Mickey sat at the desk in the corner of the CID
office flicking file paper through his fingers. It was the information
on a mugging that had occurred two days previously at a local gay bar.
He wasn’t sure why he had been asked specifically to deal with it and he
didn’t really care. He had other, more important, things to worry about.
Kate sat opposite him, intently reading similar
pieces of file paper, head gently leant to one side resting on her arm,
her other hand fiddling with her hair. Mickey looked back down at the paper
in front of him, his mind reliving the night they had spent together. Not
that he had another chance with her, she’d probably prefer to be with Reg
Hollis rather than him at the moment.
Kate looked up at him as he let out a long sigh.
“You OK Mickey?”
“Yeah...” He stuttered uncommitfully,” Just peachy...Thanx”
She looked back down at the work apparently uninterested
in any further details.
At the front office Reg chewed on a blue biro
oblivious to the fact it had split at the end and had left his lips with
a new blue tint. He jerked his head up as the door opened and smiled as
a pretty girl walked through into the reception area. She stopped opposite
him at the front desk and stared at the blue mark on his face. “Yes madam,
anything I can help you with?”
“I have some useful information, is there anyone
more...um...senior I could speak to, like the person in charge for instance?”
“Of course, it’ll just be a moment.” He watched
as she sat down delicately on the most comfortable looking chair she could
find.
“Who shall I say wants him.”
“Oh, I’m Allegra, Allegra Draper.”
“So not much goin’ on then?” Nick questioned putting
his steamy black coffee down next to Smiffy’s bacon roll on the table in
front of him.
“Nah apparently the entire population of Sunhill
has decided to behave itself for once.”
Nick was just about to make some smart remark
when Chandler burst into the canteen with a look of elation on his face.
“PC Smith, Nick, you dealt with some robberies
at Flame a while back didn’t you?”
Nick nodded, “Gay club, yeah, I remember that
one alright.”
“You certainly enjoyed yourself anyway.” Smiffy’s
supposedly smart remark was met with a glare.
“Well,” Chandler continued staring hard at Smiffy,
“I’ve just got some more information and want you both to come and speak
to someone.”
“Just great,” Nick murmured, staring back longingly
at his coffee.
As Chandler herded Nick and Smiffy into his office
their frowns diminished as they spied Allegra sitting by the desk. She
had gold brown and red streaked hair and was wearing flared jeans and a
short purple top that didn’t leave much for the imagination.
“Allegra this is PC Dale Smith and PC Nick Klein.
This is Allegra Draper, it was her brother, Paul, that was mugged.”
The two uniformed men nodded in remembrance and
looked back at her.
“Well anyway no-one here seemed to care much
about it at the time so I decided to my own bit of investigating but I’ve
found out something entirely different as I’ve been telling Tom here, I
went to the club myself and found out that there are two men who run the
club and a further three that work there, behind the bar and stuff. I got
talking to one of the barmen who voiced his worries about a couple of the
guys there that night, namely Karl and Spencer Dorenz who...”
“Didn’t we nick them a couple of months back
for possession?”
“Yeah.” Smiffy nodded in agreement. “We caught
them on that bridge south of the station.”
Chandler just nodded slowly and looked at Allegra
giving her the cue to continue.
“Who seemed to be enlisting other people from
the club to help them in some special project they had going. The guy I
spoke to wasn’t quite sure what it was but apparently it was quite a big
scheme.”
“Didn’t anyone find it weird that you went in
there and started asking questions?”
“Uh did I not mention the guy I spoke to went
to school with me?”
Nick tried to hide a small smirk, but it crept
across his face anyway.
“I think Smiffy was on more about the fact that
you’re a woman.”
“Oh it’s for both sexes there are just more openly
gay men.”
Smiffy looked down at the floor unsure of what
to say.
Allegra continued with her story. “So I found
out that these guys, Karl and Spencer, are starting up some dodgy business.
They get a contact of theirs to break into a house that they’ve been monitoring
for a little while to see if there is anything of value in there you know
stuff like computers, video machines, DVD players, hifi’s.........”
“Basically technical equipment right?” Nick asked
impatiently.
“Yeah anyway they take it to some garage, take
off anything recognizable and then they can sell it off at bargain prices
but still making a profit because they stole it in the first place and
they’ve got quite a few enemies...”
“Figures.” Smiffy remarked bluntly.
“... and whats the best way of disposing of enemies?”
She looked between the three officers for some kind of answer. None came.
