out on a surveillance job, and then you’re screwed. I’ve only done it once, but every time afterwards that my mark saw me in town he had shouted, ‘Copper!’ at the top of his voice so that everyone else would spot me. Sadly for him, he died of a heroin overdose a few weeks later, so it stopped being a problem. Had he not, I would have had to leave the unit and go back to uniform, or even change division.
So this particular chap, one Dave Budd by name, had been one of my nominal targets a few months before, which meant I knew more about him than his mother did, despite the fact we’d never met face to face.
He was known for drugs, violence, weapons and was on the sex offenders register for life after he sexually assaulted his five-year-old niece at a christening party last year. The driver was his brother, Billy, and if anything his record was worse. He was a distraction burglar, fooling old people into opening their doors so that he could check their meters and then robbing them blind.
On the odd occasion that they became suspicious, he would tie them up and beat them until they gave up their valuables. Somehow, he had only been given minor prison sentences so far, and the only reason we could think of was that he was a grass. Judges will sometimes shorten sentences if the defendant gives up useful information; although in Billy’s case it would have been more appropriate to ignore the information and throw him in the darkest hole we could find for as long as possible. He is also the father of the girl that Dave had assaulted, yet didn’t seem to care, which is apparent by their relaxed attitude to each other.
Both brothers are in their late thirties and hard to tell apart. They both have the same lank brown hair and squirrel-like faces, and are both five foot nine or so and wiry rather than skinny. The easiest way to tell them apart is that Billy’s nose has been broken so many times that it sticks out in several directions at once and he tends to grow a beard, if you can call it that. Other than that, they could be twins.
I got right up to the car, leaning into the driver’s window and smiling before Billy turned to look at me.
‘’Scuse me, lads,’ I asked in a cheerful tone, ‘you haven’t seen a springer spaniel come past, have you?’
Billy breathed a lungful of smoke into my face, and the smell of grass mixed with the odour of rotten teeth was almost enough to make me gag. ‘Police dog, is it, officer?’
So much for anonymity. I tried to bluff it instinctively, despite the fact I was about to show out anyway. ‘I’m sorry? What the hell are you talking about?’
He laughed at my miserable attempt at dissembling. ‘I saw you in the court this morning, mate, running out with your tail between your legs. Didn’t know pigs’ tails could do that!’
He and his brother both laughed, confident that I would be helpless to do anything.
As they laughed, something inside me settled, my nervousness washed away and was replaced by a cold anger that drove out all other feeling. ‘Step out of the fucking car, Billy, and don’t do anything stupid. We need to have a word.’
‘Why, you going to hit me with a rubber baton?’ he asked, sliding his right hand down the side of his seat surreptitiously.
‘No, mate, this is a personal call. I’m not carrying. I just want a chat.’ I opened my jacket to show that I was unarmed, and he didn’t seem to register the lead in my hand. ‘Keep your hands where I can see them and get out of the car.’
I moved back to give myself what we call a reactionary gap, so was fairly unsurprised when he hurled the door open and dove at me with a knife clenched in his right fist. I’d moved back quickly enough to avoid the door and, as he came out knife first, I kicked the opening door as hard as I could, slamming it shut on his arm. He howled in pain and dropped the knife, his arm hanging at an angle that told me it was broken.
I didn’t have time to care, as his brother leapt out of the car and skidded across the bonnet towards me holding a steering lock in his hand. I stepped back again and waited until he swung the weapon at me, ducking the blow aimed at my head and whipping the chain I held across his leg, hitting the nerve point on the outside of the thigh. He dropped as if stunned, and I stamped on his wrist hard enough that I heard the bones grinding together. He screamed in pain and let go of the steering lock, which I kicked away before taking the other foot off his wrist.
Both of them were crying in pain, and Billy was fumbling for his phone with his left hand. I reached down and took it from him, then moved to the car and took the keys out of the ignition as a precaution.
Ignoring their cries, I raised my voice to be heard. ‘Right, gentlemen, now that I have your attention I would very much like to know where the drugs are.’
Billy glared up at me, his face a mask of pain. ‘You’re fucking going down for this you wanker, you’re fucking dead!’
I smiled and shook my head. ‘No, mate, I’m not. I’ve got a dozen witnesses that clearly put me at a police leaving do tonight, and you know how we all stick together.’
It was a barefaced lie but I suspected that they were too preoccupied to tell. Hopefully, they also couldn’t see the horror I was feeling at what I’d just done. This was supposed to be a warning chat, not a brutal attack that left them broken and bloody. I’d slipped across the line without thinking, and the realization was making me shake more than the adrenaline ever could. I took a deep breath and forced my voice to come out steadily. ‘So you can either tell me where the drugs are or I can shove this chain up your nose and pull out the pathetic thing you call a brain. Your choice.’
Billy began to shake as shock set in, his arm already turning a dark purple and swelling badly. ‘Get me a fucking ambulance, I’m dying!’ he blubbed, clutching the injured arm.
‘Tell me where the drugs are and you can have your phone back,’ I countered. I needed something to show for this, otherwise I would be arrested without hesitation and my career would be in tatters.
‘Under the car, they’re under the fucking car, okay?’
I nodded and bent down to check under the car just in time to avoid being brained by Dave, who had recovered enough to retrieve the steering lock and swing it at the place my head had been a moment before. I back-kicked him, landing my foot right in his nuts, and he folded like a deckchair, collapsing with an oof! and a clatter before curling into a ball with both hands clutching his groin.
Once I was sure he was down and staying there, I rolled onto my side and looked under the car. Sure enough, there was a box welded onto the chassis with a combination lock on it. They were becoming more and more popular, as not many officers would look under a car on a stop check or even if the vehicle was taken away to be examined.
‘Code?’ I snapped at Billy, who was watching me with hatred stamped all over his skinny face.
‘Three one five,’ he replied, and I clicked the rollers into position. The side fell open instantly and I whistled as I pulled out a couple of bags of heroin about the size of a hen’s egg each. ‘Looks like you boys were planning to be busy for the next few days. Instead, you’ll have to spend them in a cell. Hard life.’
Billy looked down at me, confusion on his face. ‘I thought you said you was off duty. So how you gonna explain this? You’ve fucked yourself, mate!’ He managed to grin through the pain. The fear that flashed through me must have hit my face as I realized