This part contains references to the sexual abuse of minors. There is nothing graphic here, but the situations depiceted may upset certain people. The particulars will have been expected by those who have followed the story this far.
CHAPTER 53
Another early shift, another alarm, and another sleeping man kissed as I left for work. Den had left me an e-mail there.
“A
K and I are off on Saturday, late turn on Sunday. You are earlies Saturday, off Sunday. Saturday evening at K’s. Bring E and wine and yourself
D”
There was more, time and directions, but this was going quicker than I had envisaged. I gave Sally a quick ring, and she was free to talk.
“Do you trust Dennis?”
I thought for a while, but the answer was simple and obvious. “Yes, and Kirsty too. I just feel it might be putting pressure on Eric”
“Then ask him”
“Yeah, but that’s putting pressure on him to decide, aye?”
“Then you decide for him”
“You are not helping, Sally”
“I don’t intend to. Your chance to take some control. Got an appointment now, tell me how it went”
And she rang off. I tried Steph.
“What did Sal say?”
“How did you know I rang Sally first?”
“Annie, what do I do for a living?”
“Sal said it was up to me to decide”
“Yes, it is. That is the point. You have to want this, or you will sit one day when it gets to be hard going, and blame everyone else. And it will get hard, trust me. I can’t help with this one. Do you trust him?”
“Sally asked me that, and yes I do, and Kirsty as well”
“Then I will add one thing. You and Eric are a partnership. You are putting him under more pressure by excluding him from the decision making than you are by asking him. Let me know how it goes, but it is your journey, Annie. It has to be.”
Well, no choice then. I rang home.
“What are you up to on Saturday?”
“Nothing special, was thinking of cooking something nice for tea, get some beers in”
“Fancy an evening at Kirsty’s?”
“That the short one with the big nips?”
“The very same. Den will be there”
“Ah….would this be you as yourself?”
In a very small voice I said yes, it would be.
“No problem then. How far is her place from here? Much of a ride?”
“No, walking distance”
As I said that I cursed myself. I had just talked myself into walking through Crawley in a skirt. Shit.
The shift went quickly, the press still hanging around outside, and we had a report back on Richard’s condition. He had been very lucky, the most serious part of his injuries being a collapsed lung, but the medics made it very plain that if he had been left much longer without attention he would probably have bled out and died. Richard’s mate Andy kept us up to speed with the investigation, and a particularly nasty picture had emerged in time to charge the old bitch and her lawyer with a raft of offences that had the same press in a feeding frenzy. Andy ran the set up past us on Friday afternoon.
“Pretty simple, really, old Ma Pickstock has done it all her life. Gets the kids to lift, punts out the produce through a number of handlers, fences, and even does the unwanted present/doesn’t fit bit. You know, nick something and then take it into and ask for your money back. That meant a lot of the stuff was still labelled. We kept Harton out of the picture long enough to get the stash, but we didn’t put a face to her enforcer till we had had to let that piece of shit talk to her.
“Adam, he rang Harber, that was why he was waiting for us. We got texts on his phone, and he even rang Joey after he’d been taken down. There was another link we got, can’t tell you how, which got us another address, and that’s where Ma kept her takings, amongst other…activities”
He was looking green. “No easy way to tell the rest. Petherick knew Harber through some, er, common interests, and Harber had done some debt-collecting for Ma, usual knee-cap stuff. So there is Petherick, with a nice little collection of fresh meat for Ma, just needing some tenderising in Joey’s patent style, and Ma has it made. Jim, any of your coffee available?”
“Yeah, I’ll pour you one”
“Ta, mate, got a bad taste in my mouth.”
He waited for the coffee, and I asked the obvious question.
“Andy, what’s this shared interest bit then?”
The look he gave me was a thousand years old, and he took a mouthful of Jim’s sludge with a grimace of distaste, whether for the coffee or for the subject matter I couldn’t tell.
