Original Skin Read online

  Tressider was popular in the press from the off, making headlines for his plain speaking, his witty comebacks, and his anti-bullshit stance. He was censured several times for swearing during committee meetings, and reveled in the public perception of him as a proper Yorkshireman who says what he likes, and likes what he bloody well says.

  He was elected to the Humberside Police Authority a couple of years back, and set about making it his own. The role suited him. In 2005 Tressider was among the councillors who refused to enforce the home secretary’s order that the then chief constable be suspended after Humberside Police’s record keeping was found to be dangerously flawed. He gained favor in many quarters for telling the politician to “keep his nose out” of local affairs. Always good for a sound bite, the local papers are having a ball imagining the fun he will have if he is chosen by the Conservatives to stand as an MP at the next general election.

  “Anyway, glad you could make it, Sergeant. We have things to discuss.”

  Tressider pulls his papers toward him and peers at an agenda item. Then he raises his eyes and examines McAvoy more closely. “The Yorkshire Post says you’re the face of sexy policing.”

  There is a titter from the other committee members, who all turn their attention to McAvoy.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman?”

  “Here,” he says, and locates a photocopied piece of paper among the documents on his desk.

  McAvoy recognizes the piece. Feels his heart sink.

  Tressider clears his throat, theatrically.

  “‘Some might say they represent the “sexy” side of detective work. They’re the men and women who delve into the very heart of the most high-profile murder cases, using skills and expertise that will eventually jail killers and make the streets a safer place.’”

  Tressider looks up. Smiles.

  Continues: “‘It is a role that spawns images of fictional detectives like Morse, Rebus, and Thorn.’”

  Moves his finger along the page before him, enunciating every word.

  “‘But in a humble room next to the canteen at Courtland Road Police Station on Hull’s Orchard Park yesterday, the scene was a far cry from a TV detective show.

  “‘The Yorkshire Post had been invited to meet a team formed last year with a Home Office grant, which is helping to change the way major incidents are investigated, both locally and nationally. They are the Serious and Organized Crime Unit—the force’s murder squad. The team at Courtland Road represents one strand of a hundred-strong pool of civilian and police officers on both banks of the River Humber, which investigates all suspicious deaths and other serious crimes. Many of the civilians are themselves retired police officers, who sift through the mountains of information that pour into the Major Incident Room. They are using decades of experience that the force is reluctant to lose through retirement.’”

  Tressider stops. Gives McAvoy a grin.

  Reads on.

  “‘Detective Superintendent Patricia Pharaoh, senior investigating officer, said, “We’re trying something a little different, and the assessment so far is that it’s working. The volume of documents alone requires such careful and meticulous flow to the right people and our processes are very rigid. It’s hard to quantify the successes in the past few months but we know this squad is making a difference. We hope that, even in the face of budget constraints, people realize how important this unit is.”’”

  There is muttering from some of the other committee members.

  “Nicely done,” says Tressider with a nod. “There’s more, by the way. Shall I?”

  McAvoy says nothing. Wonders if he will get the blame for the newspaper article as well as everything else.

  Tressider continues. “‘Even though the force now uses the Holmes computer system, much of an investigation is still paper-based. The Serious and Organized Crime Unit receive all the information. Every item goes to a receiver, who reads it and decides how it will be dealt with. The indexers then put the information into the system before it is read by a dedicated document reader. This person rereads every document that comes in and decides on any other work that needs to be done. The action manager then allocates work to action teams, based on whether the work is high, medium, or low in conjunction with policy. This all then comes back to the office manager, who gives the final signature on all actions and is responsible for the Major Incident Room running as it should.’”

  Tressider stops. Raises his head and gives a mock yawn. “I, for one, was bloody enthralled.”

  McAvoy looks up, changes his mind, and turns his attention to ensuring his cuffs are the right length. The material squelches between his fingers.

  “Sexy, Sergeant?” Tressider gives him a mock once-over. “I’m not sure I can judge. You might be the wife’s type!”

  He turns to his vice-chair: a gray-haired and nervous woman in a twinset and pearls. “What you reckon, Noreen? Sexy policing?”

  The lady gives an embarrassed giggle, which seems to somehow disappoint Tressider. It’s clear how the big man became chairman with such ease. Clear, too, what an asset he will be to his party if they give him the nod and jockey him to Westminster the way so many are predicting.

  “Good publicity, anyway,” says Tressider, picking at his teeth with a large finger. “We’ll be looking at your unit in time, Sergeant. Looking at budget usage across the board. But I don’t mind headlines like these. Don’t mind at all.”

  McAvoy looks at his papers. Tries to unfold them and finds they are too soggy to come apart. “The reporter made the request for access through the official channels,” he says. “I was just there on the day . . .”

  Tressider waves him into silence with his paw of a right hand. Sits forward in his chair.

  “To business,” he says, and there is a general murmur from the assembled committee members.

  They represent the great, the good, and the interfering bastards from the local community. The authority consists of seventeen members. Half are elected councillors from the area’s four councils, and the others are independents. They are the top bosses. The men and women who make the big decisions and appoint the top brass. And there’s not a copper among them.

