Chapter 5

Outside, I could see that Sammy was itching to look at the list.

“Not here, Sammy, when we speak to Inspector Mason and I have the proposal you’re offering, in writing. I’m still part of Jocks’ defense team, remember.”

We went to the police station where Mason was poring over a heap of paperwork.

“Young lady,” he smiled, “You have no idea how much paperwork you’ve created for me. The operation in the playground has almost reached the budgeted overtime allowances and we’ve still got to recover one of the bodies. The team out at that warehouse will take days to inventory the stock there.”

“Sir,’ Sammy grinned, “Jock gave us some more information today. He told us that the group of thieves go there on Monday evenings, to deliver and get paid. I think a new operation needs to be set up, to capture them and hold them out of sight so the others don’t get warned.”

“Right, good work, I’ll call in uniformed to set up a task force for this evening. That’s going to blow the budget but I’m sure the AC will sign off, seeing how many we’ll take out of circulation.”

“Another thing, he also told us that the Angels come down from Scotland, on Tuesdays, with a truck, to pick up a load and take it back. He thinks that they take the gear offshore in fishing boats.”

“This one just keeps giving, doesn’t it? All right, let me make some calls. Now, before you leave, just what has caused that smile on your face, Olivia?”

“I have the list that DS Samootin gave me for Jock to look over. On it are marked all of the break-ins that he did. Now, as his representative, I ask you to give me written affirmation, from the prosecution, that you will move to agree to a suspended sentence if he pleads guilty to the lesser charge of trespass with intent for the case he was arrested on, along with dropping any charges that may arise out of me showing you this list.”

Mason scribbled a note and handed it to Sammy.

“Take this to the prosecutor’s office and get them to write Olivia a proper offer to the defence team. Then get that list and bring it back here. I may have organized the biggest round-up of felons we’ve had for quite a while, by the time you get back.”

Sammy led me to another office where I was introduced to the Police Prosecutor, a serious man with a big job. Sammy got him to pull the file for Jock and then outlined the events that have happened. He passed over the note that Inspector Mason had written, and this brought a grin from the, previously serious, face.

“Well, that’s a big result. If it all comes off, we’ll have a lot more work to do, here. What is it you want, Olivia?”

“Just a written and signed note that your intentions are that Jock will get off with a suspended sentence, should he plead guilty to trespass and you drop the breaking and entering. He will also ask that a number of other cases are taken into consideration. I have the list in my bag and you will get a photocopy when I get your assurance.”

“Done! You drive a hard bargain, young lady, but the results will be worth letting him off lightly. He could have pleaded not guilty as he was acting under duress and that would have been several days to sort out. As it is, I think we can be in, and out, of the court in less than an hour.”

He then went to a computer terminal and typed a long note, saved it and then printed two copies, - one for the file and one for me. I read it and then pulled out the list so that we could photo-copy it. I loaded the copier, and he hit the button for six copies. When they had arrived in the hopper, I took the original and added it to the other paper in my bag.

Sammy was looking at the list with a bemused expression.

“I never saw that coming. I thought it might be one or two and couldn’t believe my eyes when he was ticking them off. He’s put closure on seven cases here. We now know who did it and who handled the stolen goods. That means that those files can be closed. I think that we might link the customers we get tonight, to most of the others.”

He was smiling, broadly, as he took me out to the car park, where Arty was waiting patiently.

“Arty, take Livie for a snack and then back to her work, she has some paperwork to organize. Then come back and join me in the boss’s office, we have a lot of overtime to do this evening.”

Arty took me back to work and was very strong. He refrained from asking me about the happenings today. I expect that he would get the full details when he got back to work. I didn’t envy any of them with what they would be up against tonight. I, certainly, wouldn’t want to be near that warehouse when the Angels showed up. That was likely to be violent.

At the office, I showed Frank the police offer, and the list and he nearly fell off his chair. He caught his breath enough to call Walter and asked him if he had a few minutes. I took my arm and guided me to the upper level, where the partners had their offices. We were sat in front of Walters’ desk and Frank showed him the offer and the list that Jock would roll over on and Walter gave out a hoot that brought his secretary to the door.

