Not Dead Enough

55

At ten fifteen on Sunday morning, David Curtis, a young probationary Police Constable on his second day at Brighton, was partway through his shift. A tall nineteen-year-old with a serious demeanour and dark brown hair that was short and tidy, but with a nod towards fashion, he was in the passenger seat of the Vauxhall police patrol car, which smelled of last night’s French fries, being driven by the John Street police station club’s biggest bar bore.

Police Sergeant Bill Norris, a crinkly haired, pug-faced man in his early fifties, had been everywhere, seen it all and done it all, but never quite well enough to get raised above the level of sergeant. Now, just a few months short of his retirement, he was enjoying teaching this youngster the ropes. Or more accurately, was enjoying having a captive audience for all the war stories no one else wanted to hear yet again.

They were cruising down litter-strewn West Street, the clubs all shut now, the pavements littered with broken glass, discarded burger and kebab wrappers, all the usual detritus from Saturday night. Two road-sweeping vehicles were hard at work, grinding along the kerbs.

‘Course it was different then,’ Bill Norris was saying. ‘In them days we could run our own informants, see? One time when I was in the drugs squad, we staked out this deli in Waterloo Street for two months from information I’d had. I knew my man was right.’ He tapped his nose. ‘Copper’s nose, I got. You either got it or you haven’t. You’ll find out soon enough, son.’

The sun was in their eyes, coming obliquely at them across the Channel at the end of the street. David Curtis raised his hand to shield his eyes, scanning the pavements, the passing cars. Copper’s nose. Yep, he was confident he had that all right.

‘And a strong stomach. Got to have that,’ Norris continued.

‘Cast iron, I’ve got.’

‘So we sat in this derelict house opposite – used to go in and out via a passage round the back. Bloody freezing it was. Two months! Froze our bollocks off! I found this old British Rail guards overcoat some tramp had abandoned there, and wore it. Two months we sat there, day in and night out, watching with binoculars by day and night scopes in the dark. Nothing to do, just swinging the lantern – that’s what we used to call, you know? Telling stories – swinging the lantern. Well, anyhow, one evening this saloon car pulled up, big Jag—’

The probationary PC was reprieved, temporarily, from this story, which he had already heard twice before, by a call from Brighton Central Control.

‘Sierra Oscar to Charlie Charlie 109.’

Using his personal radio set, sitting in its plastic cradle on the clip of his stab vest, David Curtis replied, ‘109, go ahead.’

‘We’ve got a grade-two cause for concern on the queue. Are you free?’

‘Yes, yes. Go ahead with details, over.’

‘Address is Flat 4, 17 Newman Villas. The occupant is a Sophie Harrington. She didn’t turn up to meet a friend yesterday, and she’s not answered her phone or doorbell since yesterday afternoon, which is out of character. Can you do an address check so we can take it off the queue?’

‘Confirm Flat 4, 17 Newman Villas, Sophie Harrington?’ Curtis said.

‘Yes, yes.’

‘Received. En route.’

Relieved to have something to actually do this morning, Norris swung the car around in a U-turn so hard and fast that the tyres squealed. Then he made a left turn at the top into Western Road, accelerating faster than was strictly necessary.