Chapter 4
It was at four o'clock that same morning MacAllister walked into the Bricewell station looking more than a little pleased with himself and approached the desk. There was no one else around and he nodded to the desk sergeant who was reading a book.
“Hello, Bob. Quiet night?”
The sergeant looked at him for a while before he answered. John MacAllister could never be described as a smoothy. He was no clotheshorse and never looked smart except when dressed casually. Even when dressed in a good suit and with his shoes polished like now, he could still give the impression of having rapidly just tidied himself up after a fight. Because of this he rarely wore a suite, usually dressed in trousers and a leather jacket. Sergeant Bob Daniels shook his head in disbelief both a MacAllister's question and his appearance. John MacAllister wearing a suite? He shrugged off his disbelief and answered the question.
“After a Friday night? You must be joking.” He inclined his head. “Still, I have known worse.”
“Anything for us?”
“No, just the usual drunken mayhem.” he paused. “Well, there was one girl in here claiming she was raped, but she would only talk to a woman. I gave her to Jackie Ward. That was over two hours ago.”
MacAllister nodded.
“Well Clive will be bringing in seven more customers for you in about twenty minutes. If you are really short of space you can double them up. One of them may have a broken collar bone so you had better ring the doctor. Another is the night watchman down at Pearson’s warehouse, name of Gillings. Keep him separated from the rest of them will you or we may have a murder on our hands. He was the inside man and the others are sure to point the finger at him for grassing them up even although he didn’t.”
He watched while the man made some notes.
“Anyone else from CID in the building?”
Bob Daniels indicated the door at behind the counter with a slight movement of his head.
“I think Jackie is still here from seeing that girl that I was just telling you about.”
“Good. I'll go and see what happened.”
He disappeared through the door. The Sergeant was back into his book before it had closed behind him.
Detective Inspector John MacAllister was a copper of the old school. He was a professional policeman, who like who like a lot of his colleagues still firmly believed in flogging and hanging. Nearly thirty years of being a policeman meant that there was not much that he had not seen and he had long come to the view that the victim never got such a good deal as the offender. Once the case was over the victim was usually forgotten while the offender had a stream of Prison Visitors, Probation Officers and bleeding heart care groups to look after him and make sure he had everything he needed to keep him comfortable until his next opportunity to offend, and in MacAllister’s experience that was what they invariably did.
Although often sorely tempted, MacAllister had never in his life actually framed anyone, but had often obtained complete confessions by lying to arrested subjects about the weight of evidence actually held against them. Most of his colleagues thought it was this that had probably stalled his career. Having made Detective Inspector at an unusually early age, he had stayed at that rank for the last eighteen years. The powers that be loved his result rate, but didn't see him as Senior Officer material. He didn't mind. One more step up the ladder and he would no longer be hands on. He would be steering a desk and he didn't want that. John MacAllister was made for the front line. Besides, he knew the truth about his lack of promotion.
When he had first made DI he had been brought some evidence of a child pornography ring operating on his manor, he was stationed in North London at the time. He felt that because of the nature of the case and the people involved he should inform his station commander before going ahead with the investigation and he did so. To his surprise he was told to drop the case. Not officially mind you, but it was an order just the same. At the time MacAllister had two young kids of his own just out of nappies and he had ignored the order. Three paedophiles had ended up doing three years each and a Junior Minister and a well know Judge had to resign when it was discovered they had been paying customers for photographs that would have turned most men's stomachs. But MacAllister had gone against the system and as a result of this his card was marked. Nothing he could complain about, but he was transferred out of the Met and back to Bristol where he had earlier served as a sergeant and despite an excellent arrest record, he was never promoted again.
MacAllister ran a very tight unit and expected his officers to have their first loyalty to him and his view of how a CID office should be run. Those that couldn't comply with this, for whatever reason, were soon transferred away. Within the Bricewell Police Station he was sometimes referred to “Inspector Balsov”, said with the appropriate Middle European accent. This had occurred when he had been the second person into the home of a well-known crack dealer, following rapidly on the heels of the constable wielding the sledgehammer. Because the man they had come to arrest had a history of carrying firearms the arresting officers were also armed for this raid. The surprised druggie had fired one shot at the intruders, which had taken the constable with the sledge hammer in the right thigh, before trying to get out of the back window. MacAllister had had just time for one snap shot in return as the man had dived through the window and dropped the two floors to the garden below. It turned out the bullet had removed the unfortunate man’s testicles almost as cleanly as a knife. MacAllister had survived the consequent inquiry into the shooting and had only found out about his new nickname after a raw recruit on his first day at the station had actually addressed him as Inspector Balsov in the belief that it was his real name. He did nothing to discourage it and if truth were known, he was secretly rather pleased about it.
