The next day was a big anti-climax compared to the previous one. Working on the catalytic converter thefts was right up her street and the sort of policing that she loved. From that high, there was always a new low not far away.

The next low for her was to be assigned to the local Crown Court. While that was a new experience for Roberta, it was also very boring, especially after a day working on the catalytic converter thefts.

Making sure that people got to the right courtroom was all fine and dandy, for the first hour, but standing in the same place for the duration of the court day, was not her idea of being a police officer. The only bright part of the day was to see Leroy James and two of his crew appear.

“Mr James. Are you appearing before a judge today?” she asked trying not to smile.

“Fuck you pig. I’m a witness in a case,” he said grumpily.

His insult did not faze her one bit. He had an image of being anti-police to protect.

“Well, Mr James, be sure to tell the truth, and not what you think that the lawyer wants to hear. None of us want to see you up on a charge of perjury now do we?”
She said the last part with a smile on her face.

He ignored Roberta and headed up the stairs towards Court No 3. He obviously knew the layout of the building very well. She made a mental note to ask him how the case went when she saw him later that day.

Her boring day got worse when she had a visit from Sergeant Hall in the middle of the afternoon.

“Well look at what we have here? Our own little snitch. Going into court to rat on your colleagues?”

“No Sarge, I am not as you well know or would have if you had taken the trouble to look at the duty roster board back at the station. I’m not a snitch and I’m not going into court to do anything. I was assigned this duty by Inspector Long this morning.”

The sergeant laughed.
“You must have done something bad for you to get this duty in only his second week at the nick?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about. But it does not matter in the grand scheme of things.”

“What the ‘F’ do you mean by the ‘grand scheme of things’?”

“It is quite simple really. Our maker has a plan for each and every one of us. What we do as individuals does not matter. We are like a single ant. On its own, that ant can’t make much impact but joined together, the whole ant colony can make a difference. The sum is greater than the parts.”

“What is that gobbledegook?”

“It isn’t gobbledegook. If you had the inclination, you could find out who laid down those thoughts. They help me when dealing with the numpties of this world.”

“What! Are you saying that I’m a numpty?”

“I never said that you were. As God is my witness.”

“I’ll have your guts for garters for this. Just wait until I report to the Inspector.”

“Please, do that Sarge. Meanwhile, I have this duty to complete before returning to the Station.”

The Sergeant stormed off with a red face. He didn’t know that Roberta had recorded their whole interaction.

She watched him go with a smile on her face. Her joy was short-lived.

“He does not like you, does he?” said a voice from behind her. She turned.

“Mr James?”

He smiled.
“That’s me and I plead ‘Not Guilty’.”

Roberta smiled.
“He is a numpty, a self-grandiosing numpty.”

“That, copper, we can agree on.”
He walked past Roberta with a grin on his face.

Sergeant Hall was nowhere to be seen when Roberta returned to the station. That was in her opinion, a good sign. If he'd reported her to the Inspector then he would be gloating to her that her time in the Met Police was almost over. She changed out of her uniform and headed for the Tube. She had a meeting with Leroy James to go to but that was for later. Roberta was heading for the Westfield Mall at Shepherds Bush to do some shopping. It was her father's birthday in a little over a week. Her route allowed her to check if anyone was following her. As far as she knew, she was on her own but as she changed trains at Willesden Junction, she remembered some of her last conversation with Superintendent Mark Wilson of AC-12.

Once inside the huge shopping centre, she switched her phone off and headed for a supermarket. There, she purchased a roll of cooking foil and wrapped her phone in it. Then she stuffed it into the very bottom of her shoulder bag. In doing so, she felt something strange.

It was strange because Roberta had cleaned out the bag only a few evenings before. Something that felt like a pebble had no right being in the bag.