“Young girls, Adam, Young girls. Both Petherick and Harber like them factory-fresh, even if they’ve been test-driven a few times already. Sorry to be so flippant, but it’s not a subject I can come straight out with. We anticipate finding rather more than one set of DNA from little Chantelle’s, um, examination. I am certain we will have Harber’s, and we might get Petherick’s. If we are really lucky, Harton will have spoodged up her recently enough, but I am not holding much hope out for that. Shit, if it wasn’t for the effect on the girl I would’ve hoped one of them had HIV.”
I shuddered. “Andy, how old is Chantelle?”
“Thirteen, in three months time. Twelve, Adam”
There was silence for a long while, and then Jim asked the question I wish he had never thought of.
“What about her family, Andy, they know where she is?”
Andy stood, and put down the cup. His eyes were so bleak, so empty of life.
“I am off up the East Surrey to check on Richard, and then I am going to go home and drink far too much, and probably cry for a while without telling my wife why…Adam, you custodised her grandmother. She’s Chantelle Pickstock.”
He nodded to us and walked out, the weight of his job so heavy I wondered how he could stand, and of course it was the hormones, they do that to you, and it wasn’t my own weakness that had me throwing up the coffee into a sluice. I realised I needed to talk to Darren, to release him from his own nightmare, and I thanked all the gods that the predators had been heterosexual, for the ten seconds it took me to realise what I was thinking.
Twelve.
“Woods residence”
“Naomi, Adam. Can II speak to Darren, please?”
“What’s wrong, my dear?”
“An awful lot, love, but some good, and I want to give that to Darren, see if I can make things better for him, aye?”
“I will fetch him, my darling girl, he is playing some computer thing with Albert. One moment”
“Sarnt Price, yeah! What you want, lahk?”
“Darren…Joey Harber”
The phone made some odd noises, and then Naomi came back on. “He dropped the handset, dear. Here he is again, it’s all right, Darren, nothing to fear any more”
“Darren?”
“Yeah”
His voice was close to breaking. I pushed ahead. “It was him that hurt you, wasn’t it?”
“Yessss”
“He shot a copper today, and then he got shot himself. Darren, he can never hurt anyone else again, ever.”
There were more noises, and then,
“Adam, it’s Albert, can you tell me what is going on?”
“A lot I can’t just yet, Albert, but the man who tortured him shot a DC today and then caught four Heckler and Koch rounds to the head and chest. He was a nonce, Albert, and we have two more and their supplier banged away”
“The DC? Badly hurt?”
“Yes, but off critical, going to be fine, well, you know”
A very weary sigh. “Yes, I know, my dear, and so do you. Look after him. I will explain as much as I can to the young chap. Any more normal news to share?”
I sighed myself. “Eric and I have been invited out to dinner on Saturday with Kirsty and Dennis”
“Ah. You, or Adam?”
“Er, me.”
“Congratulations. If you need anything, you have our number”
“That is it?”
“Annie, if an old duffer like me can see what you are, why can’t you? Go, smile, have fun, and let us know you are safe. Now, I have a young man to look after.”
“How is he doing?”
I could hear the smile return to Albert’s voice. “I have the chance to be a grandfather without the messy parts, and he seems to understand that. We are becoming fast friends. I think the boy now understands the concept of hope”
The news dripped out piece by piece that day, and Mr Davenport made another speech for the cameras in which he hardly said anything, but Ginny and Kate were actually at the door that evening, they were so worried, and once again I was wrapped in the love of friends.
I sat that evening in my flouncy skirt and blouse, my growing breasts finally comfortable, as we cuddled in two pairs over a bottle or two and some salad.
“You two treat this place as yours, don’t you?”
Ginny grinned. “Fuck, yeah!”
Kate smiled, as ever. at her wife and said “We were just worried, that shooting, just wondered how you were. We do worry about you, so we came up. Complaining?”
“No, just pleased you care. Eric, want to tell them about tomorrow?”