To his superiors he presented something of a dilemma. He was a very successful officer who knew his patch like the back of his hand. He inspired total loyalty in his own team of officers and was something of a legend in the Bristol area. His own immediate superior maintained that many criminals stayed away from their patch merely because of John MacAllister's presence. On the other hand he could be a complete maverick who totally ignored any orders he thought to be ill considered or unworkable. He also had scant respect for Senior Officers, Scotland Yard, his local Police Commission and stupid restrictions on overtime working. These were all things that he considered prevented him from doing an even better job. He was against arming the police as a general measure, but was very much in favour of armed response teams and could shoot a regulation pistol with either hand equally well, this ambidextrous prowess being forced upon him as a natural left hander who's boys only school didn't believe in them.
He had just the one dark sadness in his life. John MacAllister was a married man and had been for some twenty years. He had a twenty-year old son, Gavin, at University in Essex studying Law, and an eighteen-year old daughter, Kirsty. Kirsty worked for the County Council as a trainee accountant in the rates office and this September was marrying a sergeant from the Traffic Division. MacAllister would talk about his kids to anyone who would listen, but never talked about his wife because Jeanie MacAllister was a manic-depressive.
Along with many people similarly affected, her illness, though quite severe, only surfaced occasionally when she found herself to be under stress. The birth of both their children had been such occasions as were his promotion to Inspector and the resulting relocation to London. Any real pressure and Jeanie just fell apart, became paranoid and blamed the resulting chaos on MacAllister or his “bloody job”. When he had consequently been transferred back to Bristol in anger if not disgrace, his wife had been so pathetically pleased he had never seriously considered moving again.
His marriage was by then, in terms of love and affection, effectively over and he stayed with it only because of the children and Jeanie's illness. Divorce, he felt, could easily lead to a tragedy and he couldn't face that. However, now he could see another crisis looming with the m
arriage of his daughter Kirsty. Jeanie had built her life around the girl and would miss her sorely when she left to join her husband. Still, on this warm August night he was still full of the pleasure of a successful mission and these problems were far from his mind.
On the second floor MacAllister found Jackie Ward sitting at her desk in the CID office chewing the end of her biro as she read through her notes. Deciding he was off duty now and could relax a bit he allowed the male chauvinist all men carry within them to surface and admired her great breasts. She looked up and caught him at it, but merely gave a small grin.
“Hello, Guv. How did it go?”
He reached inside his new suit jacket and removed the automatic pistol he had been carrying. Checking the safety was on he threw it casually down on a pile of papers on the desk. His off the peg suit retained the shape of where it had been.
“Pretty good, but don't tell Marcus I said so. We caught six of them and the security man.”
He sat down and lifted his feet up onto a pile of paperwork that looked as if it had been there for a long time. MacAllister didn't like paperwork.
“What have you got? Bob Daniels said something about a rape.”
“Well, I think it probably is rape, Guv, but I don't think we have enough to go on.”
MacAllister gave her a crooked grin and sank down into a chair.
“Well come on, Jackie. Don't keep me in suspense. Give me all the juicy details.”
She wrinkled her nose. It was a mannerism of hers that truly turned him on.
“Well this girl, Alison Jenson, had just been to the Friday night dance at the Mecca. She admits she only went there for one reason and that was to get it off with the singer in last nights group.” She glanced at the report in front of her. “A bloke called Jason Goodwell.”
She looked back up at him.
“Well, she succeeded there all right, which isn't surprising because she is quite a looker.”
MacAllister interrupted her.
“Is she the one in interview room one? The one in the see through blouse and the non-existent skirt?”
Jackie Ward looked puzzled.
“How did you know that?”
MacAllister grinned again.
“I always make a habit of looking through all the spy holes in the interview room doors when I come in. That way I don't get surprised. Who are the other blokes in room three?”
“Hang on, Guv. One thing at a time.”
She looked again at her notes.
“Oh yes. Well, she got Jason Goodwell all right. Just walked into their bus and undressed him and herself and screwed him right there on one of the bunks in front of the rest of them. Of course I don't imagine he struggled too much.”
MacAllister started laughing. The even white teeth shining in the light of the overhead neon lighting
“No. I don't imagine he did. So where does the rape bit come in?”
Jackie sat back in her chair and put her feet up on the desk.
“Well, that's when we get to the problem. The girl says that Rasta Fairbrother, that's the big black bloke in interview room three, asked her if she was going to do the same for the rest of them. The girl maintains she couldn't bare to be touched by a black and told him so.”
She checked the notes again.
“Ah yes, here we are. I told him to, fuck off and shag one of your gorilla women.” She looked at MacAllister enquiringly. “Really knows how to get on with people doesn't she?”
MacAllister sighed and shaking his head lifted his legs from the desk and stood up.
“I think I can guess the rest.”
“Yes, I'm sure. Anyway, to cut a long story short she maintains that they then held her down and the other three raped her. All four men were involved in this.”
“What does the Doc say?”
“He says that she has had sexual intercourse, but that there was no proof it was rape. No cuts, scratches or any other signs of a struggle that could not have been caused when she was having it away with Goodwell.”
“So what are those fellows in the interview room for?”
Jackie Ward sucked at her bottom lip before answering his question with one of her own.
“Guv, you saw that girl. How old do you think she is?”
Walking away towards the door in search of the coffee machine MacAllister shrugged.