Upon examination, she knew right away that it wasn’t a pebble but a tracking bug. The bag had been in her locker all day and despite it being locked, it would not take a real expert to pick the lock and put the bug into her bag. Seeing the bug, presented her with a problem. What should she do with it? There were two choices. The first was easy, take the battery out and therefore disable it. But that would tell whoever was tracking her that she’d discovered the bug. The other option was to take the bug and ‘donate it’ to someone or something else. With a wry smile, she decided on the second option.

She carried on with her shopping mission and purchased two small presents for her father plus a birthday card.

With her shopping done, Roberta headed for the London Overground station just before seven that evening. She took the train back to Willesden Junction where she changed to the Richmond service. Instead of getting off at Kew Gardens, she carried on into Richmond where she changed to the next service that was operated by South West Trains. That train went all the way to Reading. That was a perfect diversion. Between Richmond and the next stop, Twickenham, she simply put the tracker into the waste bin. She would then let the ‘train take the strain’.

With a wry smile, she alighted from the train at Twickenham and returned to Richmond by the next London-bound service. A District Line train then took her to Kew Gardens in plenty of time for her meeting.

Confident in that she wasn’t being tailed nor tracked, Roberta treated herself to a portion of chips and a couple of sausages while she waited for Leroy James to appear.

When he did appear, he was almost half an hour late and slightly out of breath.
“Sorry for being late, my ride expired on the other side of Chiswick Bridge. The idiot forgot to put enough fuel in the tank.”

Roberta smiled.
“That’s ok. These things happen.”

“Look Cop, you have done right by me since you came to the manor, and I’ve given you some tips in return. Your top brass has mostly kept out of drug busts on the ‘Farm’ which is good. The last one was when they followed one of the Turks from Green Lane onto the estate. Because it wasn’t one of my guys, we let your mob do their thing unmolested.”

“What are you saying Leroy? Are you quitting?”

“I don’t want to quit, but three of my guys have been hospitalised since we last met. The opposition is moving in strong. They pick up one of my crew right off the street in broad daylight and take them way, way out of London and give them a severe beating which includes a broken limb. Then they dump my guy on a remote road and leave him to fend for himself.

Then he passed Roberta a grimy bit of paper.

Those are the times and places where it happened. Perhaps your CCTV might get a lead on three abductions? You know, do your job like?”

“Why haven’t we heard about this before?”

“My crew aren’t speaking to you lot unless I say so, and besides most of them are not the sort of people to have a fixed address if you get my meaning.”

“By my lot, I assume that you mean the local plod where they are hospitalised?”

“Yeah. They stay silent until they can make a phone call to a legal representative friend of ours.”

“Ah, you mean Bennie King?”

Leroy smiled.
“You are pretty clued up for a cop!”

“I do try to keep my nose to the ground. Are you going to fight for your patch?”

“I am, but that Sergeant Hill of yours is in cahoots with them. His main reason for coming to the court was to check up on me. The case was where I was a witness to a hit and run that involved a mother and a small child on White Hart Lane. So, nothing to do with my other business and happened before you came to the manor. That conversation we had earlier convinced me that you are still on the straight and narrow and that Sergeant Hill has not gotten to you… yet.”

“Why did he want to check up on you?”

“While I was in the court, and he was giving you some stick, one of his ‘friends’ took a large bag of crap junk onto the ‘Farm’ and started dolling it out for free.”

“Ah, the old free sample game.”

“Yeah. Only this junk was cut with some nasty stuff. One of my guys thinks that it was cut with rat poison. Luckily, what is left of my crew scouped it up and set it on fire down by the river Lea. We both know that they will be back… again and again.”

“That is not good. Not good at all. What can I do to help maintain the status quo?”

“Word has it that you know someone in AC-12?”

Roberta was shocked that he’d know about AC-12 let alone her contacts in the department.
“I gave you a load of information last time, didn’t I?”

“I remember now. I passed it on… to my contact in AC-12.”

