Using the rafters for support, I got myself onto the window ledge. I fed my legs through the window first so I would land on my feet instead of my head and squeezed my body back through the window. It was harder coming out than going in. My clothes kept snagging on the frame, but I made it through and lowered myself down.
I had a certain expectation as to where the drums were. Instead, my feet connected with air. I kept lowering myself and my feet still hung in the air. I looked down. The drums were gone.
Before I could do anything else, a fist drove itself into my left kidney. I yelled out, lost my grip on the ledge and came crashing to the ground. I landed hard on my feet. Pain crackled up through my legs and into my groin. I lost my balance and came down on my back.
A heavy shoe pinned me to the ground by my neck and a torch beam blinded me.
I wasn’t going down like this. I grabbed the foot, lifted it up and twisted. My assailant wasn’t expecting that and toppled back.
I flipped over onto my front then onto my feet, ignoring the tingling in my legs. I rushed my assailant then stopped when he spoke.
‘Don’t add resisting arrest and assault to breaking and entering,’ Detective Brennan said.
Lap Nineteen
I
helped Brennan up. He brought out a pair of handcuffs and made a circling gesture with his torch. I turned around and he snapped the handcuffs around my wrists. The seriousness of my situation sunk in when the clamp of steel bit into my skin. I’d screwed up. I was under arrest. God, I was stupid. My head dropped involuntarily.
Brennan leaned in close. ‘This a new experience for you?’
I said nothing.
‘Don’t worry, you won’t have to go through it alone.’
He didn’t have to elaborate. He had Dylan. It now made sense why Dylan hadn’t responded.
‘C’mon, let’s go,’ Brennan said with pleasure and shoved me in the back.
He walked me to the main gates. I thought it was going to be interesting trying to get back over the fence while cuffed, but he simply opened the gate.
He grinned at me and jangled a set of keys in front of me. ‘It helps when you have the keys to the castle.’
He scooped up the floor mat I’d used to get over the fence. ‘Nice touch. Done much of this work?’
‘Getting caught is a sign of my inexperience.’
He laughed.
He pushed me through, closed and locked the gate, then dug the torch in the base of my spine and walked me across the street. I looked over at the Subaru. It was still there, but Dylan wasn’t. Brennan walked me over to an unmarked Ford Mondeo. I’d seen the anonymous looking car earlier, but hadn’t considered it important. Dylan was in the front passenger seat with one of his hands cuffed to the steering wheel. We frowned at each other.
Brennan put me in the back while he re-cuffed Dylan. I looked around for any other cops who were part of this stake-out. I didn’t spot any. Brennan should have had backup and shouldn’t have had keys to the yard. Suddenly, I had more to worry about than a simple arrest.
He drove us to a nearby police station and walked us through the doors like we were his girlfriends, one on each arm. Besides us, the waiting room was deserted. From behind his protective glass barrier, the duty officer looked at Dylan and me, crossed his arms and twisted his face into a look of disapproval. ‘Gifts? You shouldn’t have.’
Brennan walked us to the counter and showed his warrant card to the officer. ‘Could a travelling brother officer get the use of the cells?’
‘Of course.’
The officer buzzed us in and Dylan and I walked through. We followed him to a room where another officer relieved us of our possessions, belts and shoelaces. Brennan’s face lit up when my digital camera came out. The cops played up my having a screwdriver, a battery powered drill and hacksaw on me. Seeing the products of my stupidity paraded before me only highlighted the naivety of my plan.
‘We have some lovely accommodations for you,’ the custody officer joked.
Brennan kept a grip on me. ‘I think I’d like to talk to this one first. Can I get use of an interview room?’
‘Interview One is free.’
Brennan grabbed the plastic bag containing my possessions and dragged me off to the interview room. He pointed to a seat and dumped the bag on the table. We sat opposite each other in the cramped room.
A stack of sealed cassette tapes sat next to a clunky looking tape recorder at the end of the table. Brennan made no move to record the interview. Instead, he opened the plastic bag and spilled the contents on the table. He sifted through the items like a pan-handler searching for gold. He picked up and examined the hacksaw blade with the masking tape wrapped around one end for a makeshift handle. ‘I have to admire your persistence, Aidy. You’re not one to give up.’ He tossed the blade down. ‘But it doesn’t mean I have to like it. You want to tell me what’s going on?’