“Killing them, you see I’ve heard that theres
a guy in Sunhill at the moment thats selling off small quantities of various
chemicals and such, obviously expensive stuff. Imagine how dangerous that
could be. We could have a untreatable, and extremely dangerous illness
on our hands.”
Chandlers face hardened even more at this.
“So whats this got to do with us?” Smiffy looked
imploringly at Chandler.
“Well given your recent dealings with the gay
community...” Smiffy glared and shifted uncomfortably.”... I thought you
might want to help with the investigation that I’m going to set up.”
Nick nodded slowly then looked up slightly puzzled.
“Shouldn’t this go to CID? It’s a quite a scheme.”
Chandler smiled, “You will be working with CID
of course, I want to get it cleared up immediately before things get violent
and Miss Draper has volunteered her help as well to give us more of a cover
when we go in. We’ll start the real planning tomorrow up in my office
but keep it on your mind.”
Smiffy smiled as he walked back into the canteen
with Allegra by his side. Nick trailed after them he seemed uninterested
in the girl and Smiffy was seriously doubting his sexuality - again.
“So you just walked straight in there by yourself
and got all that information, maybe you should join the police.”
“I wanted to at one point but I don’t think I’m
really cut out for it.”
“Well you seem cut out perfectly.” Nick rolled
his eyes, anymore of Smiffy’s extremely bad chat up lines and he might
be forced to throw up. He stood up and wandered over to where Cass and
Vicki where sitting hoping the conversation would be slightly better.
“Thanks,” She smiled enjoying the attention.”Whats
wrong with him?”
“Dunno, just leave him. So do you know when this
operation starts then?”
“No idea I’m just the information gal.” She flicked
back her hair and smiled at him rocking back in the blue plastic canteen
chair. “So Smiffy, where do you guys go in the evenings to have fun around
here.”
“Those two look rather comfy.”
“Yeah very.” Nick agreed half-heartedly.
“Is it true Smiffys leaving in a few weeks?”
Cass probed Nick.
“Yeah SO19 jobby. Still you’ve always got me.”
Nick grinned and raised an eyebrow at her.
“Lucky me.” She leaned over and poked Nick in
the stomach before going out to the area car with Vicki.
“So how long do you think this will be going on
for?”
“I’m not sure sometimes these investigations
can last for ages.”
After having a meal at the local Indian, Allegra
had insisted that Smiffy showed her his place. It hadn’t been very hard
for her to convince him. She had curled herself up comfortably across from
him on his sofa couch.
“Its just that I don’t really want to spend too
much time with the police.”
“Got somewhere you’d rather be? Or someone else
you’d rather be with then?”
Allegra raised a slight mischevious smile at
Smiffy’s latest line.
“I wouldn’t mind being somewhere else maybe slightly
warmer but I’d keep the company.”
“Great choice.” Smiffy’s body relaxed and a smile
crept across his face as Allegra pulled herself over onto him. His hands
stroked her back as she lowered her mouth onto his.
“Dale.” She broke away for a second. “Do you
have a bed?”
They both laughed wrapped snugly in each other’s
arms.
“Allegra, we were worried, you never turned up
at your flat last night. What happened? You know its safe now we’re watching
it.” Chandler asked as she and Smiffy walked into Chandler’s office half
an hour late.
“I felt safer in my car, no need to worry I couldn’t
find anyone to tell sorry.”
Nick Klein shook his head and looked disapprovingly
at Smiffy as he sat down beside him. “What?”
Nick just laughed. There were less people than
he expected to be involved. As well as him, Allegra and Smith, only Kate,
Mickey and Ben were involved. Maybe Chandler didn’t care as much as he
was letting on about this particular case, he hadn’t seemed to have chosen
the participents that carefully. He didn’t know much about Kate but Ben
was fairly new with not too much experience for a thing like this and Mickey
always seemed to be far more interested in slacking off or making cocky
remarks to ever get any work done properly. Chandler stood in front of
them.
“So the plan for tonight is Allegra and Kate
will be undercover in the club together...”
Nick nodded and whispered to Smiffy, “You know
what that means.” Smiffy only shrugged and looked back at Chandler.
“...the rest of you will be in one of the rooms
around the back watching the action via CCTV camera which is set up already
in the club and then you shall all follow them back to the meeting point,
excluding Ben and Dale who will have to get the video evidence sorted and
back to the station.” Smiffy rolled his eyes again, while I’m was stuck
at the little gay club with Ben, who probably is gay himself, he thought
with a smile, everyone else will be getting the action. “...This is a map
showing where the recent reports of stolen goods have come from, collectively
they are circle shaped which suggests the main storage place, likely to
be garage, is somewhere in the middle...”