“One of their people tried to make contact with me. I told him to get lost. I can’t trust any pig but you. As I said, you have been open with me and I respect that. Plus, you have not asked me to rat on anyone on the Farm. Other cops would have wanted more but you don’t. That’s why I told the cop from AC-12 to fuck off. If you want to arrange a meet somewhere that isn’t here I’ll go as long as you are there as well. I know it sounds odd but I trust you not to do the dirty on me.”

“Thanks for that. What else can I do?”

“Report back about the escalation. Someone in your nick who wants the current setup to continue might be interested enough to stop a drug war from breaking out. That is not in any of our best interests if you know what I mean?”

Leroy passed her another scrap of paper. Roberta didn’t look at it so Leroy continued.
“Those are the details of where my crew are recovering. They won’t talk to any cops, but their medical records will tell a story. Get your mob to speak to the West Yorkshire cops about how this foreign crew moved into Morley, near Leeds. I have it on good authority that they did it exactly this way. Two cops are in Armley Prison, waiting for their trials to come up but by the time they were busted, two of the local crew were pushing up daisies. You can imagine what comes next?”

Roberta was fully aware of what would come next. She’d studied how drug wars had evolved in the UK when she was taking her master’s degree in Criminology.

“Ok, I’ll speak to my contact in AC-12, but there has to be something else?”

Leroy smiled and pulled out a USB stick from his jacket and slid it across the table to Roberta.
“Photos and plenty of them. Most of them are of the expendables who were dishing out the free samples. I have people on the estate who record the comings and goings of strangers just for protection you understand? The rest are of your Sergeant and his boss, Inspector Barnes, meeting with someone I don’t know but from his accent, my guess is that he is the advance guard from Leeds. Your people from up north could probably identify him. They might be wondering where he has gone. He’s holed up in Hertford, just off the A10 at the moment. It is a squat so should be easy for the local plod to find. He parks his car at Hertford North train station. It is an Audi A5 with cloned plates if you are interested. There is a photo of it on the card.”

“Leroy, I do know that the bosses want to keep the status quo going. Keeping hard stuff off the Farm is a high priority and especially hard stuff that has been cut to hell and back with all sorts of crap. I’ll pass this all onto AC-12 and express the urgency of the situation. That is all I can do.”

“I know that you will try. Just remember the two casualties in Leeds? All it needs is one of my crew to get taken out and there could be a full scale drug war on your hands.”

With that, he disappeared into the darkness.

Roberta didn’t move for several minutes. Then she made a call to AC-12. What Leroy had given her was too important to sit on.

“Sorry to bother you at this time of night sir, but I have some information that can’t wait for tomorrow.”

“No Sir, I need to see you or one of your team in person preferably tonight.”

”At the moment, I’m in Richmond.”
She didn’t want to disclose her real location. She was sure that there would be CCTV of her meeting with Leroy if someone dug deep enough.

”No Sir, that won’t be a problem. I should be there in about half an hour.”

“I’ll call you when I get off my train.”

She hung up the call and walked towards the underpass that connected both sides of the station. She was headed to Hammersmith Tube station.

Her luck was in and she only had a couple of minutes to wait for the next District Line train.

At Hammersmith, she alighted from the District Line service and waited for it and the Piccadilly Line train on the adjoining platform to depart before making a call to her contact at AC-12.

“Sir?”

“Yes, I’m on the eastbound platform.”

“Ok sir, I’ll be there.”

She hung up and left the station via the east exit which led directly to the adjacent bus station. Almost as soon as she arrived, a black BMW pulled up beside her. In the front passenger seat, was a smiling Superintendent from AC-12. She got in the back and the car took off into the evening traffic.

“Right Constable, what have you got for us that can’t wait?”

“Sir, the gang moving in on Broadwater Farm are from Leeds. Specifically, Morley. Three of Leroy James’s crew have been abducted in the past week and taken well away from London and given a beating that has put them out of action. By that, I mean broken limbs.”

