Chapter 23
The bitch had gone. She had left his bed before morning without leaving a note ...and the tapes had 'gone' with her.
"Bitch!" Thomas Lyons spat as he dashed around his apartment in near panic searching for the cardboard box. As he frantically checked every available nook and cranny it was becoming painfully clear he had been taken for a mug. Pipa had given herself to him for the sole purpose of getting her hands on his precious bargaining chips, his trump card...his ticket to having his own lawyer's practice and dispensing with his foul boss.
Panic turned to anger. He rapidly went through all the possible places Pipa could have fled to in his head...Back to Robert? No Pipa maybe blonde but she wasn't that stupid. Harriet Makepeace's? Daft idea, the two women would have killed each other on the spot.
He couldn't work it out. Where would a mother, who had no friends or nearby family go? To someone she could trust. He snatched up the phone and dialled.
Dr Max Andrews was woken by the shrill ring of the phone. He rubbed his sleep filled eyes and stumbled down the stairs towards the screaming phone in the hallway. He made a mental note to get his bedside phone fixed and answered. "Andrews." He replied sleepily.
"Max! It's Thomas, I need to speak to Maddy." He blustered.
"Thomas? Do you know what time it is?" he grouched, unimpressed he had been woken up by a lawyer.
Thomas ignored his question "I need to speak to Maddy, its urgent!"
"Maddy?" Max rubbed his head trying to wake up fully "Why do you need to speak to Maddy?"
Thomas huffed irritably 'Dozy old fool' he thought to himself "I just do, I need to get hold of Pipa."
"Pipa?" quizzed Max somewhat baffled.
"Yes Pipa!" he snapped back in frustration, he didn't have time to explain. "Just...just put Maddy on the phone will you?"
"I'm afraid she isn't here, she stayed with her boyfriend last night."
"Boyfriend? Maddy has a boyfriend?"
"Yes she does." He said flatly with annoyance, Max didn't like the tone of Thomas's voice. Why wouldn't his beautiful daughter have a boyfriend?
"Who?" Thomas was beginning to sound desperate "I need his number. Please Max, its important."
Max relented "Leroy Banks, his number is..."
"Leroy Banks! Good god!" he exclaimed; now that was a surprise. "Don't worry I've got it." Thomas hit the cut off button and redialled. As he did so, he muttered "What is it with Yanky coppers coming over here and bedding our women? It's the GI invasion all over again...what do they do? Throw silk stockings at them?"
"Urrrgh, god-damn phone." groaned Leroy as he rolled over to reach the bedside table.
"Leave it." Maddy mumbled curling herself around Leroy's muscled body and nuzzling into his shoulders.
"Sorry babe, maybe important...Yo! what ya want?"
"Banks, Lyons...where's Pipa Ford? Is she with you?"
"Lyons? Pipa? How the hell should I know?" he grumbled less than politely.
Maddy, at the mention of Pipa, pitched herself up on her elbows to pay closer attention.
"Yeah, Pipa, I need to talk to her, she has something of mine." Thomas was losing patience; it was a simple question which required a yes or no answer.
"Why would Pipa be with me?" Leroy was trying to comprehend why Thomas thought Pipa would be with him.
"Because Maddy is with you!" he shot back exasperated.
"Yeah, Maddy is with me...what? do ya think I'm into threesomes or sumthin'? You have a weird take on life brother."
"No, I didn't mean that, she's gone awol and she has my property...is she there or NOT?"
"No!...what she got that you want back so bad? Huh?" Leroy was intrigued, this normally cool, calm, lawyer was sounding like he was on the verge of going lu lu. He was shouting so loudly down the line by now, Maddy could hear every word.
"The tapes!" Thomas bellowed desperately "The bloody tapes, you fool."
"Hey, don't you go talkin' to me like that brother, it aint polite. I know nuthin' of Pipa or any god-damn tapes, capiche?"
In irritation Maddy snatched the phone off Leroy and hissed down the phone "Thomas it's Maddy, piss off and get a life." With that she slammed down the phone. She smiled sweetly to the taken aback Leroy "Don't waste your breath on him sweetie, he's not worth the hassle. Now where were we?" she led back on the sheets opened her arms out in invitation, however Leroy had gone into thinking mode. "What tapes?"
Maddy let her arms flop back down, their early morning canoodle ruined. "HarryandDempseygate, nut-job Monica recorded them in Spain, although they plead innocence, me, Alex and Pipa think differently...they were so at it..." she gave him a cheeky smile.
"and Lyons what's to beat them over the head with it...nice, he's just as screwy as Robert. So where is Pipa?"
"With Harry."
"And the kid?"
"With Robert...I think."
Leroy leapt out of bed "Come on, get dressed playtimes over. I gotta nasty feeling the shit is going to hit the fan today...an it aint gonna be pleasant."
Maddy sprang to her feet; she stood completely naked in front of him and gave a salute "Detective Madeleine Andrews at your service."
