Just the Job, Lad

  JUST THE JOB, LAD

  Mike Pannett

  www.hodder.co.uk

  Also by Mike Pannett:

  Now Then, Lad

  You’re Coming With Me, Lad

  Not On My Patch, Lad

  About the Author

  Mike Pannett was born in York and served nearly twenty years in the police. After starring in BBC’s Country Cops he was inspired to write about his adventures in the North Yorkshire force. Mike now lives in a small village in the shadow of the North Yorkshire moors.

  First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Mike Pannett and Alan Wilkinson 2011

  Map © Ulla Saar

  The right of Mike Pannett and Alan Wilkinson to be identified as the Authors of the Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Epub ISBN: 9781444708943

  Book ISBN: 9781444720594

  Hodder and Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  In memory of John Corner.

  A true Yorkshireman and dear friend.

  With special thanks to Alan Wilkinson and my wife, Ann.

  Contents

  Chapter 1 Duty Calls

  Chapter 2 Sting in the Tail

  Chapter 3 Snout and About

  Chapter 4 Going Dutch

  Chapter 5 Occupational Hazards

  Chapter 6 Night Rider

  Chapter 7 Good Cop, Bad Cop

  Chapter 8 Testing Times

  Chapter 9 As Sly as a Fox

  Chapter 10 Par for the Course

  Chapter 11 A Strange Encounter

  Chapter 12 Penny

  Chapter 13 Ghost Busters

  Chapter 14 Full-steam Ahead

  Acknowledgements

  As in my previous books about policing in North Yorkshire, all the cases I deal with actually happened. I have changed the names of the characters – police as well as villains – and altered the locations and certain details but only when absolutely necessary to protect people’s identities.

  Policing procedures are always being updated; what you read here accurately reflects the way we operated at the time each event took place – which in every case is within the last ten years.

  Mike Pannett

  North Yorkshire

  Chapter 1

  Duty Calls

  ‘Walt! Where are you, mate?’

  All I could hear was the cawing of the rooks as they busied themselves high up in the sycamores. Spring was here, their young were hatching, and they were busy repairing their nests, rickety, fragile things perched among the topmost branches.

  ‘Walt!’ I pushed the wrought-iron gate open and squeezed into the yard. ‘Come on now, let’s be having you.’ I knew he was there – somewhere. The car was parked in its usual place with the lid of the boot wide open, and the door of his shed was creaking as it swung this way and that.

  ‘Come on out. It’s no good hiding, mate.’

  From inside the shed I heard a dull rumble, followed by clattering, as if a pile of loose slates was falling off a roof. A moment later a cloud of dust rolled out, followed by Walter, clutching a grubby red handkerchief to his mouth with one hand and holding a coil of frayed hempen rope in the other. It was a mild afternoon, despite the wind, and the layer of grime that covered his bare forehead was streaked with sweat.

  ‘Good job you’re here, lad, ’cos I’m at the end of me tether.’ He paused to flick a cobweb off his waistcoat and mop his face. ‘I’ve had it up to here, lad.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, eyeing the rope. ‘Decided to end it all, have you? Just because me and Ann took off for a few days in the sun?’

  ‘’Tisn’t a laughing matter, lad. Nearly broke me neck looking for this here rope.’ I’d never seen Walt scowl before. He nodded towards the kitchen window, where I could see Henry’s head bobbing into view as he hurled himself at the steamed-up glass. ‘That blooming dog of yours, why, he’s led me such a dance.’

  ‘Aye, he’s a challenge. Bit of a slippery customer is our Henry.’

  ‘Slippery? He’s like a blooming little eel – and crafty with it.’ Walt was shaking a tangle out of the rope. ‘Why, there’s no controlling him. Pulled t’lead right out of me hand this morning. Shot off across t’field and come back two hours later without it.’

  ‘So is that for me?’ I said, holding my hand out.

  ‘I’m goin’ to lend you this rope, that’s what I’m going to do. While you buy a new lead – a strong ’un. If you want my advice you’ll get yourself down to Yates’s and treat yourself to one o’ them chainlink jobs.’ He led the way to the back door, and kicked off his turned-down wellies. ‘And I’ll give you another tip while you’re here. You want to get that dog properly trained before you go traipsing off abroad and dropping your friends in the mire. Why, he’s three sheets to t’wind.’

  ‘He’s a character all right.’

  ‘A character? He’s bloody cracked, that’s what he is. You wanna get him to one of them – them pet psychics.’

  ‘You mean psychiatrists, Walt.’

  ‘You know what I mean. One of them as sorts his mind out.’ Walt handed me the rope and opened the back door. Henry leapt out, almost taking me off my feet as he jumped up at me, licking my face.

  ‘Right then,’ I said, threading the rope through his collar and trudging towards the gate, ‘I suppose I’ll see you later.’

  I had my hand on the latch when he called me back. ‘Now then, don’t be tekking it personal, lad. Let’s not be falling out.’ I turned around to see him forcing a resigned sort of grin. ‘Tie him up to t’post yonder and come in the house. We’ll have a cup of tea and a bit of a catch-up, shall we?’

