Behind Dead Eyes (DC Ian Bradshaw #2) - Howard Linskey Page 0,44

began positively enough, explaining that Councillor Jarvis had asked for help to find his daughter. ‘We think a fresh pair of eyes is what is needed here,’ he said then he handed Tom a picture of Sandra Jarvis. The ten-by-eight colour photograph showed a pretty young blonde girl with green eyes. Her face was serious, as if she wasn’t expecting the camera’s presence and resented its intrusion.

Tom listened silently while Bradshaw continued, ‘Sandra was a model pupil at school, and left for university with a seemingly bright future ahead of her. But in her second term she completely changed. She missed lectures, shunned her friends and became sullen, moody and introspective, apparently. Then she disappeared during the reading week.’

Bradshaw appealed to Tom’s better nature then and asked him to put his feelings about the falling-out with Durham Constabulary to one side. ‘We would like you to do what you do best: unravel a mystery. You would be helping a suffering father in the process. There’s a fund the force uses to pay for outside experts so we could put you on the payroll. What do you think?’

‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ said Tom. ‘I mean, seriously?’

‘I’m not kidding.’

‘After the crap you lot put me through?’

‘What crap?’

‘Mmm, let’s see.’ And Tom pretended to think for a moment. ‘I’ve been ostracised by the police contacts I need in order to have any kind of career in journalism, which renders me pretty much unemployable in that profession and this region …’

‘Well, can you blame them?’

‘… I have been verbally abused by detectives I’ve investigated for corruption then threatened with violence by those same men …’

‘O’Brien didn’t threaten you, Tom.’

‘Detective Sergeant O’Brien told me he was going to kill me …’

‘It’s a figure of speech. He didn’t mean it.’

‘I was hauled into your DCI’s office and, instead of being congratulated for uncovering serious malpractice within this force, Kane closed ranks, backed his own men and threatened me with arrest for obstruction …’

‘He has to stand by his men,’ Bradshaw protested, ‘unless there is concrete evidence, which you couldn’t provide!’

‘… Plus, I’ve been stopped three times for speeding in the past two months …’

‘Were you speeding?’

‘That’s not the point!’

‘I think it is.’

‘Not when I haven’t been pulled over once in the preceding ten years!’

‘Well,’ said Bradshaw weakly, ‘we’ve been having a bit of a clampdown on speeding.’

‘I’m a bit late returning my library books this month,’ said Tom, ‘if you’re having a clampdown on that then now is the time to warn me.’

‘Trouble with you, mate,’ Bradshaw said, ‘you’re your own worst enemy.’

‘How’s that exactly?’

‘You don’t do yourself any favours.’

‘You mean I don’t do enough favours for the police,’ countered Tom, ‘like suppressing stories about incompetence or turning a blind eye to corruption.’

‘Corruption?’ asked Bradshaw. ‘If you could prove corruption you wouldn’t have left the names out of the stories.’

‘I would have thought you’d approve of that approach.’

‘No one’s perfect, Tom, coppers included. This job has a way of getting to you. Some people cut corners when that happens or they throw their weight around a bit too much, but it’s usually because they are under pressure and desperate to get a result.’

‘Does that make it right? Do you behave like that?’ When he received no answer from the detective Tom added, ‘So why should they?’ Then he said, ‘I spoke to a lot of people.’

‘And how many of them were criminals?’ Bradshaw shook his head. ‘I hope that one day, if anybody questions your conduct, they will give you the benefit of the doubt before they ruin your career on the word of a bunch of crooks.’

‘Most of them were crooks, yes,’ admitted Tom, ‘pissed-off ones: drug dealers who were shaken down instead of arrested, streetwalkers who had to give freebies so they could carry on working for a living …’

‘So they claim …’ said Bradshaw ‘… and most criminals will say anything to get a police officer into trouble.’

‘You have detectives in Durham Constabulary who use blackmail and extortion on a daily basis, expect a cut of a criminal’s enterprise instead of locking him up and that doesn’t concern you?’ asked Tom. ‘Or are you only interested in catching real villains.’

‘You think we’re all the same, don’t you? All coppers are bastards, all of us bent and on the take?’

‘No!’ snapped Tom. ‘But what I don’t understand is why honest cops always bend over backwards to save the crooked ones. I don’t believe you’re all on the take, or even half of you.