Leroy looked her up and down and smirked "Looking that hot, I sure hope you always are."
"She's gone, hasn't even left a note!" exclaimed Harry to Dempsey "Bloody typical, can't even be bothered to say thank you for putting up with her."
"And the tapes?" asked Dempsey, his eyes scanning Harry's front room.
"Gone as well." She huffed "That woman is the limit."
Dempsey was feeling uneasy, it seemed their whole relationship hung on those tapes and now they were in the hands of a woman who appeared to have less morals than an alley cat on heat. "Where would she go?"
"Who cares? To hell I hope!" Harry threw her hands in the air in disgust.
He regarded her carefully; he had never seen Harry behave like this. The tension of the situation was clearly getting to her and the cracks in her cool demeanour were starting to show. Normally she was the level headed one who kept a tight lid on her emotions and an even tighter rein on his. Now he felt like the tables had been turned and it was he trying to keep her calm and clear thinking. "You have to care Harry, this is important for all our sakes." He said in a low voice.
"Don't you think I bloody well know that!" she shot back.
" I know you do, but you have to keep thinkin' it through like a pro, like a cop."
"But this isn't police business!" she punctuated "It's personal, Pipa isn't our problem." Her eyes were wide and smouldered with anger. She couldn't, wouldn't understand how they had become mixed up in all this.
Dempsey tried again "She is our problem, likewise Robert...and so is Matthew."
"Matthew! Oh, the social services should expect a call on that one." She huffed and folded her arms tight across her chest."
Dempsey sighed hard; Harry's dark mood wasn't helping either of them. "You don't mean that, you have a heart Harry, you wouldn't see that kid dumped into care...and you know it."
Harry flopped down on the couch resignedly, her anger dissipated as she thought of the little boy.
He carried on "It aint his fault all this, his mom may have behaved like a hooker, but she, rightly or wrongly thought she was trying to solve the problem in the only way she knew how." He looked at her beseechingly hoping he was getting through to her.
Harry thought for a while and gave him a placating smile "Okay, you win...When did you become the sensible one?" He was right, she wouldn't let Matthew be taken into care, he belonged with Pipa, his mother and she knew she had to keep carrying on and see the whole sorry mess through.
His lips twitched into smile back at her "Dunno, real shocker aint it? Figure it had to happen someday."
Robert hauled himself out of bed. His head thumped with a nagging pulse which seemed to echo through his entire body. Due to the drugs fighting the alcohol, he had slept fitfully and the morning had brought a hazy, blurred reality. Time had become irrelevant, he didn't know nor care what time it was, all he was aware of was the basic need for water. His throat was dry and raspy, his tongue like swollen sandpaper, his nose stinging and raw. He staggered to the kitchen sink pushing to one side the empty bottle of scotch and cupped his hands under the tap. The stream of icy, cold water cascaded through his grubby fingers. He brought his face to his hands swooshed the water over his blotchy, puffy face in an attempt to shock back some lucidity. He filled a glass up and glugged down the contents without pausing for breath
He let the tap run as he righted himself supporting his weight with his hands on the edge of sink and stared blankly out of the window at the garden. There, in the garden, were Mathew's swing, climbing frame and sandpit. His little trike led on its side abandoned, his football marooned in the hedge. He struggled to remember how the football ended up stuck in the braches halfway up the bush, then he realised he had no idea how it got there; he had never played football with his son!
Still staring, seemingly transfixed by the toy, tears starting to fall from the corners of his eyes. He never cried, he never felt alone, he had never felt this miserable. The tears became a waterfall and he let out painful, howling sobs. He had always said that crying was a sign of weakness, but all alone in his kitchen, he had nothing to prove to anyone, they had left him to wallow in his self induced pity. He was a man on the verge of losing everything. A man who once had everything under control had lost control of those around him and was rapidly losing grip of his own mind.
He let his arms buckle under his weight and his legs turn to jelly as he slid helplessly to the kitchen floor. His body juddered and shook with uncontrollable sobs as he lay crumpled on the tiles.
Alex stood in the CID kitchenette staring into space absentmindedly stirring her cup of coffee. Her mind was filled with her disturbing dream. She tried hard to put the fragments together like a virtual jigsaw; however, it was like trying to follow a badly edited French art-house film. Each scene jumped to another seemingly ignoring the plot or storyline...if only dreams came with subtitles. One minute she was in the hotel lobby observing a beautiful woman, next she was being led through the streets of Kensington. Nothing made sense.
"Everything okay Ma'am?" asked a concerned Shaz, breaking Alex's thoughts.
"Hmm?" Alex turned to her "Oh yes Shaz, everything's fine, just a little tired that's all."
"Little one keeping you awake?" she smiled sympathetically.
"Dreadful heartburn, doesn't matter what I eat, it's the same result."
"My aunt was the same with my cousin, always downing the Peptic-bismal.
