Samantha Part 9
Below is part 9 of my story Samantha. For Part 8 which links back to earlier chapters please visit http://newauthoronline.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/samantha-part-8/
At around the same time that Sam and Peter where taking their seats in the Ying Wah Billy pushed open the door of the Richard John Blackler, a Wetherspoon pub in Great Charlotte Street, situated some little distance from Liverpool’s Lime street station. He ordered a pint of Sam Smiths bitter and took a seat at a corner table in the heart of the busy pub. Billy hated Wetherspoons. They signified all that was wrong with modern society. As with the giant supermarkets which where driving the corner shops out of business the ever expanding Wetherspoon chain was forcing local pubs to the wall. Your average local just couldn’t compete with the low prices charged by J D Wetherspoon.
Billy glanced around the Richard John. At 6 pm on a Saturday evening the pub was packed to the gunnels. The customers ranged from work colleagues enjoying a cheap pint after work to men with blank expressions who looked as though they had spent most of the day drinking. Wetherspoon was, Billy new a haven for alcaholics. One could get drunk with only £20 in the Richard John unlike many of the trendy places where two pints would set you back by £8 or £10.
In spite of its many drawbacks the place had one great advantage. Its cavernous interior and ever shifting customer base was conducive to anonymity. One was extremely unlikely to run into a friend or acquaintance in such a place and, unlike your friendly local pub people did, on the whole ignore their fellow drinkers.
A balding man in his mid to late fourties approached Billy’s table. “Evening” he said taking a seat directly opposite to Billy. “Evening sir” Billy replied. Both men spoke in low tones although it would have been almost impossible for anyone to overhear their conversation given the hubbub of many conversations going on around them.
“You got my report?” Billy asked. “Yes sergeant” Inspector Jim Rawls answered. He continued “Hushmail’s amazing the way in which you can encrypt data so that only the person with the encryption key can read it. They never had anything like that when I joined the force. Come to think of it they never had email!” he said with a smile. His smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Billy I can’t have you jeopardising the operation. What the hell where you thinking of intervening to stop Barry from beating that prostitute? You could have fucked up the entire operation!” “He could have killed the girl sir. She was high on god knows what, maybe Crack and Barry lost it. He was kicking the shit out of Tanya. He could have killed her”. “Sergeant you are there to observe and report back. A whore gets a beating. So what, it goes on every day all over the world. Your job is to make sure that we have a rock solid case to send Barry O’connor down for a good 10-15 years. No more getting involved, just report back. That’s the best way to help those girls, not by wearing your bleeding heart on your sleeve but by gathering the evidence to put Barry away for a hell of a long time”.
Billy bit his lower lip fighting back the urge to give vent to his feelings. He knew that the Inspector was right, good policing was about impartial gathering of evidence and remaining emotionally detached from the cases you happened to be working on. However when he saw girls like Tanya and Sam visions of Amanda his 17-year-old daughter with her laughing blue eyes and golden hair swam before his eyes. He loved Amanda and would break every bone in the body of anyone who so much as raised their hand to her. His little girl was only a year or so younger than some of the girls who Barry controlled. When Barry had laid into Tanya, a girl barely past her 18th birthday Billy had wanted to choke the life out of that excuse for a human being, Barry. Instead he had laid his hand on Barry’s shoulder and said “Stop mate, you’ll kill her and the cops will come sniffing around asking questions”. Billy’s words had penetrated Barry’s alcohol fuelled brain and he had left Tanya curled up in a ball on the floor, blood running down her pretty face.
“When can we bring him in sir?” Billy asked. “In a week or so I hope. The recordings you have made and the video foottage from the hidden camera will prove invaluable but I want to bring in Thomas Lewis at the same time. Harry’s doing good work on Tommo’s set-up and it makes sense to bring Barry and Tommo in together”.
The inspector finished his coffee. “OK Billy keep sending in the reports. You are doing great work but keep aloof, don’t get involved. You have the makings of a good senior officer, don’t balls up your career”. With a nod the inspector got up, headed for the door and disappeared into the autumn night.
