Assassins

  ‘And this data disposal, is this something that you do diligently?’ Cruid was hoping not.

  Duggan scoffed. ‘Between you and me Mr Cruid and speaking off the record so to speak, we don’t have the time to trawl through tens of thousands of spent crimes. Some of them never get taken down.’

  ‘I was hoping that might be the case.’ Cruid said. He doubted this was going anywhere. It just seemed like such a long shot. But he couldn’t think of where else to start.

  Duggan slotted the memory stick into his computer and tapped a series of keys on his keyboard. Looming over the data analyst’s shoulder Cruid saw a folder icon pop up on the screen.

  ‘That’s a good start,’ Duggan said. ‘We at least we have a folder. Whether or not it opens is another matter! What I mostly find is, people bring these to me and when I look inside them there’s nothing, or the files are corrupted. People are so crap on computers.’

  Cruid was thinking that Duggan was probably one of those computer nerds that after your computer system had gone on the blink he will breeze into your office and then ask you a series of inane questions whilst looking at you as though your are entirely stupid.

  When DC Duggan saw the folder had been labelled: “DNA – King Robert IV”, he looked around at Cruid and frowned. ‘Are you serious? Is this really the actual DNA of King Robert the third?’

  ‘Yes, the grandson of Robert the Bruce,’ Cruid said matter-of-factly. ‘Is this something that you are able to help me with?’

  ‘Let me be clear on this, Mr Cruid,’ Duggan said jabbing a finger at the folder on his computer screen. ‘You are hoping that I can match the DNA of King Robert the third to a person held on our criminal database?’

  Cruid nodded. ‘Precisely.’

  Duggan shrugged his shoulders and then looked back at his PC screen. He tapped away at his keyboard. ‘Ok, lets have a look-see.’

  Leaning over Duggan’s shoulder Cruid watched the IT man’s fingers flash across the keyboard. Seconds later up popped a bewildering array of barcode images. Duggan was shaking his head.

  ‘Sorry, no luck I’m afraid.’ Duggan sat back in his chair with his arms folded.

  ‘Oh well, never mind,’ Cruid said looking back at the door and thinking that was a waste of time. He told officer Duggan he shouldn’t worry, that it was only a long shot anyway.

  ‘Pity, ‘ Cruid said holding out his hand, ‘I’ll have the memory stick back please. If you had found a match it would have saved me months of work.’

  Feeling sorry for the old guy Duggan made a suggestion. ‘I could try expanding the search and look through the arrests that didn’t go to court.’

  ‘Oh!’ Said Cruid raising his bushy eyebrows. ‘You surprise me. I would have thought that in cases where the charges had been dropped, the DNA sample would have been automatically deleted from the police database.’

  ‘Ah, but you see, that may not always be the case, not if the person that was arrested doesn’t make a fuss.’

  ‘Is it worth it? It seems such a long shot?’

  Duggan shrugged. ‘It’s your time being wasted sir. I don’t mind running another check, not at all.’

  Yes please do that. What we got to lose?’ Cruid watched Duggan get to work and in seconds more barcode images began a frantic scroll down the screen. Then out of the chaos up flashed a section of DNA with a red flag attached.

  Cruid leaning over Duggan’s shoulder he pointed. ‘What is that?’

  ‘The red flag means this case never went to court. Strictly speaking this file should have been deleted.’ Duggan hit a few more keys. ‘Let’s see what we got shall we?’

  Duggan clicked another key and up popped a name with an address.

  ‘Gavin David Brewson.’ Cruid read out loud. ‘What’s that?’

  Duggan refreshed his screen three times. He backtracked his search and then came to the same conclusion. ‘Jeez!’

  ‘What?’ Cruid said.

  ‘We just got a match,’ Duggan sounded astonished. ‘I can hardly believe it.’

  ‘He has a criminal record then, this Gavin Brewson?’

  ‘Oh no sir, it says on the file notes, no further action taken. Could have been a simple case of mistaken identity, the wrong man was arrested; it happens a lot, you’d be surprised. The DNA shouldn’t be on here. Should I delete it?’

