Wild People

The last thing I needed. My Cardiff disgrace resurfacing.

Jack Galbraith would have me counting the puffins on Skomer Island.

Rhian Pritchard was going to be trouble. I could sense it. That face and attitude screamed devilish persistence, although she probably thought she was radiating cute pluck. She was a byline junkie. I had met the type before. Looking for a hot story under every pair of eyebrows, anything to swell the cuttings file that she hoped was going to land her that regular slot on a national magazine one day.

Why did our paths have to cross? Now she was out to use my head as a fucking career stepping stone and press me deeper into the ooze on the way.

I stacked her away in the groaning pile of future problems when I got back to Unit 13. I logged into my computer. Huw Davies had been true to his word and had emailed the file references to the break-ins and vandalism at the car park.

I opened them up. It was all dross. Huw had been right. This was all low-grade criminal activity. The worst thing that had been done had been the breaking of the cars’ windows. And that was probably as much to do with vandalism as it was with the petty thefts, because they had never demonstrated any intention of stealing the vehicles. And, apart from one portable satnav, the list of the stuff that had been stolen was banal. A travel rug, CDs, a lucky tortoise mascot, an insulated coffee container … It went on in that vein. As Huw had said, trophies, junk to reinforce the memories of the outlaw trips.

Who was going to kill anyone for a portable satnav?

Cause and effect.

None of the shit that had been taken could possibly have been the cause that had led to the effect of Jessie’s murder. None of those trinkets and baubles could have warranted anything as extreme as that.

Given the tat value of all the other stuff, I even idly wondered whether the reported satnav had actually been stolen, or if someone had used the opportunity to scam his insurance company.

That warped logic clicked on another step.

If someone could have reported something being stolen that hadn’t been, what about something being stolen that hadn’t been reported?

I felt the old familiar clutch in my kidneys as new possibilities opened up.

Something so valuable to its owner that the effect its loss had created was Jessie’s death. Something so valuable and so illegal that its theft couldn’t be recorded?

But what the fuck would something as precious as that be doing left in a car park in the middle of nowhere, frequented by mountain bikers and ramblers and the ghosts of dead monks?

I sidelined that question as irrelevant. It called for too much detailed information. What was important here was the concept. Something of value that couldn’t be brought to the attention of the police after it had been stolen.

But why kill Jessie? What would be gained?

A punishment? Or to scare whoever was holding on to it to give it up?

Or had they already tried to get rid of it?

I got on the phone to Huw.

‘A hypothetical question, Huw. You have a punter who is walking along a railway line and he comes across a parcel that has obviously fallen from a train. He looks inside and finds … Let’s say a camera. An expensive camera, in its original packaging, no owner’s name. So where does he take it?’

‘If he’s local, he brings it to me.’

‘Let’s say he’s been away for a bit and picked up bad habits. And his wife’s just given birth to triplets and he needs instant cash to buy disposable nappies and fags. Where would he take the hypothetical camera?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘I’m on sick leave remember, Huw. I’m keeping my mind active, researching cottage industries between jigsaws and sudoku.’

‘Bullshit, Sarge.’ But he laughed. ‘You’ve met him.’

‘I have?’ I was surprised. I had no memories of any encounters with a neighbourhood fence.

‘Yes, our boy Ryan.’

Ryan Shaw. The local low-rent dope dealer. ‘Christ, Huw, is he a crook-of-all-trades? Renaissance Hoodie?’

I heard him laugh down the line. ‘We don’t have enough of the spread round here that you had in Cardiff that enables them to specialize.’

I thanked him and hung up. I had had one previous encounter with Ryan, and he had not been a very happy young hoodlum at the end of it. So much so that he had complained to Emrys Hughes. Because Ryan was also a local snitch.

He was protected. I was going to have to be careful how I approached him.

Orchard Close, Maesmore. Not much had changed. A supermarket trolley had joined the junk installation on the former front lawn outside number 3, Ryan’s house, which he shared with his mother and sister and at least one baby that I knew of.

I was glad to see his purple VW Golf was creating its usual obstruction on the pavement. Because, as I had no official business to go knocking on that front door with, I was going to have to wait for Ryan to come out to me.

It was heavy dusk by now. I calculated the distance I needed and parked a few houses down, facing in the same direction as Ryan’s car. I kept out of the pool of the street light. I didn’t think that he would know my car, but I didn’t want to take the chance. Curtains twitched in the house I was parked outside of, but I didn’t let it worry me. If you lived near a dope dealer you got used to strange traffic, and usually you learned not to complain about it.

When it was dark enough I slid over to the passenger’s side and got out of the car without closing the door. I had already de-activated the interior light. I checked that the street was empty in both directions before making my way up the pavement on the other side from Ryan’s house until I was opposite his car. I checked the street again, and then flowed across it, sinking into a low Groucho Marx stride, and dropping to a crouch at the rear of the VW.

I tied the end of the string to the towing ring and bundled the rest of it with the attached tin cans under the car, out of sight. I made my way back to my car.

Now all I had to do was continue waiting. Ryan could do two things to fuck my plan up. He could decide to stay in for the night, or, if he did elect to go out, he could do a three-point turn and head off in the opposite direction to where I was waiting for him.

In the end he obliged me on both counts.

The night had cooled down to chilly, but he still appeared in just a tight white T-shirt and cinched black jeans to showcase his pumped physique. He got in his car, gunned the motor and headed down the road in my direction.

KLANG! KLANG! KLANG!

I had tied the tin cans to a four-metre-long piece of string, so by the time they started rattling, and he had reacted to what sounded like his straight-through exhaust trailing the ground, he was a couple of car lengths short of me when he stopped. As I had anticipated, he left his door wide open and the engine still running when he jumped out and ran to the rear to investigate his mechanical prolapse.

I glided up, switched off the engine and took the car keys out.

He was still snarled up in the confusion of the moment. He had found the cans. He heard his engine stop. There was too much happening here, and it took him a beat to react. When he did turn, I could tell that he hadn’t recognized me in the dark.

‘What the fuck …?’ he growled threateningly, trying to make sense of this.

‘Shouldn’t leave your engine running like that, Ryan, it fucks up the atmosphere.’

Curtains were twitching all around like Aldis lamps. He stared at me malevolently. I could almost hear the tumblers in his brain clicking through the recognition process.

‘You!’ He pointed at me. ‘You’re fucked! You were warned off after the last time you tried to mess with me.’

‘This is just between you and me, Ryan.’

‘Says who?’