Series 23, Episode 88: Operation Brass Balls
Date: Monday 12th January 2009
Investigating Officers: DCI Jack Meadows, DC Jo Masters, DC Mickey Webb
"Morning." Jo called to Mickey and Kezia as she strode into CID just after the start of her shift.
"Woah!" Mickey chuckled, detecting immediately that she was not her usual self. "Late night?"
"Not particularly." Jo shot back. "What makes you think that? Can't a girl come in a little bit late for work without people casting aspersions on her good name?"
Kezia grinned. "Is that aspirin you're drinking?"
"You see; this is the problem with cynical detectives, such as yourself. You take a few pieces of circumstantial evidence and you leap to some preconceived conclusion. There may be any number of reasons why I'm drinking this concoction of paracetamol and electrolyte enriched water." Jo pointed out, moving across the office with her plastic cup to retrieve a file, before sitting at her desk. "Maybe I'm replacing lost fluids following an early morning game of squash or perhaps I'm simply coming down with the 'flu."
"Or, perhaps, you left the Seven Bells and ended up in the Octane nightclub last night?" Mickey suggested, leaning on her desk as the brunette put her head in her hands and groaned.
"How d'you know?"
"Ummm… you've still got the stamp on your hand."
Jo groaned again and started to rub at the mark. "Don't start, Mickey. I've got the mother of all hangovers, Hannah has already taken chunks out of me and I don't want any of your southern lip. I'm just going to drink this, bury myself in paperwork and sit quietly. OK?"
"OK." He mimicked her over-the-top northern accent with a smirk.
"Would be," Kezia chipped in, "except the DCI's on the warpath. Doyle's warehouse got knocked over last night… all hands on deck."
"For one burglary?" Jo asked sceptically.
"It's the third warehouse that's been targeted in as many months." The DCI informed her bluntly, appearing at her desk and fixing her with a hard look. "You'd know that if you'd been here to read your debriefing notes."
"Yeah, sorry about that, Guv." She muttered, suitably chastised.
"As with the previous burglaries, the CCTV at Doyle's has been doctored. We're dealing with a pretty professional team, here. Now, Doyle's specialise in electrical goods, so we need to check open air markets and second-hand stores for any brand new stock."
"Can't Uniform help us?"
"I'm afraid not. They've got a big operation on at the moment."
As Jack left them, Jo sighed deeply and leant forwards, resting her head on her folded arms. She reached out and smacked Mickey on the leg as he ruffled her hair with an amused chuckle.
After a short while, the painkillers Jo had taken started to kick in and her hangover began to recede. Her mobile rang a couple of times but, after glancing at the name flashing on the display, the brunette let it go to answerphone. Mickey looked over at her questioningly, but she didn't enlighten him and he didn't demand an explanation.
Just as Mickey was demonstrating the robot with great enthusiasm, Gina walked through the double doors and into CID, heading straight for the pair of detectives who were larking around. Jo turned away, covering her mouth to try and stifle her laughter as her friend spotted the Inspector and almost fell over in shock at being caught dancing so wildly.
"Ma'am." He muttered, completely mortified.
"Glad to see CID are busy." Gina replied, looking him up and down, before walking over to the still giggling woman. "Jo, Bob Hawkins, d'you know him?"
"Sorry, Ma'am." She apologised, before quickly getting herself back under control. "Err… he was an occasional informant, but I haven't seen him in about eighteen months. Is he here?"
"We've just nicked him for handling stolen goods and he's insisting on speaking to you before we process him. He says he's calling in a favour. He's very insistent about it." Inspector Gold informed her, looking meaningfully at Jo's mobile on the desk beside them, which had just started to ring shrilly again.
"Is he now…" Jo muttered, eyeing her mobile as well.
"Can you deal with it?"
"Yeah."
Gina pointed at the phone. "Are you going to answer that?"
"No." The DC replied bluntly, pressing the end call button and turning away.
Gina arched an eyebrow, having clearly read the name on the screen and wondering what was going on between Jo and her girlfriend this time. She didn't comment, however, merely turning away and advising Mickey to get some mints to cover the smell of alcohol that was lingering in the room.
Not waiting to speak to Mickey, or deal with the steadily increasing number of missed calls she was accumulating, Jo headed down to custody to speak to Bob. He told her that he was expecting another delivery of stolen goods. The contents of the delivery made Jo pay attention to what he was saying, although she treated him with practised indifference. Passing on the information to Jack, who was happy to trust her judgement that Bob's information was good, she began liaising with Gina to set up an operation, which would hopefully lead to them solving the question of who was robbing the warehouses.
"So I'm sure some of you recognise him from this morning," Jo announced, sticking a picture of Bob up on the whiteboard in the briefing room, "this is Bob Hawkins, shop owner. I'll be manning the counter with him and DC Webb will be in the back checking out the extra CCTV that's been installed."