I didn’t. He had me fair and square, but that didn’t mean I was about to say anything. I was more interested in how he’d known to stake out the workshop tonight. I put this down to a self-inflicted wound. When Steve had called the other night to tell me he’d been hurt, I hadn’t been very subtle in my escape. Someone could have seen me and reported it back to Brennan. It was a pretty safe bet that I’d want a better look. I hated being the predictable one in this relationship.
‘Not talking, eh? That’s OK. I’ll talk. I think it’s better that you listen to what I have to say.’
Brennan separated the drill, the hacksaw blade and the screwdriver from the rest of my possessions. ‘These I find interesting. Not exactly the tools of an expert burglar, but they’re a nice starter kit. The way you got into that building was relatively neat and efficient for a novice. You deserve an A for effort. Where you deserve a resounding F is in what you took.’ He poked about amongst my wallet, keys and loose change with the screwdriver. ‘You didn’t take anything. If you’re going to go to all the bother of breaking and entering, you really should add theft to the equation. You deserve a reward for all your endeavours.’
Theatrically, Brennan’s interest fell to the digital camera. He cast the screwdriver aside and picked it up. He switched it on and scrolled through the images. ‘Hmm, very interesting. Judging by the pictures of you, this seems to be your camera. Why on earth would a thief want a camera at a job?’
Since I didn’t have a choice, I endured Brennan’s theatrics. He knew the answer already. He just wanted to flex his muscles and that was fine. He’d get around to the point eventually.
‘There are some interesting images of vehicles captured here. Trying to get a jump on your racing competition? Except these don’t look like racing cars.’ He went suddenly wide-eyed. ‘Oops. I seem to have accidentally deleted all the pictures you’ve taken tonight. Sorry, I thought I was scrolling through them. I really wish there was some way of making up for my mistake, but I think you have bigger problems than some lost photographs.’ He put the ruined product of my hard work on the table between us.
It was a petty and obvious move on Brennan’s part, but it struck a raw nerve in me. I was sick and tired of the mess around me. Cover-ups. Intimidation. Threats. Lies. Protection. Alex was murdered and that wasn’t of prime importance to anyone, not even the police. It wasn’t right. I lost my grip on my temper. ‘You’re a piece of work, Brennan.’
‘That’s Detective Brennan to you.’
‘Well, for a detective, you’re a pretty shitty one.’
‘You watch your mouth, son,’ he barked.
I’d gotten to him where it hurt. He boiled underneath, but he kept his rage contained. I shouldn’t be pushing the likes of Brennan. He held the reins to my future. But at this point, I had nothing to lose. I’d lost already. I couldn’t make it any worse for myself.
‘You keep protecting Derek Deacon – why? He’s a killer and you know it.’
‘I told you already. Mr Deacon is no killer.’
‘Yeah, stupid me for forgetting. He’s a law-abiding citizen.’
‘He is, unlike you. And I don’t see what Mr Deacon has to do with the property you broke into. It doesn’t belong to him.’
Brennan was baiting me. He was after what I knew. If I hadn’t been on my guard, I would have told him about seeing Derek delivering the cars.
‘It looks like I made a mistake then.’
‘Not your first.’
I didn’t like Brennan’s smug look, so I removed it for him.
‘What’s it like being Derek Deacon’s bent copper? And does anyone here know? I’m sure they’d be interested.’
Brennan lunged for me with both hands and yanked me across the desk, sending my possessions and my chair flying. I bounced off the floor on my back, my legs slamming into the wall. He kept me pinned to the floor with his foot on my chest.
‘You really do need to watch your mouth.’
The door burst open and the duty officer stood in the doorway, stunned by the sight before him.
‘Get him in a cell,’ Brennan barked.
The play-acting ended there. The duty officer marched me down to the cells. There were no idiotic jokes or jibes, not even any conversation. It was all business. They put me in a cell, locked the door and presumably threw away the key.
