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Chapter Seventeen;
Head on a Plate

Max wasn't too shocked when the address he'd stolen off the PC's desk had turned out to prove fruitless. He didn't think Stamos would be sitting at home just waiting for the police to turn up. Even at this time of the morning, just before the sun rose, the man was nowhere to be seen. A scout of his property gave nothing away either, except a small scraggly dog in his backyard who'd had a serious problem with Max and nearly bit off his foot, so Max returned to his car with a hopeless look on his face and the despondent plan to return to the nick with his tail between his legs.

Until he saw him…

Staggering along the road, chatting animatedly into his mobile phone, was Stamos. He was swaying drunkenly, one finger wedged up his nose, his other hand holding the phone a short distance from his mouth, growling into it as he walked. Max watched him calmly from the inside of his dark green Nissan as he removed his finger from his face and fished into his pants, rattling around inside before pulling out a set of keys, glancing around at the street before he turned his back on it and started to open his front door.

Max used this opportunity to move and opened the door of his car, standing slowly and shutting it behind him, turning to face Stamos.

That was when he felt the hand on his shoulder and he glanced up at Stamos as the man, the drunk act gone, turned with a smile. The hand tightened on Max's shoulder as Stamos stepped down off the step. "DI Carter I presume?"

Millie scratched at her eyebrow nervously, listening to Smithy's call over the radio describing Max's car and his suspected whereabouts. She was tired and angry with him but more than anything she was scared. Losing Oscar was enough but Max and Oscar? She felt for sure like she'd lost absolutely everything and now she just wanted to sit here, staring at the desk, until news came through that it was fine.

"PC Brown?"

The young, eager PC Copeland smiled at Millie as she put a small cup of tea down in front of her, and Millie assessed the girl. For Millie to call anyone young and naïve would be ironic but there had been a change in Millie since the business with Curtis Jenson and her relationship with Max had started. She was more likely to fight for what she believed in and while she still tried to think the best lay within everyone, she looked just to make sure there wasn't any bad, just in case. She'd been offered a promotion just before she realized she was pregnant, Smithy thinking she'd make a great Sergeant over at Kingmarsh, the nick to the north of Sun Hill, but Oscar had changed that. She remained a PC at Sun Hill until she started maternity leave. The idea of traveling to Kingmarsh every day, the added pressures of being a Sergeant, all just seemed a little too much while Oscar was young. Maybe in a few years when he started school, went off on his own, started needing her less…

The idea of Oscar needing her less made her feel small. She knew children grew and with Max as his father the boy was likely to grow with more self-sufficiency and 'character' (as Millie lovingly called her husband's sometimes harsh and always pessimistic view of modern society) than any other child around, but having him never need her, that scared her. It was a normal maternal trait, one her mother assured her she'd soon learnt to accept, but still she worried.

Of course right now he needed her, needed protection, and she'd failed to give it, she felt worse than she thought she could ever feel. She yearned to hear Max calling down the hallway that Oscar had broken something again. The loneliness she felt when Max and Oscar went off together to do what Max called 'man-stuff'. Even that, feeling like a third wheel in her son's life, was better than this.

She guessed she must have been getting teary when PC Copeland sat down and put a hand on Millie's shoulder. "Hey, it'll be okay, we'll find DI Carter."

Millie smiled bravely. "It's not DI Carter I'm too worried about, he can look after himself, it's how I'll be able to find Oscar without him."

It had always been this way. Millie found trouble, Max solved it, and it just worked. But then Max had got himself locked in that freezer, this business with Jankowski, and suddenly the tables were turned. Millie had to fix Max's mistakes. The pressure was getting hard to bear.

"We'll find him, you've just got to believe we will, be optimistic."

Millie smiled warmly at PC Copeland. She was a breath of fresh air, or least air from the past, and Millie nodded slowly. "You're right. Optimistic." The young girl grinned. "And I'm now optimistic that wherever Max is right now, he's finding answers."

Max groaned as another steel-capped boot connected with his rib cage. He was pretty certain he'd heard a crack and his breathing became labored. Stamos stood over him again, pushing one of his four heavy-set brutes back, smiling down at his prey. "Okay, your turn Detective Inspector."

He didn't want to play this game anymore, this little thing Stamos called 'your turn, my turn' where every one of Max's questions was met with either a boot or a punch, but he was unable to evade the brutes and at least this way his hospital visit later wouldn't be worthless.

After being grabbed at his car Max had been dragged into the house, through the backyard and into a neighboring lot, a big empty field that was overgrown with weeds. It was still dark, only the early morning light allowing Stamos' heavies to deliver their blows, so the idea of anyone around hearing this and calling the police was unlikely. He was on his own. As usual…

"Jankowski; where is he?"

Stamos shrugged. "No idea." Stamos' northern accent, Max would say a very soft Geordie, made every word sound like a question, rising at the end of each sentence. From another's mouth it may well have been amusing. Right now it was scary. "I cut him loose." Max knew that was 'bad guy' talk for 'we had a falling out and I'm still smarting' but he said nothing. "I don't think I have to tell you that the guy's a few sandwiches short of a picnic."

"Wha…"

Max trailed off as Stamos held up a hand. "Uh uh uh Detective Inspector, it's my turn now." Then, turning away from Max, he called someone's name. Max closed his eyes and waited for the blow.

"…dark green Nissan, Foxtrot Indigo Whiskey, Four, Two, Four, Indigo. Repeat…"

PC Roger Valentine ignored the blaring radio on his shoulder, having heard the car's description three times now, and kept walking, his early-morning stroll of the main streets of Sun Hill leaving him tired and feeling very old. It wasn't that Roger was counting down the days until retirement, anything but, just that the countdown seemed to be running subconsciously in his head. He tried to ignore it but it stayed there, taunting him, until he found something else to drown it out.

The radio had done that at the start but now…

Roger paused at the entrance to Hordern Lane, a small lane outside the Holbeck Estate, not far from Stamos' property. Naturally, when Max Carter ran off, Smithy had sent everyone straight to Stamos' street. To their disappointment it was bare, not a sign of Max or his car, but now Roger found it parked in a dark part of this little alley. He was surprised it hadn't been found until now and he called it in, checking the alley was clear before moving towards it, assessing the car from top to bottom, peering in the windows.

As the radio told him back-up was on its way he saw the keys discarded by the front tire and he picked them up with a pair of gloves, holding them up and glancing at them before unlocking the car, the Nissan giving a cheery 'bleep' and flashing its head and tail lights as it unlocked. Then a sound issued from the car that usually shouldn't…

A groan had come from the boot.

Moving towards it quickly Roger pushed it open and stared down at the figure with a frown. Then he raised his radio to his lips and called for an ambulance.