Now that the excitement was over, I pulled a pair of handcuffs from my covert rig and slapped them on his wrists while Barker arrested him for the drugs in the car and assaulting Adam. A pair of uniforms hauled him upright and into the back of a waiting police van; just one of about seven marked units that had come in response to the call.
Barker motioned me over to a nearby wall once his charge was safely locked in the van, and I followed, glad to be moving away from the view of the crowd. You never know who’s watching and it isn’t unknown for some of our ‘customers’ to try and take phone pictures of plain-clothed officers so that they can pass them on to anyone interested.
‘There was another one who got away,’ he began, massaging the wrist that had been keeping a lock on the prisoner. ‘He was a white male, about twenty-five, with a horizontal stripy top. I think it was George Ludlow.’
My ears pricked up at this little titbit of information. Ludlow had started off as a smalltime user, but recently had started working for Davey. ‘Oh really? Which way did he go?’ I asked, now eager to go out and search.
‘He ran off towards Bear Road, but I was too busy to see where he went after that.’
‘I’m not bloody surprised; he was a handful. Any idea who gnasher is?’ I nodded in the direction of the van.
‘Nope, never seen him before, which is unusual. Adam thinks he might have nicked him on the seafront a couple of years ago but he’s not sure.’
That didn’t surprise me. Then, there seemed to be a pecking order with drug dealing in Brighton. Either you were local and you did what you liked, you were from Liverpool and you stabbed local people until they let you do what you liked, or you were from London and you started dealing shit on the beach in the evenings until you got caught. If you managed to keep your mouth shut, you progressed to being driven around the city by a user who was paid in heroin, delivering to phone boxes and alleyways across Brighton. That way you could just claim that you were getting a lift and knew nothing about the drugs in the car. Sadly, the British justice system tended to believe this little lie on a regular basis and people got away with it in droves.
I turned my attention back to Barker, who was trying to light a cigarette with shaking fingers. I aided him by plucking the cigarette out of his mouth and placing it in my own.
He scowled and drew another from the crumpled packet. ‘Help yourself.’
‘Thanks, I did.’ I lit them both, then headed back to my car with a final wave, palming the cigarette so that no one would see and complain.
I remembered to turn the flashers off before I pulled away and then drove in the direction that Ludlow had been seen fleeing. He lived on The Avenue in Moulsecoomb, and I figured if I knew him like I thought I did, he would run straight back home to his constantly pregnant girlfriend. I was fairly sure they wouldn’t mind me stopping in for a little cup of tea and a chat and, if they did, well I’d just have to find a reason to arrest him.
Ludlow is a chubby Brightonian born and bred – if you factored in the possibility of chimp DNA. He’s about five foot ten with heavy jowls that he doesn’t need to shave and a mess of ginger curls that make him stand out like a sore thumb wherever he is. Not surprising really that one glimpse had allowed Barker to recognize him as he ran away.
As I drove along the Lewes Road towards The Avenue, I spotted my quarry staggering past the university building on the far side of the road. He looked exhausted, his large gut heaving and his cheeks redder than his hair. Obviously being a dealer didn’t allow much time for the gym. I pulled into the road that he would be crossing shortly and got out of the car, making sure that my baton and spray were within easy reach. Wearing a covert harness is all well and good but I frequently forget which armpit is sheltering which piece of kit and I really didn’t want to pull out my radio instead of my baton if he got feisty.
I leaned casually against a wall, flicking my cigarette butt into the road, missing the drain I’d been aiming for by several inches. Walking over and scuffing it into the drain was the perfect excuse I needed to bump into Ludlow and, as he apologized and went to walk around me, it was the work of seconds to throw my arm around his throat and put him in a chokehold.
‘Police, keep your hands out in front of you,’ I growled into his ear.
He immediately tried to use his weight to throw me off balance, but I sawed my arm sideways across his Adam’s apple. His hands flew up to grab my arm as I cut off the circulation and breathing, fingers scrabbling at me in panic. He began to make pathetic retching sounds and I released the pressure just enough that he could breathe again, but not enough for him to try and slip away.
‘Now we’re going to walk back to the wall, and then you’re going to sit down like a good boy so that we can have a little chat, okay?’
He nodded, and I walked him out of public view down an alleyway between two houses. Once safely hidden, I released him, and he moved away from me faster than you’d expect.
‘You can’t do that to me. That’s illegal. You could have killed me!’ he whined, rubbing the vivid red marks on his neck.
‘Tough shit. You shouldn’t have run away from the car. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t nick you for possession.’
He looked around as if trying to find a way to escape, and I saw that he was shaking in fear. ‘You can’t nick me! I’ve got a kid on the way and if I go away again I won’t get to see it. I’m on licence; if I get nicked I go down.’ A look of animal cunning crossed his face, clear for all to see. I can only assume he was a terrible poker player. ‘Besides, I wasn’t even there, you can’t prove nothing!’
‘That’s a double negative, George, it means I can prove something. Anyway, we’ve got a full description of a fat ginger tosser in a stripy top running away from the scene. You see any other fat ginger tossers round here, George?’
He looked down at his top, as if only noticing for the first time that horizontal hoops in fact didn’t make you look slimmer. ‘Look, you can’t talk to me like that. I’m gonna make a complaint. What’s your number?’
I almost said 999, but managed not to at the last second. Riling him even more wasn’t going to get what I wanted, despite the fact that I wasn’t quite sure what that was, yet. ‘Listen George, I won’t nick you. I wouldn’t want your kid to grow up without seeing its father once before social services take him away. That would just be cruel.’
He nodded as if I wasn’t being sarcastic. Bless him.
‘All I need is a little bit of information, George. Then, you can go back to your missus and no one needs to know about our little conversation. I’ll tell my lot that I couldn’t find anyone matching your description and you get away scot free. Fair?’
He considered it for a minute, eyeing me as if I was about to bite him.
‘What d’you wanna know?’
‘Davey,’ I began, but stopped when he backed away, shaking his head.
‘No fucking way I’m gonna say shit about Davey, no way!’
I sighed again and reached under my jacket for my handcuffs before suddenly remembering that they were on a prisoner on his way to custody. I kept my hand there anyway and said the immortal words: ‘George, I’m arresting you on suspicion of possession of class A drugs. It is necessary to arrest you to ensure a prompt and thorough investigation. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’ I smiled and stepped towards him, watching his face carefully as he weighed up the options. Finally, he put his hands up and slumped against the wall.
‘You promise no one’s gonna know?’
‘Scouts