The cell was a depressing box consisting of a stainless steel toilet and thin mattress covering a concrete slab jutting from the wall for a bed. I was alone. Dylan was in his own cell somewhere.
I didn’t know what came next. A solicitor? A courtroom? A judge? It was a new and different world. I guessed nothing would happen tonight.
I dropped onto the rock hard bed. I should have tried sleeping, but I was too wired. Tonight’s work was all for nothing. I had no proof and worse still, Brennan would feed it all back to Derek. Worst of all, I was looking at a jail term. Probation at best. I leaned back and resigned myself to whatever came next.
The head of steam I’d worked up dissipated and engaged the gears in my head. I hadn’t been cautioned. I hadn’t been charged. I wasn’t positive, but I thought that Brennan was supposed to have had a second officer in the interview room and he should have recorded the interrogation, for his protection as well as mine. Why did he bring us here to this police station and not his assigned station in Chippenham? The answer was simple. He couldn’t get away with this in front of his own people. Too many questions would be asked.
Without my watch, I didn’t know what time it was, but just as the first signs of dawn were showing through the narrow window, the cell door opened and a disapproving officer filled the doorway.
‘C’mon, let’s go.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t care. To whatever rock you crawled out from under. You’re free to go.’
I sat there in stunned silence for a moment.
‘C’mon, I don’t have all day.’
I stepped out of the cell. Dylan stood in the hallway. We shared a sheepish smile.
They led us back to the booking area. All our possessions were returned to us. I was glad to see nothing had gone curiously missing other than my digital photos. No charges were being filed and we were free to go.
Brennan was nowhere to be seen.
The duty officer took us out to the waiting room. It wasn’t a joke. We were free. This time, our smiles weren’t so sheepish.
‘Don’t look too pleased with yourself. You should count yourself lucky that the detective decided to show you some leniency.’
‘Where is the detective?’
The duty officer slammed the security door shut in our faces. I wasn’t about to argue and we walked out.
Brennan stood outside waiting for us with a cigarette in his hand. ‘I thought I’d cut you some slack. Let it be a reminder of how close you came to being on the wrong side of the law.’
We said nothing.
‘Don’t thank me all at once.’
‘I won’t,’ I said.
Brennan laughed. ‘Ah, the stupidity of youth. You don’t know when you’re being given a break. Seriously, don’t squander this gift I’m giving you. I don’t want you in my business or Derek Deacon’s. Is that understood?’
‘Why do you keep protecting him?’
The detective took a long drag on his cigarette then exhaled. ‘I’ve got some advice for you and I want you to take it. Leave Derek Deacon alone. Forget all about him. You’re interfering in things you don’t understand and I can’t protect you from getting yourselves hurt.’
‘You’re protecting us? That’s a joke.’
‘You look a little older and smarter than our friend here,’ he said to Dylan. ‘Maybe you can explain the facts of life to him.’
As Brennan walked over to his car, I asked, ‘Are you going to give us a ride back?’
He laughed. ‘You like to push, don’t you, son?’
Lap Twenty
A
cab returned Dylan and me to the scene of our botched crime. The Subaru sat parked in the same place, untouched and still intact. Brennan had had plenty of time to put a call into Derek’s boys and I half expected to find a smoking husk as our punishment for poking our noses where they weren’t welcome.
We looked across the street at the workshop. No one watched us from inside. The place had remained just as intact as the Subaru. Our little night-time escapade had failed to provoke a reaction. There’d been no dawn raid to clear the place out and cover their tracks. We hadn’t caused them to lose a moment’s sleep. I didn’t know whether or not to be insulted.
‘That proved to be a less than successful night,’ Dylan said.
It was hard to disagree. We had nothing physical to show for our efforts, but a little more of the puzzle had been revealed. Derek was showing exactly how far his influence stretched. Maybe the stories about his links to organized crime were true. He did seem to have friends everywhere.
‘Could have been worse,’ I said and tossed the keys to Dylan. ‘We could still be in jail.’
He snatched them from the air. ‘Don’t remind me. Let’s get out of here before someone changes their mind.’