  ‘Good man.’ I followed him inside, hung my jacket on the back of the door and sat myself down at the scrubbed wooden table. Walt filled the teapot from a simmering kettle and put two mugs and a plate of rock buns on the table. ‘Them’s me sister’s,’ he added. ‘Fresh out of her oven this morning. Dig in, lad. They want eating.’

  ‘I tell you what,’ I mumbled through a mouth full of crumbs, ‘that sister of yours can’t half bake.’

  ‘Aye well, she used to do it professionally. Still does a turn for family and friends. Weddings, christenings and suchlike.’ He sat down and started drumming his fingers on the table. And whistling. Then he winked at me. ‘How was your trip?’

  ‘Oh. Grand, mate, grand.’ I was looking at the teapot, still on the stove. I fancied another cake but my mouth was dry as a bone.

  ‘Got a cheap deal, did you?’

  ‘An absolute bargain, Walt.’

  ‘Aye, and no kennel fees or owt.’ He was drumming his fingers and whistling again.

  ‘Oh hell, Walt!’ I went over to the door and reached inside my jacket pocket. ‘Here,’ I said. ‘Almost forgot.’ I handed him the duty-free Ann and I had brought back for him.

  He tore the wrapping paper off and stared at the Greek writing on the bottle. ‘Why, what sort of concoction is this?’ He unscrewed the top and was sniffing at the contents.

  ‘It’s all the rage over there, mate. Ouzo.’

  ‘Ouzo you say? Smells like blooming aniseed balls to
me.’

  ‘Aye, it does. And you wanna go steady with it. Just a little splash in the bottom of your glass and top it up with water. Treat it like medicine. Like the doctor says. One spoonful at bedtime – or as required. It’ll calm your nerves after all the excitement.’

  Walt just grinned and put the bottle in his cupboard. ‘Aye well,’ he said, ‘I suppose I shall have to forgive you now. But don’t forget what I said about a lead. Chainlink, that’s what you want.’

  As I walked back down the hill half an hour later, with Henry tugging away at his rope, I still felt a twinge of guilt, but I knew Walter wasn’t one to bear a grudge. We’d had a really good holiday, me and Ann. And we’d needed it. We’d timed it to perfection. The end of April had seen a cold wind sweeping down from the north, and we’d grinned smugly all the way to Cyprus, supping our duty-free; and as we lazed away the afternoons on the beach we scanned the English papers, day after day, relishing the reports of record low temperatures, and the familiar photographs of snow-covered daffodils. How lucky can you get? By the time we arrived home the sun was shining, the fields were greening up, and the birds were singing. Spring was in the air, and the best of it was, I could look forward to another day off before I was due back at work. No such luck for Ann though; she was starting that same night, ten o’clock, and wasn’t feeling like it. At all.

  ‘Tell you what,’ I said, as we strolled along the brow above Wharram Percy with Henry tugging at Walter’s rope. It was getting on for teatime, and I was thinking about food. ‘I’ll make you a nice pack-up to take into work tonight, something to look forward to. Then maybe this evening I’ll pop over to my mum’s. Catch up with her, show her a few holiday pictures. I’ll download ’em onto a CD for her.’

  ‘Just mind your mum doesn’t keep you nattering till the small hours,’ Ann said. ‘I know what you two are like, once you start reminiscing.’

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘I don’t have to be up early.’

  As ever, Ann was right. Mum and I chatted long into the night. We talked about everything under the sun, as we always do, and I never did get to show her the photographs. It was past midnight when I set off for home. Tired as I was, I was already starting to think about work, and what might be in store for me after a ten-day break. You try and switch off when you’re away from the job, but of course you never manage to tidy all the loose ends before you sign off. I’d left a few unresolved problems, one of which was a series of thefts that had plagued our area over the winter. This wasn’t small-scale stuff. It was trailers, horseboxes and the like, with the odd four-wheel-drive vehicle thrown in. We’d had bits and pieces of intelligence but no substantial leads, and our inspector had got on the case, demanding that we come up with something – soon.

  Some people say you shouldn’t take your work home with you, but I’ve never really seen the sense in that, certainly not for a rural officer. The people I socialise with are the same people I ‘protect and serve’, as we like to say – unlike in London, where you tend to live outside of the area you work in. So anything my friends complain about when we’re out at the pub of an evening, or when I pop into the village shop – even when we’re out fishing – it all goes into my own personal database. Much as I like my time off, a part of my brain is always on duty. Always has been. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re a police officer that’s what you are. An upholder of the law, twenty-four seven. There’s no getting away from the job. You expect people to confide in you – the same as they would if you were a doctor, I dare say. You may not always be conscious of it, but as a copper you’re always absorbing bits and pieces of information. And I’m always observing, taking mental notes. I don’t mean to. It’s just the way I am. In fact, thinking back, I sometimes wonder which came first – an observant, inquisitive nature or the ambition to be a copper. Because I was always interested in what was going on around me. Always will be. Besides, I joined up to catch criminals. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t go around looking for it off duty, but if something happens I’m not one to turn a blind eye.