“Those three were taken in broad daylight from locations just outside ‘The Farm. This gives the dates and times. “

“My contact also gave me the locations where those three abductees are recovering.”

She passed over the two pieces of paper that Leroy had given her earlier. She had photos of them just in case.

“While that is interesting, that could have waited or you could have passed it all onto your bosses. Why AC-12?”

“Sir, the invaders have been distributing a load of bad smack on the Farm that could well have been cut with rat poison. They were giving it away. That is a clear threat to the status quo. Then Sergeant Hall and Inspector Barnes have been keeping close tabs on me in recent days. The Sergeant came to ‘inspect’ me while I was on duty at the local Magistrates Court today. He was also checking out the leader of the crew that controls the ‘farm’, Leroy James who was there to give evidence in a hit and run case. At the same time, there was a crew on the ‘farm’ giving out the free drugs.”

“It is interesting to know that things are moving up a level. What else do you have?”

“Sir, my informant gave me this USB drive. He claims that there are photos of the Sergeant and the Inspector meeting with one of the head people from the Leeds gang.”

The Superintendent smiled.
“That is very interesting indeed and if true, very troubling.”

Then after a sigh, he said,
“You were right to bring this to me tonight. You should go home and get some sleep. Can you keep doing your job as normal?”

Roberta smiled.
“There is something that you should know. You know that Sergeant Greeting suspects me of ratting him out. To complicate things farther, I found a tracking bug in my bag earlier this evening when I did some shopping at Westfield. I put the bug into the waste bin on a train that was bound for Reading. I know that he won’t be pleased about his bug going AWOL. The bug wasn’t there a couple of days ago.”

“Constable Galbraith, you did very well. Most people would have destroyed the bug. Now, they don’t know when you discovered it. The bad news is that they clearly suspect you of working with us. For now, don’t contact us. Keep your head down but your eyes open. Are you able to keep doing this? You may have to lie to the Sergeant’s face.”

“Sir, if you have read my record, you will know that I am very good at living a lie. I’ve been doing it for most of my life.”

He grinned.
“I have read your record and you are better, no, way better than most at it, but please be careful. These people have infiltrated us and are intent on stirring up Broadwater Farm again. In the resulting chaos, they can move in and flood the area with crap smack which will only make things worse. Agreed?”

Roberta nodded.
“I will do my best to act normal at work. I’m due to on patrol with Sergeant Hill tomorrow. That will be a stiff test, but I have rigged up a recorder to catch anything he says during my shift. He tried to goad me the other day, into calling him a ‘numpty’ but I didn’t rise to his bait.”

“Be careful. That’s all I can ask.”

“I will be careful sir.”

“Right. Driver, can you pull up at the next station?”

“Sir, I’d rather make my own way home. The next bus stop will do perfectly well.”

Roberta watched the Super’s car drive off towards central London. She went the other way and caught a bus to Camden Town. Two more busses and a train would get her home in a little more than an hour. The rides gave her a chance to think about how she should approach work the next day.

"Let's take a drive through the Farm," said Sergeant Hill at the start of the next day's shift.

“Sarge, that goes against standing orders. The Chief Super has been very clear about patrolling the Farm. Unless we are in pursuit or answering a 999 call we are to keep out.”

“Constable, I gave you an order. I expect you to carry it out.”

Roberta sighed and turned off the High Road and onto the sprawling Broadwater Farm Estate.

Even after a year and a half at Tottenham nick, Roberta didn’t like the ‘Farm’. People stopped and stared at the patrol car. At least two made gun signs at them before they’d gone half a mile. She could feel the tension. Then they came upon a body slumped against a lamppost.

“Stop the car and investigate Constable,” ordered the Sergeant.
“I was not going to drive past a dead body Sarge. You might not think much of me, but I am not that callous.”

The sergeant didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled out his personal phone.

Roberta parked their patrol car close to the victim and went to investigate. She pulled on a pair of gloves before checking for a pulse in the neck of the young man. There was none and the body felt quite cold.