  ‘What!’ Cruid said brought down to earth again. ‘God no!’ Do me a printout of his details would you?’

  Chapter Seven

  Essex.

  To make way for Marbury New Town, Essex constructed 1975-1981: several small villages comprising of an insignificant voting population had to be flattened. With direct trains into London and a nearby motorway it wasn’t long before Marbury had tripled in size. The council then went ahead and built a shopping mall. (Very exciting.)

  By the mid-eighties, the tory government’s "Right to Buy" housing scheme had enticed many of Marbury council house tenants to purchase their homes. The banks and the building societies queued up to tie people into a lifetime of mortgaged debt. A flood of new money was soon sloshing around in the banking system. Many of these new homeowners splashed out on their first VHS tape recorder, they then bought a trim phone and then a fridge freezer. Then everyone had to own a car. Before long, Marbury New Town had a parking problem.

  In due course, Council officials saw car parking fees and fines, as an opportunity to make some money. Parking meters, impervious to the motorist’s frustration of never having the right change began to pop up like mushrooms all over the town. These indefatigable grey sullen creatures spawned the arrival of ubiquitous men in uniforms who trawled the streets, lurking out of sight, armed with sticky bags perfectly suited to attach quite securely to car windscreens.

  Soon, double yellow lines snaked their insidious way through the town. It wasn’t long before the revenue from parking fines became a source of core funding. In the Marbury council meetings, whenever a new statue was needed, or the Chief Exec needed a pay rise, it was considered entirely ethical to install more parking machines, and have more workmen sent out to paint more double yellow lines. Then, to raise even more money, the council began hiking up the penalties and increasing the number of parking attendants.

  Gavin Brewson, fresh out of the local college with an A level in business management, was one of the new influx of parking wardens. Gavin loved his job, or to be precise, he loved the power and the uniform and the respect that he got, not from the motorists, who had him accurately nailed as a nerdy jobsworth, but from his employers after he had shot to the top of the leader-board for issuing the most PINs (Penalty Infringement Notices.)

  It wasn’t long before the additional income flooding into the council offices began to overwhelm the few people who were employed in the Parking Enforcement Department: (DEP). In yet another debate over how to redress the council’s deficit, Council leaders decided it was time they reorganised and modernised the town’s parking scheme. The first thing they did was set up the new: "Department Of Parking Enforcement."

  To advertise this new facility, tens of thousands of flyers were sent out to every address in Marbury. Too late they saw their mistake. The local paper slated them for coming up with the acronym D.O.P.E.

  It was then decided that DOPE was going to need, someone creative, tough and organised to head it up. Primarily this person’s role was to increase the council’s income from parking levies and more importantly, from parking fines. Determined not to repeat their previous cockup, the Council advertised this post with the heading: “Required: Head Of Parking Enforcement (HOPE).” In line with Council protocols, the job was advertised both internally, and externally. From the dozens of applicants, the council officers whittled these down to a short list of three. Of these only one candidate stood head and shoulders above the rest. Gavin Brewson, their top parking enforcement officer, who held the record for issuing the most parking tickets in any given month, was given the job.

  Gavin aged thirty-three, was a pernickety m
an, tough to deal with and not particularly bothered what other people thought or said about him. With a ruthless attention to detail, his organisational skills soon had HOPE knocked into shape. The only positive attribute people working in the council offices saw in Gavin Brewson, was his thorough, and ruthless approach to his job.

  There was one person who worked in the same council offices that quite liked him… fancied him even. Fiona Dimples, aged twenty-nine, would flirt with Gavin at the shared photocopy machine on the second floor. Before long they would have lunch together in the staff canteen. When Fi, as he called her, was thirty-one, Gavin asked her to marry him. She smiled broadly– hugged his neck and said, “Yes, of course I will Gav, I thought you was never going to ask.”

  After the low-key wedding ceremony that was held in the local registry office, the newlyweds went back to his mother’s house. It made sense for the couple to move in with Iris Brewson, who owned a tidy, three-bedroom semi, on the edge of a council estate. According to his mother, Iris, when Gavin was six months old his lying, cheating father ran off with an Avon rep called Ruth. All Gavin knew of his absent father was that he was Scottish, that he’d been in the navy and that Thomas Brewson was a drinker and a rogue who told lies.