“Not necessarily guv,” Everyone turned to regard
Mickey as he volunteered his idea. “Well, thats just too obvious init,
they steal them in a pattern and they want us to think that the meeting
place is in the middle but its actually somewhere outside but we never
find it as its actually outside.”
Allegra looked confused. “Or not, you see the
thieves could be really clever they do it in a pattern so theres an obvious
circle so everyone will say the meeting place is in the middle but they’ve
accounted for some intelligent guy like you,” she gestured to Mickey, as
he flushed Kate smirked. “And so actually they know someone will say its
outside so then they do have the meeting point inside as that will seem
too obvious and you’ll all be searching somewhere else.” Mickey nodded
slowly as everyone else remained blank.
“They could have two meeting places. One inside
and one outsi...” Mickey trailed off as he realized everyone was staring
at him impatiently.
“Shall we place bets?” Nick suggested.
“So like I said we’ll check inside the circle
first but after you guys have followed them back from the club, the ARV,
if needed, will have enough warning anyway. And be careful when in pursuit
as they may have some deadly chemicals with them.”
“Just great,” Mickey sighed, “Most guys have
a gun or at least a big wooden pole but these guys are going to chase us
around with a big sharp needle.”
Mickey had cheered up a lot since the briefing,
not only had he been described as intelligent by a beautiful girl but his
idea had also been taken seriously by her.
“Hey, Mickey isn’t it?”
“Yeah, Allegra right?” Mickey smiled at her as
she bounded out into the car park after him. “Ready for tonight?”
Allegra looked down and pouted a little, “A little
nervous, you know..” She made little fluttery movements with her hands,
“...hmm.”
Mickey furrowed his brow and looked at her with
a gentle smile. “You’ll be fine. Listen do you wanna come for a drink?”
Allegra flashed him her best smile, “Of course,
but can we go somewhere a bit more private, I’ve heard everyone’s going
to be at the Alcot tonight. And I really need to go home and finish getting
everything packed for when I leave.”
“You’re leaving?”
“You sound surprised, Mickey. Would you stay
in Sunhill after you’d provided the police with enough information to put
two big time criminals away, who just happen to know your family, for a
long time?”
“But I am the police.”
“Exactly you can protect yourself, whereas I
...” Allegra pointed to herself and moved in close to him, “need someone
to do it for me. Know of anyone that could do that until tonight.”
Mickey grinned and lead her over to the Ford
Focus left at his disposal. At least he thought she can’t leave me at 2am
if I’m round hers.
“Still here then?”
“Well it looks like it dunnit.” Smiffy snapped
at Nick as he came out into the yard. “Waiting for someone.”
“Well my dear friend,” Nick replied smugly, “If
its Allegra, she left with Mickey Webb over half an hour ago.”
“It’s not Allegra anyway.” Smiffy sounded less
than convincing but Nick left him to stew over it anyway. As soon as Nick
was out of view Smiffy followed him out of the station.
“Nice place.” Mickey exclaimed openly impressed.
“Yeah, I guess I’ll miss it.”
“Hmm.” Mickey stepped in close to Allegra when
she didn’t back away he smiled slightly and looked down. This is only going
to lead to more heart ache.
Allegra ran her hands up and down his smooth
leather jacket finally letting them settle on his broad shoulders. “You
know, we can get a lot done in three hours.”
“I don’t think it will matter too much if we’re
five minutes late.” He pushed her roughly against the wall, she giggled
as their lips met, he was more agressive with her than Dale and that was
just what she enjoyed. She pushed him back onto the opposite wall next
to the open door leading to her bed. As he reached down for his fly she
pulled him on top of her, landing awkwardly on the bare mattress that was
about the only thing in the room that was not in a box ready to go.
He slipped into her easily and then grunted with
the continued effort of keeping her satisfied. “Mickey, please, don’t stop.”
She panted almost growling his name and scratching his back with her sharp
nails. He said nothing but kissed her again, as his mouth went down to
her neck he caught a whiff of her perfume, it was familiar and a sense
of deja vu swept over him.
“Kate” He breathed.
“What?” Allegra pushed him off and out of her
angrily, “Run that by me again.”
He looked down at the padded mattress not knowing
what to say, “Sorry I... I”
“Kate? I should of known the way you were staring
at her in the briefing today,”
“Allegra...”
“Don’t,” She began to shout, “Just get your clothes
on and... go.”