“It’s all right, Doreen, it seems that our one-person legal team has done it again. Coffee all round? Right, four coffees, please Doreen, and tell Jacobsen to come in, with the Macready file.”

He turned to me. “Jacobsen is our court appearance organiser. He makes sure that we have enough people in place at any one appearance, and that we don’t get double booked.”

Jacobsen was one of the guys from the meeting and didn’t need any introduction.

“Right, before I show you this, I want Olivia to tell us what happened, today. This doesn’t let you off the hook, young lady, you still have to type out a full report.”

I started with the interview that we had with Jock and took them through the information he imparted. All three guys had broad smiles when I got to the place where it looked like we may get some more clients coming our way. I then told them about my talk with Mason and then the discussion that led to the letter that Walter was holding. That’s when he passed it to Jacobsen.

That’s when Jacobsen let out a hoot that brought Doreen to the door again. After she had been assured that everything was all right, Walter asked Jacobsen to take the information with him, but wait until Frank sends him my written report, before he did anything. Walter then looked at me.

“Olivia, Jacobsen will now finalize our case for the judge. With everything you’ve done, I’m sure that the sentence will be time spent plus a suspended sentence. That is a real win for your first case. Before you all go back to your offices, can I have an autograph on the picture in the local paper? Can you put ‘With Love,’ that will drive my wife crazy?”

That wasn’t the first to ask me to sign the picture in the paper. After I had typed up my report, Frank sent me out to visit everyone and find out where they slaved away. It was, I have to say, a set-up. Nine out of ten people I looked in on already had the paper - open to that picture, for me to sign. I started to feel like a star.

Mum drove us home with a big smile on her face. She told me that Walter had ordered her to take me off, into the countryside, for a quiet lunch. He wanted me far away as the arrests started to come through, and especially when the likely lads from Scotland turned up. He didn’t think that I would be in any danger, but there was a distinct link between me and Jocks’ mother, and then to Jamie. Mum told me that the local Angels Chapter was not very big, maybe only a half a dozen, which was why Jamie had been dealing with a bigger organization. She thought that the local chapter may have been involved, though, if only to keep an eye on Jamie, in case he started going outside the circle.

So, Tuesday I had a day off, being treated by Mum. Wednesday I was kept in the office, being given arrest papers from Monday night to sort out on a spreadsheet, Jock being at the top of the list. I had the names, the sites of the break-ins with the date, the value of each category of stolen goods. As I added those taken during Monday evening, the area of operation grew, as did the values. In all, on Monday evening, the police had arrested six groups, each between two and four criminals. The spreadsheet grew and I realised that I had been tasked with mirroring what the police will be doing, so giving us the same picture they had. It was just another thing I had never thought about. I had expected that we would just get what we were fed by the arresting officers, working out our tactics from that.

Frank told me that what we were being given was purely down to my involvement. We wouldn’t get all of the cases to defend, that would be worked through the roster system, but we would be ahead of the game when we had those that we were given.

On Wednesday afternoon, Frank had a call from Sammy. When he put the phone down, he looked over to me with a serious expression.

“Sammy has just told me that they arrested three Angels from Scotland yesterday. They had been in a truck that arrived to be loaded up. They were carrying weed and coke, plus some cash, to pay for the goods. They also had two sawn-off shotguns, three handguns and several knives between them. Mason had put armed officers inside the building and there was a short firefight. Two of the gangsters were injured, and three police had flesh wounds. Sammy said that it could have been worse as they now need to replace two bullet-proof vests. He had also put officers out on the road, and they saw two more Angels on bikes. Obviously, there must have been a sign that wasn’t given, as the two of them turned around and headed home. There was a police chase and, further north, spikes were used. Both riders lost control and crashed. Both died at the scene.”

That news made me catch my breath. All of this was getting out of hand. This was real life, the like of which I had never experienced before. Frank went off to speak to Walter. The upshot of this was that I was to be kept out of the limelight and put my time in working in the office for a while. That took up the rest of the week and the Friday meeting was somewhat subdued. I had my usual outing with Angela, finding out that she had been having her own problems.