  One story in particular, that his mother would sometimes tell him when he was growing up, was that his father would boast he was descended from royalty. But then, his father told people that he had once been an astronaut and that the scars on his leg, were caused by injuries he sustained while on a deadly solo mission in South America working for MI5. (Actually these were as a result of a cycling accident when he was fourteen). His mother had this saying: “Gavin you must never tell lies. Your father was a terrible liar. I would sooner have a radicalised terrorist than a liar.”

  Sometimes, Gavin wondered if his mother even knew who his actual father was?

  A couple of years after he and Fiona had wed; investigations concluded there was no obvious reason why Fiona wasn’t getting pregnant. Over the years, this painful topic was never spoken of. It was as if they just accepted this as their fate. Gavin covered up his disappointment by telling himself, if he had become a father, it would have stalled his career progression.

  Chapter Eight

  Iris was in the kitchen about to serve up the Thursday lamb hotpot. Fiona was watching Eastenders in the lounge that had a bow-fronted window overlooking the street.

  It was dark outside when the Bentley 53 pulled up at the kerb.

  At the dining table on his laptop, Gavin was calculating the income from todays parking tickets. Not bad. According to his pie chart there was a vertical trend of 2.4%.

  Iris, her brow slick with sweat, stirring the pot on the stove turned down the gas and called out, ‘Gavin, I am dishing up in two minutes, finish what you are doing and clear the table.’

  Iris mumbled, ‘I don’t know why Gavin has to bring his blessed work home.’ Iris dipped the wooden stirring spoon in the pot and scooped up a little of the gravy. Holding it to her face she blew on it and waited a couple of seconds before slurping it noisily into her mouth. Happy with the taste she yelled through the open doorway, ‘Gavin, have you cleared the table?’

  In the neat but small lounge the smell of the hotpot as it wafted through the serving hatch was making Fiona feel hungry. Fiona wasn’t at all surprised when she saw bad-boy Danny Belcher drive his car straight at Jayne Biggs right outside the Queen Vic pub. With the stricken Jayne lying motionless on the ground two bars of a drum solo brought to a dramatic close tonight’s episode of Eastenders. ‘He only went and did it,’ Fiona shouted through the serving hatch to her mother-in-law, ‘I knew he would kill that poor girl. I saw it coming.’

  ‘Who did what dear?’

  ‘Danny Belcher,’ Fiona called out getting up off the sofa and then straightening the cushions, ‘he went and killed that poor girl that he made pregnant.’

  ‘Dead is she then?’

  ‘It looks that way. He drove off leaving her lying in the road. We wont know if she’s dead till tomorrow night.’

  ‘Bad lot is he?’ Iris said not the least bit bothered if the girl was alive or dead. Iris never got to see Eastenders. That time of day she would be in the kitchen cooking the evening meal. Iris never allowed Fiona in the kitchen. The girl made too much mess and she never put enough salt in the greens.

  When the doorbell chimed halfway through their meal the Brewson’s stopped eating and looked at each other.

  ‘That’s someone at our door,’ Iris stated the obvious. ‘Who the dickens would be calling at this time of night, when folk are having their dinner?’ Iris popped a forkful of dumpling into her mouth. She wasn’t going.

  Gavin was half out of his seat when Fiona laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘Don’t you get it Gav,’ his wife said. ‘It’s bound to be a cold caller. ‘Stay there. Eat your dinner.’

  ‘It had better not be,’ Gavin said his hands gripping the arms of his chair. ‘I didn’t fit a “No Callers” notice up, just so’s they can ignore it.’

  Fiona got up from her chair. She wasn’t having Gavin go to the door… not after the last time that he had to deal with a cold caller. He’d made such a fuss one of their neighbours had called the police and reported a murder was taking place, ‘You’ve been at work all day. I will get it.’ (Fiona didn’t work. Gavin had this old fashioned idea a woman’s place was in the home.)

  Fiona paused at the front door to peek through the peephole.

