Scrambling to my feet, I carefully wiped my fingerprints off the phone and keys before handing them back. I held up the packages of drugs. ‘I’m going to hold on to this for insurance purposes. If there’s one sniff of you talking to the police, it appears in the front office with your prints all over it.’ So saying, I took hold of Billy’s injured arm and pressed his thumb firmly onto the plastic wrapping of one of the bags, ignoring the yelp of pain he produced.
‘Tell Davey that this stops or he’s going to find that every copper in Brighton will be looking for an excuse to take him down. Not that they don’t have one already.’
I put the packages in my pocket and scrambled up the roadside and into the bushes, heading back towards my car. Bad enough that I’d parked my own car nearby, but if anyone saw me walking back to it from here, I was as good as done for. Nausea hit me as I lost sight of the Nissan, and I paused for a moment, taking deep breaths to stop myself from throwing up and leaving chunks of my DNA spattered all over the grass. How could I have been so stupid? I pushed the thought to the back of my mind and focused on getting away clean. I would worry about the consequences later.
I waited in the bushes until the road was quiet, then darted to the car and pulled away quickly, turning left up Coldean Lane and losing myself on the A27 before turning off into Hove. My thoughts were churning, almost making me crash several times, but I managed to keep control. After what felt like a year of constant glances over my shoulder for blue lights, I finally parked up a few streets away from my house as the realization hit me.
What the fuck had I done? I’d assaulted two people, one of them a clear GBH, and stolen illegal drugs to the street value of, well, I wasn’t sure but it was one hell of a lot when I’d only been expecting a few wraps. I may as well hand in my warrant card now and get it over with. A feeling of sick exhaustion swept over me as I wondered what I was going to do with the packages. I pulled them out of my jacket and looked at them, trying to gauge their worth. If it was uncut heroin, it would probably be worth about ten grand, less if it had been cut already. I didn’t want to keep it, that would mean a jail sentence if I was caught, but I couldn’t just throw it away. It was my only leverage over the Budds after my ruthless attack on them.
An idea came to me and I almost ran from my car to the house and went straight through to the kitchen. I looked out the back at the garden next door, wild and unkempt where mine was neat and uncluttered. The house next door had been empty for weeks, and by the number of ‘to let’ signs clustered sadly by the front gate, I guessed that it wasn’t likely to be occupied any time soon.
I opened the back door and stepped out into my yard, looking around to make sure that none of the overlooking windows had people in them. Once I was sure it was clear, I rolled over the top of the flint stone wall into next door’s garden. The grass on the lawn came up to my knees and there was a buddleia that was threatening to dwarf the small shed in the back corner. I moved to the shed, struggling against the grass that pulled at my feet as if trying to stop me from intruding further into its domain. I eventually reached the shed, a small wooden affair perched on cracked and broken paving slabs.
With a little effort, I managed to lift one of the slabs and scoop out enough earth to hide the drugs, settling the stone back on top and scuffing the grass around the edges until I couldn’t see the result of my labours anymore. Satisfied, I climbed back over the wall and had just finished washing my hands when the doorbell rang.
I hadn’t been expecting anybody and I began to get nervous as I went to the front door. If this was a salesman, he was going to get a bloody good earful. I opened the door to a man and a woman in smart clothes standing on the top step. Everything about them said police and I took a step back in alarm.
‘Can I help you?’ I asked suspiciously.
The man stepped forward, holding up a Sussex Police warrant card. ‘Gareth?’ he asked, and the pit in my stomach yawned wide enough to swallow a battleship.
‘Yes,’ I answered, trying to stop my knees from shaking.
‘I’m sorry, there’s no easy way to say this. My name’s DC Steve Barnett from PSD Ops. I’m arresting you on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. We need you to come with us.’
They took me to Worthing custody instead of Brighton: a small mercy as I know far fewer people on West Downs division. The woman, Andrea Brown, was driving while Barnett sat in the back with me as if I was a common criminal.
They hadn’t searched me or cuffed me, but Barnett was clearly ready for me to try something, sitting half turned towards me with his hands within striking distance just in case. For the first ten minutes or so they had tried to make light conversation, but my fear was making me snappy, so they gave up and we carried on in silence.
I’m honestly not sure that I can describe how I felt at that moment. Everything inside me felt tight, as if my body was squeezing in on itself, and I couldn’t stop shaking from the shock. I felt angry, sad, scared, betrayed and exhausted all at the same time and thoughts kept popping unwarranted into my head. Did they know about the Budds and this was just a cover to get me in and throw questions at me with no evidence, what we called a fishing trip? Had someone pointed the finger at me about the knife going walkies? Or worse still, did Davey have someone inside PSD that had authorized my arrest as a final coup de grâce? It didn’t bear thinking about, unlikely as it was.
About a hundred years later, we pulled into the long drive that led to Centenary House in Worthing, the police station and custody centre. We parked by the doors, and Barnett let me out of the child-locked door and into the custody centre. Brown followed close behind me in case I had any last-minute ideas about making a break for freedom, and I felt a chill as the heavy metal door slid closed behind me, cutting off the real world.
My usual luck held. Standing on the bridge was DC Helen Watkins, who had been on my intake when I joined. Great. Not only did she have the biggest mouth in the force but we hadn’t got on from the moment we met and our relationship at that point could have been described as antagonistic at best. One look was all she needed to work out what was happening, and I saw the corners of her mouth quirk up in a poorly suppressed smile as she turned away and left the bridge. I guessed that in less than an hour, the whole force would know what had happened to me.
The bridge is a raised platform behind which sit three sergeants, separated from the prisoners they’re booking in by three feet of fake marble cladding. The floor nonslip, dirty green and the walls painted off-white, broken up by the occasional green-framed window. All in all, it’s just like any other custody centre in Sussex, bleak and depressing.
I was ushered in front of the only free sergeant, a man in his mid-forties with brown hair and the gut that inevitably comes with long hours behind a desk. Barnett gave the circumstances of arrest to the serious-looking man behind the desk, who eyed me with undisguised sympathy.
‘Gareth, do you understand why you’ve been arrested?’
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
‘Okay, you know your rights. Do you want a solicitor or anyone told that you’re here?’
I thought for a moment. ‘Yeah, can you tell the Federation? Hopefully they’ll get me a solicitor.’
He nodded and made some notes on my custody record. The Federation are the closest thing we’re allowed to a union as police officers, for all the good it does us. Normally, they’re about as much use as a chocolate teapot, but I paid £17 a month in case of situations like that and I was determined to get my money’s worth.
Barnett