  I’d made my way onto the A64 and was just approaching the Little Chef, near the lane that takes you down to Claxton, and there, parked up next to the filling station, I spotted a little yellow Datsun. I wouldn’t normally have taken much notice, tired as I was, but as I passed it a match flared up in the cab and illuminated three faces, all male. Now, if it had been a car, and if they’d been youngsters, I might have assumed they were on their way home from a night out, or maybe on their mobiles trying to find out where the party was. But this was a rusty old pick-up, and they were all grown men, in their thirties or maybe older. They didn’t look like lads on a night out. And the petrol station was closed. Closed at half ten as far as I could recall. So the thought sort of skittered across my mind: what were they up to? No question about it: they looked dodgy.

  Even as I hesitated, and then drove on towards the dual carriageway, I remembered something Ed had mentioned just before I went on leave. Something about a pick-up truck that had been seen in the vicinity of a recent trailer theft. As I thought about what he’d told me my foot hovered over the brake. He’d said it was a yellow one. And a Datsun.

  To tell the truth, at that moment I clean forgot I was off-duty. I went onto automatic pilot. I checked the rear-view mirror. There was nothing behind me. I drove on a few hundred yards until the road curved and I was sure I would be out of sight, then turned around and headed back towards York. I slowed as I approached the filling station, hoping to get a better look at the truck and the occupants, and maybe get their registration number. But they’d gone – and in the distance I caught just a brief glimpse of their rear lights before they disappeared from sight.

  It was at this point that I realised the position I was getting myself into. One, I was off duty. Two, I was in my own car, which wasn’t the nippiest. And three, I had none of my equipment with me. No handcuffs, no CS gas – and, of course, no uniform to identify myself as a copper, although as always I had my warrant card in my wallet. All I had was an unreliable mobile phone – and here I was out in the country where the signal came and went on a whim. This was not the type of situation you would want to be in when you were on your own, not even if you were on duty.

  I drove on, at speed. A mile further, at the junction where I’d joined the main road, I saw the pick-up signalling right for Flaxton and Sheriff Hutton. I slowed instantly. I had been surveillance trained in the Met, and had a fair bit of experience involving follows of suspect vehicles. I’d learned to be cautious. The last thing you want is to alert a driver to the fact that they’re being followed, because as often as not it’ll panic them and blow your cover. They end up spooked, and that’s the end of the job.

  So there was no way I was going to telegraph my intentions by switching on my indicators and following them down the lane. Instead I would drive on past the junction totally naturally, give them time to get ahead and out of sight, then turn round and pick them up somewhere down the minor road. But as I watched them swing off to the right I saw two cars approaching me from the direction of York – and both of them slowed, signalled, and turned towards Flaxton.

  Perfect, I thought. Cover for me. I signalled, pulled to the right, and braked as they made their manoeuvre. I noted that the first was an old Mondeo with a single male occupant. The second was a battered Cavalier. I followed it into the lane. I could clearly hear that its exhaust was blown. That’s when I started to get the feeling that there was something wrong. Something in my gut – something about the type of cars and the look of the occupants – was telling me that the three vehicles were actually together. I picked up my mobile from the seat beside me and punched the autodialler, hoping that the night-duty staff in the control room weren’t too busy.

  I was in luck. The control-room staff responded quickly.

  ‘Mike?’

  ‘Yeah Brian, it’s me.’

  ‘Thought you were on leave.’

  ‘I was. Still am, in fact. But list
en, I’m out and about and I’ve just spotted sommat.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘I’ve got three vehicles in front of me heading from the A64 towards Flaxton. There’s something not right about them. Can you get somebody out here?’

  I gave Brian the number of the Cavalier, which was barely fifty yards ahead of me and travelling at a steady 30 or 40 mph, which, given the time of night, seemed slow.

  It didn’t take Brian long to come back. ‘Yeah, we’ve had intelligence reports on this one, Mike. Owned by a known associate of . . .’ The name he gave me sent a shock wave through me. It was a member of a notorious gang, an extended family from one of the York estates. They were into a wide range of criminal activities and had a record of vicious and violent assaults.

  My hands tightened on the wheel. ‘Right,’ I said, ‘he’s in a convoy of three vehicles, and I’m pretty sure the first vehicle is also suspect. It’s a yellow . . .’

  I got no further. The familiar whine from my phone told me I’d lost my signal. I dropped it onto the seat beside me and concentrated on keeping a safe distance – a discreet distance – from the cars ahead of me. Maybe I should have turned round and gone back to where I was getting reception, but I was determined not to lose this lot. If they were up to something perhaps this was a chance to collar them in the act and put them out of circulation for a while. The area would certainly be a safer place. Besides, by this time the adrenaline was flowing through my veins and I was smelling a result.

  We were approaching Flaxton now, and I’d relaxed a little. I expected them to carry on to Sheriff Hutton or beyond, but suddenly they pulled in at a gated entrance to a field, one after the other. I wondered whether they suspected me and wanted to get me out of the way. If I’d had any doubts up to now, this at least confirmed that the three were operating together. I drove on past at a steady speed, looking straight ahead all the way. That’s another surveillance tip: never show any obvious interest in the suspect. What you need to do is act as normal as possible.