"Now, the two blokes that we're expecting to show up have been regularly selling to Bob over the last couple of months." Gina continued. "All cash transactions. Of course, they've given fake names. Now Bob's not been able to ID them from the photographs of potential suspects that we've shown him, all we've got are descriptions, none of which we can match with CRIMINT."
"So, we believe these two are members of a gang responsible for a number of warehouse burglaries over the past couple of months. Last night Doyle's was done over, first thing this morning Bob gets told to expect some electrical equipment."
"We can assume they're gonna turn up in a vehicle or van of some sort. Now, Bob's gonna tell them that he doesn't have enough cash for the gear, so they'll have to leave with it. Nate, Emma, that's where you come in."
"So, you'll be close by in a patrol car on Shipley Street." Jo told them. "We give you a call, you give them a tug."
"Just make it look like a routine stop and search?" Emma clarified.
Jo nodded. "Exactly. We don't want them thinking that Bob has shopped them. And, if by any chance they turn up on foot, Reg you follow them. We get an address, we search for the stolen stuff there. OK? Is that clear?"
"Absolutely clear."
"OK, well it don't get much easier than this."
"No mistakes now, alright? Off you go." Gina dismissed them quickly.
Jo nodded at the Inspector and left the room in search of Mickey. He shook the keys to the pool car at her and led the way down to the yard. Neither of them spoke until they were driving out of the station.
"So, Hannah wasn't with you last night I take it?" He asked as they drove through the streets of Sun Hill.
"No." Jo agreed, her eyes closed and her head resting back against the seat. "We had another argument, over the phone when I was in the Seven Bells, so I decided that it would be safer to wait until she was asleep before going home. Then I lost track of time."
"Are things… OK?" Mickey asked warily, chancing a glance sideways at his friend. "I mean, between you and Han?"
With a long sigh, the woman just shrugged. "I don't know, Mick. She's… I get that she's tired and gets frustrated being stuck at home with the kids all the time but… whenever I try to help her she takes it as a personal insult. It's like she thinks I don't trust her or I don't think she's capable or something."
"Have you talked to her about it?"
"Of course I have. She either cries or gets angry. She's not herself, but I don't know what to do. Nothing I say seems to get through to her."
"Wasn't she excited about Christmas?"
Jo shook her head. "Hannah loves Christmas, but… she didn't even want to help with the decorations. She didn't even come and choose the tree with me and the kids."
Pulling up outside the second hand shop that belonged to Bob Hawkins, Mickey killed the engine and turned to look at his colleague with a serious expression on his face. "Maybe she needs to see someone… a doctor? It sounds like she could be depressed."
"I wondered about that." The brunette admitted. "But I don't know how to raise the subject. She threw a mug at my head when I pointed out we'd run out of toilet rolls the other day. And yesterday she cried for an hour when I asked if there was any more milk. I just don't know what to do."
"It's tough. Just… I'm here, OK? If you want to talk or… whatever."
Jo smiled gratefully at him, before opening the car door. "Thanks. I appreciate it."
They crossed the road quickly, both of them eager to get back into detective mode and push their conversation to the back of their minds for as long as possible. Slipping into their roles, Jo didn't have much time to think about anything else. Hours passed and they were still no further forward with catching the burglars.
Jo had just offered to go out and get doughnuts, craving the sugar, when a four by four driving dangerously over the pavement opposite the shop caught her attention and she stopped.
"Mickey?" She almost whispered as the car jerked forwards, its breaks screaming in protest. Then it lurched into life, surging straight at them. "Mickey, get down. Get down!"
She only just managed to push Bob out of the way before the car smashed through the window and screeched to a halt in the middle of the shop. Two masked men, armed with baseball bats jumped from the front and ordered them not to move. One edged his way towards Mickey, who tried to calm him, while the other loomed over Jo and Bob on the floor.
"Jo, you alright?" Mickey called.
"Yeah…"
"Did I tell either of you two to talk?" The masked man closest to Jo demanded. "Stay down!"
"It's not here!" The other man shouted.
"Is this your gaff, yeah?" The first man asked Bob, who nodded in agreement. "Where's the MG 130?" When Bob didn't give him a clear answer, the man swiped the baseball bat down hard on his legs, causing the old man to yelp in pain. "I want that camcorder."
"It's under the counter."
"Got it!"
"Move it!"
They scrambled back into the car and it roared into life, reversing out of the shop and screeching away down the street. Jo winced, straightening up and standing back as Uniformed Officers rushed in to assist them. She waved away their concern, fumbling in her pocket for her mobile.
Seeing Mickey looking at her curiously, she smiled weakly. "There's nothing like a masked man waving a baseball bat at you to make you want to hear your girlfriend's voice, even if she is shouting at you."
By the time Jo returned to the shop after her, surprisingly light-hearted, conversation with Hannah, paramedics were already loading Bob onto a stretcher. Smiling broadly at Mickey who grinned back, relieved that she seemed to be in a positive frame of mind, Jo did a brief sweep of their surroundings. Waiting for her colleague to end his phone call, presumably with the DCI or Inspector Gold, she stood patiently beside the counter.