“Sarge, he is dead and has been so for several hours.”

“Well? What are you waiting for? Call in the cavalry.”

Roberta glared at the Sergeant before reporting the death to control. He was doing something on his phone and ignoring her.

When that was done, Roberta got back out of the car and went to examine the body. Examine was not the right word. She gave the dead body a close examination without touching the deceased. She started to take photos of the body and the location.

“What the fuck do you think that you are doing?” called the Sergeant from inside the car.

“Sarge, I’m making a record of the crime scene.”

“This is not a crime scene.”

“Sorry Sarge. It is a crime scene until the coroner rules otherwise. The death might be ruled suspicious. In that case, CID will want all these photos before the medics and coroner ruin the scene. This is all SOP if my teachers from Hendon are to be believed.”

“Suspicious my ass. Even I can see the needle tracks on his arm.”

“Sarge, it is clear that none of them are recent. There is scarring but they are all healed. However, I can see that there is one possible needle mark in the side of his neck.”

“That is probably a bite from a bed bug or didn’t you read the memo about an infestation of them at the halfway house just down the road?”

“I did read the memo but this guy is hardly dressed like a resident of the house. His shoes are handmade. My guess is that they cost at least four hundred quid a pair.”

“How the fuck do you know anything about mens’ shoes?”

“Because I spent one Easter vacation working at one of the places that they are made during my degree course.”

That was a lie but she’d bought her father a pair of very expensive shoes for his 60th birthday the previous year. These looked very similar to other shoes that she had seen in the shop.

The Sergeant glared at Roberta. Then he turned his attention to his phone. He was messaging someone urgently. She resisted the temptation to try to see who he was in contact with and returned to the body. The more she thought about the victim, the more she concluded that he was a visitor to the area. His shoes were expensive and his clothes were not from a cheap chain store either. She wondered if the victim was one of the crew who had come down from Leeds to take over the drug trade in the area. Only time would tell on that front.

It was almost midday by the time that the body had been removed to the mortuary at the local hospital. CID had come, did their thing and left before the all clear was given and Roberta and Sergeant Hill could resume their patrol. Word had come over the radio that they were not to go farther into the Broadwater Farm estate. The Sergeant was not happy but he gave the order. The mystery deepened when CID failed to find any identification on the body.

“Turn around and get the hell out of this war zone come cesspit and get back to the station”

His choice of words initially puzzled Roberta but going back to the station would provide a welcome break from the Sergeant.

In the privacy of the Ladies' Toilet, Roberta sent a text to her contact at AC-12. She updated him on all the private messaging that the Sergeant had been doing and her thoughts about the identity of the victim.

Then she switched her phone off and went to the canteen for some very welcome food. To her relief, Sergeant Hill was not there.

Their afternoon patrol was fairly uneventful. They caught two banned drivers behind the wheel at the local supermarket. Both cars were impounded due to illegal tyres. If they were not claimed within seven days, they could be crushed. Even then, several hundred pounds in fines would be levied on them.

At the end of the shift, Roberta went home. When she opened the door to her latest temporary home, she found that an envelope had been pushed under the door.

Roberta didn’t pick it up until she had showered and changed. It was probably nothing but she felt that she had the smell of death on her. She’d felt like that once before when she’d found the dead body of the wine importer at the lockup that was ironically less than 100m from where they’d arrested the second of the banned drivers a few hours before.

While she waited for her baked potato to cook in the microwave, she opened the envelope. In an instant, any thoughts about eating went up in smoke. The envelope contained a single item, a photo of the old her as a child before she’d transitioned. She knew in an instant when it was taken, the day that her old self was ‘confirmed’. In the background, the church that was in the nearby village was clearly visible. On the back of it was written,

“We know everything about you and this what you will get very, very soon”
Underneath it, was a crude drawing of a stick man being hanged.

[to be continued]