It appeared that there was one aspect of the medical profession that she hadn’t seriously thought about. That was the part where people bleed and bits get cut off, or out of, a body. She had been put into scrubs on Thursday and was taken to one of the theatres to see an operation on a guys’ gall bladder. She went white, once more, as she thought about it and the fact that she had thrown up in her mask. She was embarrassed that she had to be rushed out of the theatre and seen to.

She was serious about wanting to give up on medicine and do something else. I told her that she would get used to it but she was adamant. We talked about the other subjects that she had been good at and hit on the fact that she had been close to the award for History. I suggested that she take a week off and seriously work on her own family tree, seeing that all the early part was documented, she may be able to track some of the later branches more fully. She brightened and said that she would stop volunteering at the hospital, telling them, by email, tomorrow.

I had a quiet weekend, mainly catching up with all those little things a girl has to do to keep looking good. On Monday, I was back out with Frank, visiting.

We were due to talk to young Colin, in his hospital bed, later in the morning, but first we went to the chemist shop where he had been found. We had a look and were shown the place where he had dropped from, now properly repaired and looking good.

The chemist had obtained the keys to the new lock upstairs from the landlord, and we went out the back and up to the door. When Frank opened up and we went in we could see that, although the ceiling had been repaired, the floorboards hadn’t been replaced yet. We stood in the lounge looking at the gap in the floor and Frank laughed out loud.

“That is so lovely, if the landlord had completed the job, we would never have been any wiser.”

I could see, with my limited knowledge of woodwork, what he was seeing. The floorboards were stacked to one side and the joists stood out, mainly because they were all new. If fact, the hole in the floor was almost three times bigger than Colin would have needed to drop through the ceiling. Frank got down on his knees and smelled around where the new joists met the old. He nodded.

“The old joists must have been rotten with rot. That’s why Colin fell through, he wasn’t walking on the ceiling panels, he was on the joist when it collapsed on him.”

We locked up and, when we gave the keys back, asked who had done the repairs. Our next stop was their office which sent us to an address where they were outfitting a new shop. The guy we spoke to agreed that the joists had been almost hollow and that it wouldn’t have been long before someone would have gone through, taking the floorboards with them.

We asked him if he would sign a statement to that effect if asked and he said he would. We both had grins on our faces when we sat next to Colin.

“Colin, have the police asked you for a statement or given you anything to sign?” asked Frank.

Colin shook his head.

“No, they have told me that they will come in this week and take my statement, something about not being able to while I was on the strong pain medication.”

“Alright, Colin. Now concentrate. I’m not going to ask you what you intended to do that day. I’m going to tell you what you’ll tell the police. You went to the flat to steal floorboards for a project that you had in mind. You were standing on the joist when it collapsed.”

Colin nodded.

“That’s how I fell through. One minute I was OK, the next second I was on the floor below and in a lot of pain.”

“Exactly. And when the police asked you why you were there you told him ‘pain killers’ because that’s what you wanted to help you at the time. If you tell them that, they will have to follow up. Olivia and I had a look this morning and most of the joists have been replaced because they were rotten. If you say that you only intended to pick up some floorboards, the police will have to drop the charge of attempting to rob the chemist. The guy who fixed the joists is happy to sign a statement that they were in a dangerous state.”

“Thanks, sir, that will help. The nurses here have been wonderful. I have been on stronger stuff than the pills I used to take and they have brought me back from those. Hopefully, I can live a normal life again.”

“You make sure you do, we may not be able to save you next time.”

We said our farewell and went back to the office, where I typed up the report of the day so far, with all the details and names. Frank put them all in Colins’ folder to give to Jacobsen to follow up, as soon as Colin was fit enough to front up in court, should the police still want to take it further.