  “Detective Sergeant McAvoy is here to address your particular questions about the increase in violent crime, Mr. Chairman.”

  Tressider fixes Everett with a withering look. “I believe it was your presence I requested about that, Everett.”

  Everett squirms. “McAvoy is a key member of the team currently investigating that particular issue, and . . .”

  Tressider nods. Turns his attention to McAvoy.

  “Vietnamese, I’m told,” he says brusquely. “Always been a bugger for the cannabis, ain’t they? But it seems to be getting nasty. Stop me if I’m wrong.”

  McAvoy takes a breath. Wonders where to start.

  For the past five years the local cannabis market has been run by Vietnamese gangs, setting up farms in disused warehouses and abandoned buildings, quietly cultivating their crop and then selling on through a network of dealers. Things ran smoothly. The people who got hurt had usually rocked the boat, and Humberside Police paid little attention to the cultivation of a drug they expected to be legalized within the next parliamentary term.

  Then a year or so back the Drugs Squad began to hear rumors that, on this coast at least, the Vietnamese were being outmuscled and outgunned. Somebody else was moving in, and their methods of persuasion were not pretty.

  A few months ago two Asian men were found unconscious on the shingle at Hessle Foreshore. Their faces showed marks of sustained beating, but it was the injuries to the rest of the two men’s bodies that caused the paramedics to gasp.

  Naked, fetal, their hands had been nailed to their knees.

  Strips of flesh on their torsos and backs had been melted to the color and consistency of burned jam.

  Ther
e was every indication that a nail gun had been used to drive in their restraints, and a heated paint-stripping tool used to inflict the damage.

  The men were alive purely because the message their attackers wished to send was made more potent by their mutilation.

  Neither spoke a word of English, but their eyes told a story in a universal language.

  A couple of months later a terraced house in the west of the city was burned to the ground—the occupants still inside. The smell that billowed out from the smashed windows put firefighters and officers in mind of a community barbecue. Half of the neighborhood got high on the fumes as a massive amount of fresh-picked cannabis went up in smoke. It could not quite mask the reek of burning flesh.

  Despite the protestations of Detective Superintendent Adrian Russell on the Drugs Squad, a decision was taken to make the investigation into the assaults the priority, and Trish Pharaoh was given command.

  Nobody has any doubts that the victims were involved in cannabis production. Their clothes had shown traces of marijuana, of fertilizer—even the broad of sparkling mineral water known among the experts to produce a flowering harvest.

  She got little from the victims at first, but by pulling in a few favors and suggesting she could assist with their pleas to be allowed to stay in the United Kingdom rather than be returned to Vietnam, she managed to get descriptions of the men who had hurt them. They spoke of big white men. Men who had been giving them orders ever since they smashed down the door to one of their marijuana farms and pressed a mobile phone to their foreman’s ear. Their gang leader was relinquishing authority for their operation. The crop, and the workers, were now somebody else’s property. They were to cooperate. Work hard. Their families would be taken care of.

  The man’s transgression was never truly explained. They upset somebody. Did something wrong. Said the wrong thing, perhaps. Made a call they should not have made. They fell foul of their new bosses. And they paid the price.

  Little was yet known about these new players on the drugs scene, but the next set of crime statistics was an embarrassment to the top brass. The number of incidents of cannabis possession was up 17 percent in twelve months. More than that, violent crime was on the rise. It wasn’t the street dealers who were taking the beatings. It was the people with backroom growing operations. People who grew enough to supply themselves and their friends. They were the ones being beaten down in the street. Beaten beyond recognition. Rendered too afraid or too unintelligible to talk.

  Tressider is sufficiently concerned to demand answers. And Everett has none to give.

  Stammering at first, and then warming to his theme, McAvoy outlines the situation as best he can. Tells the committee that it is not merely a matter of insufficient resources. It is a case that the new drugs operation is, in no uncertain terms, “very, very good.”

  “Bloody cannabis,” says Tressider. “Should just legalize it. Get it over with. Going to happen, isn’t it? Backward and forward this country. Can’t have a smoke in a pub but you can drink a liter of supermarket cider for two pounds fifty! And all this nail-gun business! By Christ but that’s vicious.”

  “We’ve tried to find examples of similar techniques used nationally, but we’re having no success, sir. These people seem to have appeared out of nowhere. They took over, and now they’re having their way . . .”

  “But cannabis? Why not cocaine? Ecstasy? Heroin, even?”

  McAvoy feels a vibration in his pocket, and discreetly retrieves his mobile phone. He has to fight to keep the smile from his face.

  “We’ve made a significant breakthrough, sir,” he says firmly. “An informant of Detective Superintendent Pharaoh has supplied us with the location of the current bulk of the cannabis operation. We’re hopeful a raid will be imminent, and that the perpetrators of the foreshore attacks will be present.”

  Tressider holds his gaze for a fraction of a second longer than McAvoy is comfortable with. He is not sure what the chairman is thinking, or whether he is about to be praised or bawled out.