"Still it's better than morning sickness." Smiled Alex "may have been put off ice-cream for life."
"You still look fab Ma'am."
"Thank you Shaz, not sure that will be the case when I'm the size of a small elephant with swollen ankles."
"You will be blooming. I'm sure of it."
Alex smiled again, Shaz was so sweet, it was refreshing to have some female company, although Maddy seemed to be becoming more of a fixture in CID, but Alex guessed that when the new school term started she would be busy with her own job. Shaz proceeded to make a cup of tea, Alex left her to it and decided she had better tackle a stack of paperwork which had mysteriously appeared on her desk.
Spikings watched the flames with smug satisfaction, occasionally prodding the burning plastic with a length of pallet wood. Dave, one of his young DC's, had offered to do it for him, but he had insisted he wanted to do the cremation himself. He wouldn't be satisfied until every scrap had been incinerated, therefore he had set himself up a brazier in the form of an oil drum in the SI10 back lot, stuffed it full of newspaper and kindling and added a liberal dose of lighter fuel, just to make sure the whole bloody lot went up like the fourth of July.
He wasn't normally partial to a spot of evidence destruction, he was a police officer after all, but he had made the exception in this case. Truthfully, he couldn't wait to see the ruddy back of it; it had caused enough problems for all and sundry, including him, as it was. Therefore, it was only right and decent that he'd give it a good send off.
"Chief Superintendent! I sincerely hope you are not destroying my property?"
Spikings's smug smile grew wider as he recognised the supercilious voice behind him. He turned slowly, he was going to enjoy this confrontation and milk it for all it was worth.
Sure enough, Thomas was stood before him wearing a thunderous expression and dancing around like he had red hot poker shoved up his backside.
"Something the matter Lyons? You're looking a little flustered."
Thomas bounded over to the oil drum and peered desperately into the ashes "You, you've destroyed my evidence!" he exclaimed in horror. He grabbed the wooden poker out of the chief's hands and desperately tried salvage some of the tape.
"Evidence?" said Spikings's with mock innocence "Oh no Lyons, a very helpful member of the public came to me this morning and asked me to dispense with some very personal information. I was only too happy to oblige."
Thomas scowled at him "I bet you were. Have you taken leave of your senses man? This is evidence!"
Spikings's shook his head and pursed his lips "This isn't evidence in a criminal prosecution; you said so yourself at our last meeting. Plus I recall you saying your client, Chapman, didn't have a leg to stand on."
"It's evidence in the inquest." blurted Thomas.
Spikings gave him an unsettling smile "No it isn't. You see, I checked with the Coroner to see if it had been submitted to the inquest board. He had no record of it neither did your office – strikes me as a little odd wouldn't you say? Surely if it was key to the inquest it would have be correctly submitted. Dr Andrews assured me it wasn't a legitimate form of evidence as it had been obtained illegally and could be considered as entrapment – of course that's exactly what you intended to do with it, wasn't it?"
The colour from Thomas's face suddenly drained and he became very pale.
Spikings continued to enjoy himself "You may have been formed in Makepeace's image, but you still haven't learnt the basics – have you? Using illegal tape recordings of two covert police officers to blackmail their superior officer was a rather stupid thing to do – don't you agree?" Spikings became smugger, the sheer delight clear on his face. "Most freshers start off in the paddling pool, you know, giving bent bobbies a few back-handers for information, turning the odd snout to get the inside track on investigations, knobbling the odd court clerk...you know the sort of thing. But not you, eh Lyons? You decide to go straight to the first division and try to bribe a chief Superintendent of a crack investigation team. You're in the deep end with the sharks, and nobody is going to throw you a lifeline."
Thomas started to quake under Spikings's scrutiny, his eyes were boring deep into the lawyer.
Spiking's grin dropped and his expression became stern, he was going in for the kill. "Crack investigation teams like to investigate things and people – that's what we do, it's our jobs. And we turned up some rather interesting gems of information." Spikings leant menacingly into Thomas's personal space " I know how Robert blackmailed Dr Andrews in that case all those years ago and how he's been your's and Makepeace's little puppy dog ever since. I know how your firm uses power and influence to squash police officers and Coroners into the ground...and I also know of several cases where witnesses were bribed not to give evidence. A right catalogue of misdemeanours stretching into the 70s. If you hadn't decided to step out from under Makepeace's coat-tails, you wouldn't have been tarred with the same brush.
Thomas swallowed hard, Spikings had got him. He cursed his own greed and stupidity for getting him to this point. The Chief was right, if he had kept his head down, his involvement with Robert's underhand practices may have lain undiscovered and he would be in the clear.
The smile returned to Spikings's lips as he spoke with satisfaction "Thomas Lyons, I am arresting you for attempted blackmail of a senior police officer and with perverting the course of justice...you do not have to say anything..."
Thomas was led away for questioning.
One down! Big chapter coming up, so please review and I will try to upload next week.
Cheers QQ