She stalked out of the room only bending down
to pick up her top. Mickey sat in a stunned silence, he thought he’d gotten
over it long before his least favourite time of the year, Christmas, but
there she was still playing on his mind. “Shit.” Still breathing heavily
he pulled on his black shirt which was on the floor next to him.
Kate and Allegra stood together at the bar in
Flame waiting for something to happen. Kate coughed as the radio she had
hidden in her small black handbag crackled. “So, those are the guys we’re
here for then.”
“Yeah Karl’s the little one with the shaved head
and Spencer’s the older one with the extreme bad hair.”
“So where’s your bartender friend?”
“He had tonight off in case anything got dangerous.”
“Typical male, how noble.”
“Tell me about it, I mean you can just never
trust them nowadays. They’re all so irratating.”
Kate nodded and they both thought of Mickey.
Allegra nudged her as Karl was handed a silver
metal briefcase by the two unknown heavy looking guys each sporting roughly
shaved hairdo’s, and looked as if they hadn’t shaved for the last couple
of days.
“Do you think that’s the chemical stuff?”
“Probably... shit.”
“What is it...?” Allegra looked over and saw
that the Dorenz brothers and their new friends were looking straight at
the two of them.
“We’ve been spotted.” Kate said nervously looking
back at her drink.
“I’ve got a plan,” Allegra announced boldly,
“After all this is a gay bar.”
She moved forward to Kate wrapping her arms around
her body and running her fingers through Kate’s thick black hair, Kate
did the same trying to look natural as if they did it all the time but
the worst was yet to come. Allegra pressed her mouth against Kate’s
and began to kiss her gently, she was warm and they began to relax within
each other’s embrace.
The Dorenz’s and company looked back towards
business with a playful smirk and after a scan of the entire bar looked
satisfied no-one was watching.
“They look like they’re enjoying it.” Ben gaped
at the monitor which was broadcasting the inside of Flame with Kate and
Allegra just underneath who had been kissing for what seemed ages. The
other guys joined him at the screen. Smiffy looked disgusted and turned
away as though he couldn’t take any more without vomiting.
“Maybe they are.” Nick replied matter of factly.
He didn’t feel anything special for either of the girls, he knew when he
liked someone and was open and honest about it. He never could understand
when people hid things, although he wouldn’t of minded something larger
to hide himslef behind when he stripped for Roz and accidently the whole
of his relief. He still had some of the photos they had taken pinned up
in his locker as a reminder of his stupidity.
“That should be me.” Mickey murmured to himself
not knowing he had been heard by all the other men in the room. Nick looked
surprised.
“Which one?”
Mickey looked back at him and smiled. “I don’t
know.”
Mickey didn’t have time to catch another breath
before Smiffy had pushed him violently against the wall, banging his head
on the hard cold stone, making him feel dazed. The room that had been set
up for ‘security’ was underneath the bar itself and obviously had not been
used for several months.
“You what?” Mickey tried pushing Dale away but
his army training held firm and he easily resisted the attack, especially
now Mickey was still a bit woozy from the knock.
“Hey, back off.” Nick came to Mickey’s rescue
quite alarmed by the outburst that he was so not expecting. Dale threw
Mickey back at the wall then turned back round to face Nick and Ben, the
latter of which looked quickly back at the monitor nervously when he saw
Smiffy looking at him.
As Mickey composed himself and started over to
Smiffy ready to attack, Nick caught his arm, suddenly feeling in charge
of the investigation. “It’s not worth it mate.” He looked from Nick to
Smiffy and then to Ben when when he heard Kate’s voice crackling over the
radio.
“OK they’ve left.”
“All recieved.” Ben put the radio down and opened
the door for Nick and Mickey who both glared angrily at Smiffy before leaving.
Mickey walked up to the Dorenz brothers casually,
despite Nick’s warning, and then took out his warrant card. “I’m DC Webb
and....” He didn’t have time to finish as they ran away towards the Larkmead
estate.
Mickey, Nick, Kate and Allegra all chased the
Dorenz brothers, when they split up, probably part of a plan, Allegra and
Mickey followed Spencer and Nick and Kate took off after Karl.
Mickey, a lot fast than Allegra, reached the
top floor before she did, he stopped, not seeing anyone to pursue and panting
like crazy crouched over leaning his hands on his thighs. He turned as
he heard a rustle of clothing from behind, he expected to see Allegra.
But he didn’t.
Spencer jumped on Mickey from behind taking him
by surprise. Mickey turned throwing Spencer off balance which gave him
enough time to swing a good punch right at Spencer’s throat. He went down,
falling into the wall, managing to prevent harming himself from too much
injury by letting his right hand catch his fall and reached into his inside
pocket with his other hand. Mickey bent down ready to arrest him, as he
did so Spencers hand flashed out of his jacket, and jammed something sharp
down into his lower arm.