The rest of the week was reasonably easy, follow-ups to a few other cases, a couple of visits to the remand cells, and a couple of lunches with Mum. Angela called into the office on Thursday to tell me that she had been searching through the family records and had discovered that there was an earldom that had never been taken from the family. She would let me know more on Friday evening. In the meantime, Frank got her to sign paperwork for us to work on her behalf, should she find that it was claimable. Perhaps her double-barrelled name would fit. She may be Dame Harrington-Smythe in the future.

Finally, Friday afternoon came to an end, and it was time to leave the office. It had been a big week and I was happy to leave. I had organized to meet Angela at our usual café for a meal and it was a good walk, something that would allow me to think about the last few weeks of my mini traineeship.

Next week was to be a big one. We would have Jock in court, in front of a single judge who would have the power to shape his future. I know that Frank was expecting, with Sammys’ help, to be able to take Jock home. The fact that one of our Old Girls had managed to move his mother into a short list was good news.

I was just enjoying the fresh air when a large van pulled up beside me and a large arm went around my body, with a hand going over my mouth. I was lifted off the ground and carried to the van, where the side door had opened, and a bikie leered at me as I was pushed inside. My captor kept hold of me as he got in and then moved sideways to sit down on a bench. His arm had both of mine trapped and his hand never left my mouth.

As the van pulled away, he spoke into my ear.

“I can let you breathe but won’t let you go. Scream and you get hit, say anything and you get hit, plead and you get hit. Got it?”

I nodded and he took his hand away from my mouth. I stayed quiet, even as the bikie on the seat opposite reached over and put his hand on my leg. I gritted my teeth and stayed silent as he pushed his fingers under my skirt, then under the edge of my panties and into my vagina, wriggling it around as I did my best to stay as still as I could. These brutes had me in their total control and I was getting more scared with every passing second.

He laughed as he pulled his finger out and then he licked his finger.

“Sweet, bitch. I’m going to enjoy my turn when we have you to ourselves. First, though, the sergeant at arms of the Glasgow Chapter has first dibs. He’s really pissed off at having a steady supply cut off, having three of his gang arrested, and losing two of his trusted members was the last straw. You should have heard him when Ace called him. I could listen from across the room. What the coppers didn’t see was the camera opposite the warehouse. The way you were treated, we were sure you were the snitch, bitch.”

The guy holding me chuckled. “He’ll be here tonight, and then we get you tomorrow, should you last so long. You,” he snarled, “Should have checked the recordings earlier. If you had, we may not have lost two of our Brothers.”

I knew he was thinking about tomorrow as his cock had grown under my buttock. I was not going to like this; my life could be nearing the end of the line. Eventually, the van pulled off the road and I heard the crunch of gravel.

“Remember, bitch, silence. There’s no-one that can hear you so it wouldn’t do any good anyway.”

He kept hold of me as we got out of the van and took my bag with my phone in. When I looked at the house, I was surprised. I knew this house. It was a place my mother had pointed out as we drove by, only a few months ago. It was a detached place, four bedrooms with an attached garage. She had told me that it was a place she had always wanted to live in, and would have, if only my twin had not died. It would have been great for four, she had said, but far too big for three.

My captors walked me inside and I almost threw up. The place was a tip, beer bottles and food boxes everywhere and the smell was stale beer, piss and weed. I didn’t have much time to take any more in, as I was marched into the kitchen and the door to the garage was opened.

“Stay good, stay quiet and you may not be in too much pain when we finish you off. Enjoy your time alone.”

He gave me a hefty shove and I staggered into the dark garage. For a fraction of a second I thought that I saw a curtain of sparkles. Then it felt as if I had hit jelly. I carried on forward until my foot hit something and I fell. I put out a hand to save myself but then my head connected with something solid, and everything went black.

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When I came to my senses, I was in a bed and had two places that hurt, bad. One was in my left arm, the other was my head. I groaned and a damp cloth was laid on my forehead. When I opened my eyes, I saw a nurse smiling at me.

“Good, you’re awake. You had us worried for a while. Stay still, I’m going to fetch the doctor who will see if you have any lasting problems.”