"So, do you think this is connected to the operation then-" Emma started, but Bob cut across her forcefully.
"Nope. They definitely weren't the same guys who bring in the hooky gear."
"Well, what did they want then?"
"A camcorder." Jo told the PC, glancing over at her informant.
Reg chuckled. "All this for a camcorder? What's on it? The truth about who shot Kennedy?"
"Unfortunately, Reg, they left before we could get a viewing." Mickey informed him, ending the call and sighing.
"Maybe not." Bob chipped in. "They got an MG 130 alright. Same model, anyway... I think you'll find the one they were really after is in the back."
"Did you give them the wrong camera?" Jo demanded, mildly amused.
"How d'you know this is the one they was after, Bob?" Mickey asked, heading through the doorway and into the storeroom behind the counter in search of the real camera.
"Because the bloke who sold it to me tried to-" He broke off abruptly, crying out from the pain in his legs where they'd been hit with the baseball bat. Jo moved closer, concerned, but he waved her away. "Tried to buy it back from me this morning." He looked over at Nate and Emma. "You two were in here at the time."
Emma nodded slowly. "Yeah, we were."
"He didn't seem too happy to be leaving without it." Nate agreed..
"Did you get a name, Bob?"
"No."
Mickey reappeared, holding the camera aloft. "Got it. Bob, you haven't half gotta have some bottle to pull off a stunt like that."
"They wrecked my shop. Hardly gonna help them, was I?"
"Right. If they were after that camera then the bloke who came in earlier must be in on it." Jo reasoned. "Can you check WADS and CRIMINT and see if his face comes up." She asked Nate and Emma, who nodded and hurried out to do as they were asked.
"We should get back to the station, yeah?"
"And we also need to find out why someone's bashed Bob Hawkins on the leg. Were also gonna need to brief the Governor, because he's gonna wanna be across this because now it's getting exciting."
When they returned to the station, Jo left Mickey to deal with the technical side of the result, while she briefed the DCI on the latest developments. She had no sooner walked through the doors into CID and got herself a drink from the water machine, when Emma attracted her attention and handed her a printout from the shop's CCTV.
"Right, so this is your guy. Good, clear picture from the shop's CCTV."
"Thanks... No ID yet then?"
"Just about to check WADS. If he turns up on that then you'll know as soon as we do. What I can't work out is why he was so desperate to get his camcorder back. I mean, why sell it in the first place?"
"My guess is that he's needed some quick cash, so he's flogged it to Bob without wiping what's on it. It's obviously something that he's been in or something that he's filmed, you know what I mean? Once he's realised he's tried to buy it back and can't and he's panicked." Mickey said, still fiddling with the technology. There was a beep as the camera connected to the television. "Let's have a look, anyway."
They watched the screen as the picture appeared. Jo arched an eyebrow. "Some bloke going for a walk?"
"Sounds like a woman." Her colleague commented as an unseen person spoke. "Who is she?"
"I dunno, but that's not the bloke from the shop."
"What are they doing?" Kezia asked as the couple on screen started kissing passionately. Jo arched her eyebrow again and shot the younger detective an amused look. "Oh, they're not, are they?"
"They are you know." Mickey chuckled.
"And filming it."
"Well, it takes all sorts." Grace added, joining them.
"Blimey, he's not shy, is he. Go on fella!" Mickey laughed again.
"Fast forward, Mickey." Jo told him, rolling her eyes as he turned to shoot her a look. "See if this bloke makes an appearance later on."
He did as she said and the image changed. The previous woodland location was replaced by what seemed to be the interior of an office.
"Well it looks like they're carrying on where they left off." Grace pointed out.
"D'you think these two ever take a break?" Emma asked, shaking her head.
"Can't be on the same day, can it?"
"You never know." Jo muttered under her breath. Then she turned around, finding half of CID watching the footage over her shoulder. "Haven't you lot got anything better to do?"
"Grace..." Mickey added meaningfully, causing the two women behind him to chuckle in amusement and the detective in question to pull a mildly offended face before returning to what she'd been doing before the footage had distracted her.
They quickly dispersed, all going about their own, individual, tasks. It didn't take long for Emma to come back to them with an ID for the man in the photograph and Mickey immediately set up a raid on his house. They quickly grabbed protective kit and rushed across Canley to the address they had found.
Mickey sent Reg and Kezia round the back to make sure their suspect didn't make a break for it through the back door when he heard them coming, while everyone else rushed in through the front and set about searching the building. Mickey took the ground floor while Jo headed off upstairs. The first couple of rooms she looked in on the first floor were empty. Then she heard a shout from the floor above her and rushed up the carpeted staircase towards the sound of Emma's voice.
"Looks like somebody got to him before we did." The PC pointed out, motioning towards the man gagged and tied to the chair in the centre of the room.