“I don't know. Twenty, twenty one?” He stopped dead and turned to face her. “How old is she?”
“She was fifteen years old three weeks ago, Sunday.”
MacAllister was suddenly all business.
“Right. Tell me what procedures you have carried out so far.”
Jackie allowed herself a small private smile. It wasn't often you could get a reaction out of MacAllister. Then she too was all business.
“Right, Guv. I didn't think to ask her age until we started to fill out the complaint form. I mean she hardly looks under age, does she? Then I immediately sent for the doctor and asked the engine room to get a trace on the addresses of Metal Heaven, that's the name of the group by the way. That wasn't difficult as three of them are living in at the polytechnic doing an engineering course. They gave us the address of the fourth guy and we sent out some uniforms to tell them what the problem was and to ask them to come in and make a statement.”
“What was their reaction?”
She sorted through her notes.
“They all expressed complete surprise that she should have accused them of rape. They all maintained that although the girl had only been after Jason Goodwell to begin with, she let the others have her when they offered her fifty pounds.” She reached into her drawer and brought out a plastic evidence bag. “Five ten pound notes found in the girls purse.”
MacAllister shrugged and relaxed.
“Well if that's the case the only thing we can do is have them for sex with a minor. What does the girl say about the money?”
Jackie gave him an old fashioned look and shrugged.
“She said a lot of things and not much of it was repeatable, she has some vocabulary, but the gist of it was that she had never seen it before and that bastard Goodwell had put it in her bag while the other bastards were raping her.”
“Any chance of breaking any of them from their story?”
“I don't think so. They all told it word perfect and separately. And they all know that rape carries a pretty heavy sentence.”
“What do you think really happened?”
She grimaced, yawned and stretched and then looked up at MacAllister who was again leaning against the wall watching her with interest as she strained the material of her blouse. She ignored his interest.
“I think it happened exactly as Alison Jenson tells it. Fairbrother, that's the black guy, is really enjoying himself, especially when he tells us that he thinks it was worth every penny of fifty pounds even if he has never had to pay for it before.”
“Do they know she's a minor?”
“They do now. I hoped that might shake them a bit, but although it did worry them, except Fairbrother that is, it hasn't changed their story.”
MacAllister began to pace around the office while he thought about it. Then, decision made, he stopped.
“Right. Release them, but tell them there may be charges brought on having sex with a minor.” He shook his head. “That girl looks at least as old as my Kirsty and a sight more experienced.” He shrugged. “Then we had better get the girl back to her mother.”
He started towards the door and then stopped.
“Where is her mother?”
Jackie Ward picked up her bag and got ready to leave.
“Her mother was not at home when we called. Alison says her mother thinks she is staying with a friend and that when she does that, her mother usually does the same.”
“Did she say who this friend is her mother stays with?”
Jackie gave him a tight little smile.
“No, she couldn't do that. She said it usually depends on who h
er mother meets on the night.”
MacAllister just nodded and sighed.
“OK. We will put her in one of the cells until morning under protective custody. I am not about to leave her alone in the middle of the night after what she has been through. Not even in her own house and not even if her own mother does so on a regular basis.”
He started towards the door a second time and then stopped again.
“Where's the father? Pissed off long ago I expect.”
“No Guv. He's in Belize, South America. He's a Sergeant Major in the Royal Marines. And I should leave her in the interview room if I were you. The Social Services are sending some one over any minute now and they will take responsibility for her.”
MacAllister just shook his head and finally manage to walk out of the office. Two minutes later as Janet Ward had just switched out the lights and was stepping into the corridor her self he came rushing back. She smiled at him sweetly and held out the automatic pistol he had left on his desk. He looked at her with his kestrel look for some moments before he reached out and took it and then without a word turned and walked away. Her voice followed him.
“If you bought a double breasted suite that gun would sit a lot more comfortably under it and you wouldn't have to take it out all the time. It would also show off your shoulders nicely as well.”
MacAllister ignored her. Jackie Ward had a figure like a stripper and it wouldn't take much for her to tempt him into something he had avoided for the last twenty odd years despite the offers he had received from time to time and that was crapping on his own doorstep. Not that he was an angel, far from it. But he did believe in keeping work and business very much apart.
Janet watched him go, smiled to herself and followed him down the corridor. Pity he was married.
It was twenty minutes later that Jean MacAllister heard her husband's car arrive and turn into their drive. She looked at the bedside clock and was not surprised to see it was nearly five o'clock. She had watched her husband change over the years from a hard working and cheerful bobby to a slightly embittered and extremely cynical Inspector of CID and she did not like the change. But she had been guilty herself of ignoring what was going on and had hidden away from it by devoting all her time to her children. However, her son was now of at university and her daughter was soon to fly the nest and start up her own home. Jean MacAllister had looked around and realised that she had nothing left except a husband she no longer knew. She wasn't quite sure yet what she was going to do about it, and putting the clock back on the bedside table turned over and pulled the covers up as if she was still asleep. It could all wait until Kirsty was safely married and then they would have to sort it out.