Problems! Of course, I’ve got problems. In just a couple of weeks I’ve got to go back to school. It’s going to be a big year; one I need to start as I mean to finish. If everything goes to plan, I’ll have good enough marks to apply for university. I’ll need a high score in the physics subjects to apply for Civil Engineering.

I was trying to remember how I ended up here when the doctor arrived, with Angela, now in her second-year training as a nurse, in tow. He worked through a series of tests, designed to ensure I could see things correctly, answer questions about the world in general and my own family in particular. When he finished, he ticked off on his clipboard and handed it to Angela.

“Now, young man, in future you turn the lights on when you go into dark places. Consider yourself lucky, you could have broken your neck. If you’re wondering, you have a fractured wrist which will take a few weeks before we can remove the light cast. You have stitches in your forehead that will come out before term starts but you will have some heavy bruising for a while and a scar for the rest of your life. Get a good nights’ sleep. Angela, here, will give you a shot to settle you down. All being well, you’ll be able to go home tomorrow after the rounds.”

Angela stood at the end of the bed and grinned.

“There was a time I would have enjoyed seeing you in bed, but this wasn’t the scenario I had thought about. How do you feel, Ollie, other than the obvious, that is?”

“Stupid, Angie. I’m still trying to remember how I got here.”

“Actually, it was in an ambulance. Seriously, when your mum and Livie got home, you were nowhere to be seen, even though your bike was parked outside. Livie checked your room and then looked into the garage. That’s where she found you, on the floor, out cold with blood all over your face. They called the emergency services, and you were brought in. We were worried that you refused to come round but the doc said to just wait to see if you come back naturally.”

“OK, but why was I on the floor?”

“Ah! Your mother and Livie told me that a bumper bar had arrived yesterday from the platers. Your dad had put it in the garage for you as you were going to be late home after your date with Paula. From what they think, you rushed into the garage this afternoon without waiting for the lights to properly come on, tripped over the bumper bar and nutted your car on the way down. Livie tells me that there isn’t any damage to the car, those old Vanguards are built to last. She also said that she is now sure that the extra ‘I’ in her name stands for ‘intelligence’ and you’re now, officially, the doofus.”

“Right, so it was just high spirits, plus stupidity, then. Was the doc right about the scar?”

“Oh, yes. I helped the ED when you were brought in. You’re going to be like the ‘Boy Who Lived’. The main difference is that his scar was a Z, yours will be a Y. You’ll need more than a cowlick to hide it for a while. When you go back to school, you can say it was a duelling scar. Be prepared to cop a bucket from Paula. I gave her a call and told her not to come in. She said she’ll see you at home on Sunday. I’m sure you’ll be happy for her to try and kiss it better. I might be able to pop around with Jerry, and the bub, to see you and Livie. Your folks were here for a while but won’t be back until tomorrow morning, hopefully to take you home”

She gave me a shot and, made sure I was comfortable. While I waited for it to work, I thought about what needed to happen now. First was to get my final year out of the way so I can go to Uni. Livie was in the same boat, she had been helping out at the law firm this summer alongside Mum. She would do another summer there next year, and, if she got the marks, she would join me at Uni to study law.

That’s what the old Vanguard was for. It would be our transport while we were away. Dad had wanted both of us in the garage, Livie in the office and me in the workshop, but Mum had put her foot down. I was helping out with designing at a building firm in the summer break. Hopefully, the left arm in a cast wouldn’t slow me down on the CAD system.

I thought about my time with Angie. We had had good times, and both learned lot about each other’s bodies. It had stood me in good stead when I managed to get Paula to go out with me.

I drifted towards sleep with the image of the two of us in the big mirrors in the cinema on Thursday night. Paula and I were similar height and we stood head and shoulders above a crowd. She looked like a model and made me look good as well. She planned to be at Uni with us next year. I’m hoping that we three can share a house.

The three of us are all about the same height so I’m sure we’ll stand out when we’re together. I love her madly and finally resolved to ask her to be my wife.

I then had the wildest thought. It must have been the effect of the medication. I resolved never, ever, to have a beaded curtain across a door of any house I lived in. Then I dropped off to sleep.

Marianne Gregory © 2022