“Shit.” When Mickey looked down and saw the syringe
lying empty on the ground realisation dawned on him, in the rush he had
forgotten that they may have some strange chemical on them and he had been
so quick to make a joke about it in the briefing. He took one more swipe
at Spencer’s head and missed, he just laughed, threw the young DC roughly
against the wall then ran off shouting “I’ve got more for your friends.”
He was only a matter of feet away but to Mickey his voice of been miles
away.
As Allegra climbed to the top of the stairs as
fast as she could, the sound of sirens was already ringing in the ears,
she could see in the car park below that Kate and Nick had caught Karl
and were dragging his kicking, struggling form to the side of the road
to wait for the IRV, with all his shouting they had managed to attract
quite a crowd who were mostly quiet with a few rowdy mambers chanting,
“PIGS.”
She turned round the corner and broke into to
a run as she saw Mickey leaning against the wall, breathing heavily and
clutching his arm, the puncture wound had started to bleed. She leaned
down and cradled his head with one hand.
“Mickey, you hearing me okay?”
He flicked his eyes to the right, “That way,
he’s got more...” but she had already gone.
Allegra started to find Spencer with revenge
playing on her mind, she soon found him, once round the corner it was a
dead end and he was attempting to get to the lower level by climbing over
the low wall, too low for the highest level of high rise flats where young
children were living. As she dragged him back over the wall, he reached
into his inside pocket but Allegra was ready for that and she had a plan.
Keeping him off balance she took a roundhouse kick straight to his face
knocking him on his back to the floor, “Well for that you’ll never get
the antidote” he writhed and reached for the syringe knocked from his grasp.
She brought her foot down hard onto his wrist, there was some cracking
and she imagined she had broken some bones, her suspicions were confirmed
as he started to scream and then whimper, picking up the syringe she aimed
straight for his jugular vein, and pushed down hard.
“Now, about that antidote? Do you want to live?
Or die?”
Spencer lay on the floor defeated, “Flat 84,
Jasmine Allen, Blue bottle, bathroom, keys.”He spoke quickly knowing the
darkness could engulf him at any time. He held his hand up towards her,
she took the bundle of keys.
“Which one?”
“The blue one, please, I don’t want to die.”
“No, nor does Mickey.”
She helped him to his feet and then to stagger
round the corner to prop against the wall next to Mickey.
As soon as he was down he fell unconscious, it
had worked better on Spencer as it had been thrust straight into the bloodstream,
Allegra hoped she had done the right thing but right now there were more
important things than worrying about a criminals life. She took off her
thick black coat and placed it around Mickey’s shoulders snuggling close
to him. He just groaned. She held his head up so she could see directly
into his eyes. They had been brighter. “It’s OK,” She whispered, stroking
his face. “I know where to get the antidote, you’ll be in hospital soon,
stay with me yeah?”
There was a noise and Allegra turned towards
the staircase, Mickey was quite alarmed that he could not control his body
and waited for someone to announce who had joined them, he tried to ask
but he couldn’t speak either, all he was able to do was to succumb to sleep,
he closed his eyes.
“Watch out they’ve got the...” Kate went quiet
and her eyes grew wide when she saw Mickey unconscious against the wall.
“We know.”
Kate did not know how to respond, her body went
slack she dropped her radio, Allegra picked it up and radioed for an ambulance.
Smiffy waved to Allegra as she pulled out of Sunhill Metropolitan police station car park. She looked sad and he felt that way too but he’d never let anyone know his feelings. They had had a final night of passion together the night before and he relished it wishing she wasn’t moving on, but she was, and so was life, and as always he got on with it.
Just the day after he had been given the antidote
she decided to visit him, lying unconscious in the hospital bed he looked
so fragile, in her mind she knew he was not as strong as he acted and liked
everyone to think but this was different. Attached to so many tubes, she
was unsure of how bad his condition really was.
She ran her fingers down his arm until it settled
on his hand, which she squeezed gently.
“Maybe I was too harsh with you Mickey.” She
stood up, still holding his hand and bent over his still form, she placed
her mouth on his and kissed him gently.
And then she left.
In his inner consciousness, Mickey was aware of
her perfume, he fought his body to open his eyes and reach out to her but
it would respond. He heard her voice, Kate’s voice. He would never tell
her he had been aware of her presence and she would never ask him, it would
be their unspoken truce.