CHAPTER 52
There was silence in Custody at that, and I turned the radio off. Jim came back a few minutes later, looking spent.

“I spent far too much time with them, and I still hate guns. I’m awaiting further details on the girl, but you may well receive some customers from the site. They are objecting to their mate being ‘executed’, apparently. I’m going to warn both the FME and your mate Khan, Adam. One or two of them have already met Sabre and Kirsty”

I don’t know which would be more frightening, a 40 kilo German Shepherd going for a mouthful, or a particular 5’3” policewoman swinging her baton. On balance, I’d probably opt for the dog.

“Oh, Adam?”

“Yes Jim?”

“I have given Dennis a bell, as I think you might be busy, and we’ve got the airport nick on standby as well. If that place goes as they usually do, we are going to be earning our crust. Coffee’s on if you want to grab a cup, feel free”

I rang Eric at home. “Love, I am going to be late home today, if things go as we expect. Been a fatality.”

“You OK?”

“I’m fine, but one of the lads is hurt, can’t say any more, just watch the news, aye? It’s connected to Darren, so you might want to warn Naomi to keep him away from the telly”

“Will do. Need anything?”

“Oh god, all sorts of things, but I’ll probably end up settling for one of your back rubs. Got to go, the yard gate’s opening”

Through the morning I ended up processing eight men and three women, arrested for a variety of things, ranging from s5 Public Order to full on Police assault and, in one case, wounding with intent. The last decided to tell me what he thought of the procedure, and Mr Mouth met Mr Floor as he was taken down and leg-strapped. It was indeed the way these things always went, where it was perfectly OK to beat people up, or even shoot them, but any interference was persecution. I was slowly getting details of the other casualty, who turned out to be only thirteen, and the urge to throw that in the face of the arseholes I was processing was almost too strong to control. Just then, Dennis arrived, and we took five minutes in Jim’s office for a catch-up. I was starting to shake as the fear came back, and Dennis could see.

Suddenly, he was hugging me.

“Annie, you’re doing fine. There can’t be many more of the shits to process, and I’ll take most of the monitoring on, OK? Get your coffee and go and sit down. Kirsty’s on her way with another couple, and I am pretty sure that’ll be it”

“You in touch then?”

“Yeah…”

He grinned and let me go. “Look, mate, I know I have to be bloody careful, sergeant and copper an aal, but I might just be changing my tastes in women”

“So, let me guess, moving away from Ginny-alikes in the direction of chesty midgets then?”

The grin was still there. “Might be!”

“Well, just remember one thing, neither of them could be described as housebroken!”

“Half the fun, marra, half the fun. Now, coffee, and clear this lot away. You have a man to get home to sometime tonight, so let’s make that sooner rather than later, aye?”

I looked at him, tall, fit, gorgeous as all hell and utterly straight. “Dennis, how do you do it? Everything you are doing or saying is as if I were female, and look at me”

He smiled, very gently. “Annie, the more I work next to you, the more I see you with your friends, the more I see how badly your costume fits. Tell me, aye, what was it you wanted to be when you were a kid?”

I smiled, he was that good. “A nurse, Den. I always wanted to be a nurse”

He was nodding. “That fits, and to be honest I think that is what you are doing. You care, and I know what Kirsty said to you cause she told me. I saw the way you were when Darren came in, and I said it then”

He was shaking his head. “You are a fucking good woman, Annie, you heal people, I just wish you had spent more time on yourself. Look, Kirst said she asked you and Eric for a pint. Here’s my invitation. You, and Eric, at Kirsty’s with the two of us, she’s not a bad cook, like. But you come as yourself, OK?”

“You want me in a skirt?”

“Not exactly, I just want you to see that we can adapt too”

We went back into Custody proper just as Ruth arrived, and she had a partly-closed eye and a red-faced man bent almost double with the reverse goose-neck she had on the arms cuffed behind him. The colour of his face and the stream of tears and snot showed where he had been pepper-sprayed, and the limp suggested an asp had been laid across his leg. I took him.

“PC Ellis, what are the circumstances?”

“I was on duty at the Buchan site, Sarge, and I found this one with a petrol can trying to start a fire on the van we are watching. When I told him to move away he punched me in the face. I used reasonable force and approved techniques to detain him”

“You kicked me in the fucking bollocks you bitch!”

“When you’re off your feet that is an approved technique”

She grinned around what was going to be one hell of a black eye. “Worked as well, Sarge!”

I looked over my shoulder, where Den had his back turned to me, but I could see his shoulders shaking as he tried hard not to laugh out loud. After the prisoner was banged away, I whispered to him.

“THAT attracts you?”

He smiled wistfully. “Oooooooooh yes!”

The flow did indeed dry up, and the debrief went ahead at two just as the Super had promised. Jim brought us the summary, and suggested we watch the BBC news channel in the back office. The newsreader was someone I had never seen before, but that was normal for the 24 hour rolling programme.

“News is coming in of the shooting of two men at a caravan site in West Sussex. One is thought to have been a police officer while the second was the subject of an arrest warrant. A young girl found in the mobile home concerned has been taken to a private room at a local hospital where she is being treated for what sources say is a serious sexual assault.”

Super Davenport was on screen then, giving the sanitised version.

“Officers went to a caravan site to arrest a man wanted on charges of child abuse, robbery, theft, handling stolen goods and assault. When officers attempted to execute the warrant, one of them was shot. His injuries are serious but no longer life-threatening. Armed officers were called and further shots were fired. One adult male was found dead on the premises, and a thirteen year old child has been taken for medical treatment and examination as to a possible serious sexual assault. There is now a public order issue at the site and a number of further arrests have been made. That is all I can say at this time.”

He walked away from the camera, his job done, and some hours later, after the last of our tribe of visitors had been charged and bailed or remanded, and the caravan had been towed away for a fuller examination, time came round for Ma Pickstock’s review---and the Super extended it. Harton went spare, and I was left wondering what the hell was going on when Mr Davenport snarled at him “We know who the girl is, Mr Harton, and we know most of why, and when we have all of that I strongly suggest you consider your future. Mobile phone companies keep logs.”

Harton went white, and Mr Davenport continued.

“The investigation is ongoing, Mr Harton, and it is far from finished. Oh, sod it, I can’t be arsed any more. Harton, I am arresting you on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, perverting the course of justice, handling stolen goods and complicity in the sexual trafficking of a child under fourteen. You do not have to say anything, but if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court it may harm your defence. Do you understand the caution? Yes? Course you do. Den, you doing this one? Harber’s phone had a shitload of messages from him and his client. Very interesting ones. Harton, the lads are already at the other address. Can I assume authorisation of detention, Dennis?”

Dennis pushed me to one side before I could muscle in. “Oh yes indeed, Mr Davenport, with real pleasure”

I whispered to the Super. "Not quite right, Boss"

"Don't care, and he didn't notice"

Booked in, strip-searched, his expensive shoes, tie and belt removed, Harton’s face was a picture. Could the day end any better?

I finally got home at ten, after a special sitting of the local bench to bail or remand several of the arrestees, and Eric was sitting up in bed. There were candles lit, and a small pot of warm water to one side.

“Get your kit off woman, I have something for you.”

The water held a bottle of aromatic oil, and after laying a towel on the bed he did my back, and then he did my front, and then I sort of did things, and, well, it seemed the day could indeed end better.