  “It’s a relief to find some bugger who knows what he’s doing,” says Tressider at length. “Sounds like you’ve got a busy day ahead of you. We won’t detain you further.”

  McAvoy begins to stand.

  “Actually, a piss would be nice. Shall we call a break?”

  Amid mutterings of both consternation and agreement, the committee members stand. McAvoy gathers his things.

  “A shambles,” says Everett under his breath. “Bloody shambles.”

  McAvoy presumes the remark to be directed at himself. Chooses not to hear it.

  Squeezing through the throng of bodies and careful not to touch anybody with his damp clothes, he makes his way out of the room and down the stairs. He can feel a fizz of excitement building inside him. Pharaoh has made progress. Leanne has an address. And within the hour they could have everything they need to kick in some doors and slap on handcuffs.

  He emerges back onto the High Street to find that the rain has paused for breath. The cold wind grabs his soaking clothes and instantly brings goose pimples to his skin. He shivers. Looks at his watch and tries to decide what to do for the next hour. He has some time to kill before meeting Pharaoh, a five minutes’ walk away in one of the quieter pockets of the city center, and were he to drive back to the office he would only have to turn around and come back again. He looks around.

  Next door to the Police Authority stands the Hull and East Riding Museum. He has been here plenty of times with Roisin and Fin, but Lilah is probably still too young to appreciate the giant woolly mammoth that stands in the entrance, or the siege gun commissioned by Henry VIII, which was dug up by archaeologists excavating the city walls and placed on display alongside other exhibits from the city’s colorful past.

  His feet take him past the entrance and down to the water’s edge. The River Hull gives the city its name, and scythes into the city center, then onward into the dark, muddy waters of the Humber. He stares down at the dirty water. At the feet of thick mud, which sit like so much chocolate mousse against the brick and timber walls of the footpath upon which he now stands.

  To his left is the Arctic Corsair, an old-fashioned sidewinder trawler transformed into a floating museum by well-meaning types keen to ensure that everybody get a chance to experience the hell of life on board a distant-water fishing vessel.

  Idle, directionless, he walks along the towpath by the river. Looks up at the busy divided highway overhead. Past the overpass, to where the curious, curving pyramid structure of the city’s aquarium sits, incongruously modern and shiny, on the muddy spit of land called Sammy’s Point.

  The rain begins to fall again. He wonders for a time whether he should huddle under the bridge until he dries out. Perhaps phone Roisin, or call Helen Tremberg to see if anything has occurred that requires his attention.

  Realizing he has thought himself into inertia, he retreats from the downpour and leans against one of the concrete columns that support the overpass. Closes his eyes. Wonders for a time whether he should have responded to ACC Everett’s muttered criticisms, or whether he was right to keep his mouth shut.

  He looks back the way he has come. Back at the city where he has spent most of his career so far. Where he has risked his life, and captured men and women who have claimed the lives of others. It is a city he cannot love, and yet he feels an affection for it. A closeness. Feels a bond with this city at the end of the motorway, which grew to prosperity on the back of an industry which killed its men, only to slump into listlessness and decay when it disappeared.

  At the back of the Police Authority building he can make out the shapes of two stick men. Two silhouettes, picked out against the white paint of the Corsair and the gray of the sky.

  He wonders if they are committee members. Whether they are councillors having a shifty smoke, or laughing at the great, hulking sergeant who had turned up damp, but s
till somehow seemed to persuade Tressider that the sun shone out of his arse.

  McAvoy begins walking back. He makes no attempt to protect himself from the rain. He is too soaked to see the point.

  Lost in thoughts, adrift in a not-unpleasant daydream, he does not see the two figures depart. He finds himself back at the riverside quicker than he had expected. Gives a last look at the water. Indulges himself in a smile as he looks at the wheels of the supermarket trolley sticking out of the mud bank. The bottles and mattress springs that litter its surface. The mobile phone, sitting on the thick and cloying surface like a tooth left in the frosting of a chocolate cake . . .

  He moves to the water’s edge. Crouches down.

  The mud stops perhaps ten feet below him. Slopes down to water six feet below that.

  From this angle, the phone looks relatively new. He wonders if it has slipped from somebody’s pocket. Whether it has been kicked accidentally over the side, amid the chaos and frenzy of the rain.

  McAvoy screws up his eyes. He’s surprised the phone hasn’t yet slipped beneath the surface. Whether it is his duty as a policeman to try and recover such obviously valuable property.

  Leading down from the footpath, nailed into the river wall, is a metal ladder; its surface slick and grimy, mud-soaked and treacherous.

  Is it worth it, Aector? Seriously?

  He looks at his watch.

  It could belong to one of the committee members. Could be important.

  Screws up his eyes.

  You could fix it, if it’s broken. Would be a challenge for you.

  Lifts one gigantic leg over the side.

  Just see if you can reach it . . .

  Begins to climb down.

  10:46 A.M. EIGHTY MILES WEST.

  A LIGHT DRIZZLE falling softly on gray, uneven pavements, on plywood shop fronts and untaxed cars.

  “Shit-tard bollocking fuckcunts!”