“Yeah, we’ve been invited round for a meal by Dennis and Kirsty. That’s Annie and me”
“How do you feel, Annie?”
“OK, really, just nobody seems to want to give me any advice on going”
Kate was nodding. “Because we can’t. It has to be your move”
“What the hell do I wear?”
Eric snorted. “Now I know absolutely that you are a bloody woman! Simple, the dress you got in Shrewsbury Marks, your court shoes from the same place, and a cardy, and we have a look Saturday afternoon for another handbag. Sorted?”
Kate looked at him in shock. “Are you sure you are a man?”
I snorted. “I am…sure he is a man, that is”
Kate nodded. “Better idea. There is a decent bag shop in the County Mall. Annie, show us your outfit, and we will drop in there tomorrow morning and pick you something suitable. Annie shall go to the ball!”
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Comments
Somewhere there is someone lamenting the death of the bastard!
Not me! Terrific story.
Hope
Darren and Chantelle will perhaps be aqble to have hope, now. The problem Adam/Annie and the other officers have is one of the reasons I didn't go into law enforcement-that and the fear that I would have to tell some parent that their child had been killed in some senseless traffic accident. I don't think I could do it.
There are such awful people in the world, and I am more than grateful that there are people who are there to protect us from them. As this story has shown, even the really good ones can have problems, and we need to support those brave officers and firefighters to the best of our ability.
In my State of Michigan, right now, our government is treating the State Police as a disposable asset, which in my mind is a major mistake. I fear that they (and we) will find out the hard way.
Wren
"Annie shall go to the ball!â€
good thing too. they all need it after that case. I think you handled it very well, Steph.
Dorothycolleen
Ride On 53
Those girls will need a lot of help to deal with what happened.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Wren,thank you,
ALISON
'I said a couple of days ago that coppers have the worst job in the world and you nailed it.There
were many times as a para that I had to say to a family that there was nothing more that we could do
but they were seeing the life drain away.But to have to knock on a door and tell a mother of three
children that her husband won't be coming home tonight or that her favorite son has been killed in a
traffic accident,that is the most soul destroying thing anybody is asked to do,and that is why coppers
have the worst job in the world.
Meanwhile,Annie continues to flourish with such wonderful friends and support.The less said about
the scumbags ,the better.I have seen too many of the ass holes.
ALISON
Simply amazing that we often take for granted...
...the work that folks like Annie and you do. Thanks to Alison and to Stephanie especially for writing such a realistic account of the ins and outs of police work and the work with kids.
Dio vi benedica tutti
Con grande amore e di affetto
Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
Oh...ick
So much scuzziness about but at least we get little bits of rainbow poking through the murk. So Annie, one of those little walls that need to be climbed over, get ya boots on gal. Then is it the little tote or the satchel? Hmm decisions decisions. Lovely (well you know what I mean) descriptions as ever.
Kristina
Breaking Children
It's got to be the nastiest crime of all. I want to burn down churches when I read about the perversions that those paedophile priests inflicted on the children in their care, or the "guardians" in orphanages with years to exercise their power over the helpless, all the time smiling at the public with "butter wouldn't melt in my mouth" smiles and invoking the blessings of God.
"Paedophile" almost sounds harmless, but it's a word that means "vicious, sadistic, unscrupulous, manipulative, cold-hearted bastard/bitch" and it's us that allow such people to hold the positions that they do, because we don't take the trouble to screen them properly.
And, as Wren says, we are everywhere compounding the problem by cutting the funds that pay for those who might be able to protect the kids. It's not just Michigan,
Joanne
Got em!
Brill when a plan comes together, even when it's akin to nuclear fusion.
Keep going Steph.
You write it so well and your sources are obviously impeccable.
Love and hugs.
Beverly.
Growing old disgracefully.
God Steph thanks for this
Annie making sure that Darren was alright and gave him some kind of peace to a huge nightmare was more than a story this time. Annie's story's getting to be more than just a story it's getting to be a mission statement about hope and being a decent person.
Bailey Summers