  ‘Urgh!’ she cried out and leapt back a pace. What she saw was an ice blue watery eyeball!

  When he heard his wife gasp Gavin stopped eating and turned his head to look down the narrow hallway with the front door straight ahead past the under-stairs cupboard on the right. He called out.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes I’m fine. You stay there. Eat your dinner.’ When she looked through the peephole a second time, illuminated by the movement sensor light under the tiled porch, she saw the figure of a man wearing a black calf length overcoat and a black floppy rimmed hat. His angular face and hooked nose distorted by the fish-eye lens only added to her immediate thoughts that this could be the grim reaper come to take one of them off. She estimated the stick-thin man to be well over six feet tall. She thought about getting Gavin to come and open the door and then remembered the commotion he made that time the Cable TV salesman called and claimed that he hadn’t seen the “No Callers,” sign.

  Looking through the stained glass door panels into the lit interior, Cruid could make out the shadowy figure of a portly woman who was obviously worried about opening the door to him. He smiled and nodded at the peephole.

  Keeping her face glued to the security hole, Fiona, fascinated by the appearance of the stranger on her porch, without taking her eye off him called back over her shoulder, ‘Gavin, it’s a man.’

  In the ten by ten dining room, seated at the Ercol dining table that made it tricky to get to the French doors that led out to the crazy-paving patio, Gavin was examining the piece of gristle that he’d been chewing on with little success for the past minute.

  ‘Ask him what he wants,’ Gavin called back. ‘Tell him, if he is selling something, I shall come down there and have a stern word with him.’

  Keeping her eye on the man the other side of her door, as if she hadn’t heard her husband, Fiona called back up the hall. ‘I’ll ask him what he wants shall I?’

  Nervously, Fiona turned the catch and opened the door as far as the security chain would allow.

  ‘That would be the sensible thing to do.’ Gavin grumbled balancing the fatty piece of lamb on the edge of his plate.

  John Brooks, watching this from the open window of the classic 1953 R series Bentley parked right outside the house called out.

  ‘You ok Mister Cruid sir?’

  The arrival of the sleek black limo on the quiet street had attracted the attention of the couple living opposite who fascinated by this, were watching through the slatted blinds of their lounge bay win
dow.

  The drive down from Edinburgh had been long and tedious with just one comfort stop. With his back screaming for respite, Brooks climbed out of the Bentley and stretched his aching joints. He could do with a pee.

  Cruid was about to reply when he heard the door open and then the chain go, "clonk."

  ‘Yes?’ Fiona said nervously peering round the edge of the door through a three-inch gap. ‘I hope you are not a salesman. My husband doesn’t like cold callers. Your not one of them are you?’

  Cruid softened his voice and even managed a smile when he said, ‘Mrs Brewson?’

  ‘Yes,’ Fiona said surprised that the man knew her name. ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘No, Fiona, I am not a sales person,’ Cruid said only slightly offended. ‘My name is Duncan Cruid. I am the Scottish Minister for Internal Affairs. I am here on very some very important Scottish Government business. I have travelled a long way… from Edinburgh in fact. If you wouldn’t mind allowing me in, I would prefer to explain the purpose of my visit in the comfort of your sitting room, perhaps?’

  Keeping one hand on the door latch in case she needed to slam the door in his face, Fiona called back down the passageway. ‘Gavin, its a man. He says he is a minister. He says he has come a long way to speak to you about something of great importance… and he wants to know if you are home.’

  Of course he was home. She’d already let him know that.

  ‘Ask him, is he blind?’ Gavin replied, thinking he should have gone to the door. How was he supposed to enjoy his evening meal with all this fuss going on? ‘Ask him, did he not see my no-callers sticker right by the door or can he not read?’

  Gavin shook his head and got up off his chair and dropped his knife and fork with a clang on his dinner plate and muttered to his mother.

  ‘I suppose I had better go and get rid of whoever it is.’ Gavin wiped his mouth on a paper napkin and then threw it down on the dinner plate. Stepping away from the table Gavin said to his mother who was still eating her dinner, ‘don’t throw mine away, I’ll finish it after I get rid of this pest.’