Someone once unloaded ninety-two thousand pounds’ worth of Caterpillar boots after cropping open a container parked in a lay-by on the A45 in Northamptonshire. Three weeks before, seventy-five thousand quid in kids’ clothes disappeared from a slashed curtain-sider on the same road. In the course of fifty days, no less than £280,000 in goods went from trucks in that area alone. I wasn’t involved in any of that, of course. But I know a man who was.
Me, I prefer to target the continentals. It’s a personal prejudice, but it gives me pleasure. You see all these Scanias and DAFs and Mercs, huge beasts some of them, trundling through our English counties bringing in stuff from all across Europe. There are no barriers now, they say, since they created the EU. So they come in their hordes, complaining that our roads aren’t good enough and griping about the food in the transport caffs. Some of these French drivers bring their own frog’s legs and picnic together by their wagons like they were too good to eat a plate of pie and chips like the locals do. As far as I’m concerned, if they make the mistake of stopping in Nottinghamshire, they’re fair game.
Employers prefer drivers to park in official truck stops, but they don’t always do it. This means they’re a bit reluctant sometimes to admit where a load has been nicked from. Hampers the police no end, that does. So can a driver carrying on to his destination before discovering and reporting a theft. Hell, if you can’t say where and when it happened, what can you expect the plods do but make an entry on their computer and write another one off to insurance? Victimless crime, see.
Let me tell you, this is nothing to what happens to British drivers over there. You’ve heard of the truckers hijacked and their loads of lamb burned at the roadside while the police looked on? You’ve heard of the haulage firms put out of business because of strikes and blockades by French drivers that their government doesn’t do anything about? You’ve read about the Frog police wading in to open the borders to Germany and Spain, but not bothering about the blockades on Channel ports, because it only affects the English? European unity, this is.
A couple of years ago a lad from Staffordshire spent months in some arsehole of a French jail before a campaign by his family and public pressure got him out. What had he done? Crossed the Channel and picked up a container unit to bring back. Unknown to him, it contained drugs somebody had stashed in there. He’d been in France twenty minutes and had never even seen inside the trailer, which was locked and sealed when he collected it. How could he have hidden the drugs? But they banged him up straight away, left him shackled in chains without contact with his family and wouldn’t let him have a lawyer when he appeared in court. He doesn’t fancy going back to France now. You and me both, mate.
And you know what? We put billions of pounds every year into EU funds, and what do we get out of it? About ten million pounds in subsidies for rich git farmers to grow nothing, and a load of regulations that would stop you having a crap if it wasn’t coming out the right shape. There needs to be a bit of equalisation, I reckon. If the French and German governments can subsidise their manufacturing industries, then maybe we ought to be having some of the benefits trickling down to us on the Forest Estate. Those Adidas tracksuits will do, for a start.
Teri Brooker is a nice girl really, and she doesn’t deserve to be a copper. Putting on a hard front is just part of the job description. Really, she’s another one with a soft spot for me. We go back quite a long way, actually, and our relationship has been fruitful in more ways than one. Now all we exchange is information, but not for want of trying on my part.
We were in the car park by the Dukeries Garden Centre. There is nothing else here, on the edge of the Welbeck Abbey grounds, apart from the Harley Gallery. Beyond the high walls at the back of the garden centre there’s the Abbey itself, with its vast underground ballroom and the miles of tunnels built by the 5th Duke of Portland. You don’t get the chance to get in there to see the place very often, being as how it’s leased to the Ministry of Defence as a training college, while the last descendant of the dukes lives in a cottage in the grounds. The MoD don’t make much fuss about their presence here — especially since someone strolled in one night and nicked half the Duke’s paintings off the walls. Not me, honest.
I like to come to places like this, where the cops aren’t likely to call. They’re not generally known for their love of modern art or garden plants. Teri knew this, of course, but she was still edgy. She’s been like this around me for a while now. You’d almost think I was the wrong sort of company for an ambitious detective constable.
I had to wind down the windows of the Subaru because she was smoking, a habit she must have picked up in the CID room to be one of the boys. She didn’t smoke when I knew her better, but things have changed since then. She’s after a sergeant’s job these days. Meanwhile, I’ve gone right down the nick, of course. Teri was a few relationships before Lisa, probably three or four, maybe five. I lose count. But once they’ve had a fling with me they don’t forget me. The charm works wonders. It always gets me what I want.
As we sat in the car, we were both watching the traffic coming in and out. Occasionally old couples would totter to their Fiestas and Nissan hatchbacks with armloads of geraniums and bags of compost, and families would emerge from their Peugeot estates, with the kids making a bee-line for the ice cream freezer. The art gallery was as quiet as the grave.
“I supposed you’re going to ask me about Lloyd Thompson,” she said.
“Well, yeah. A bit strange that, wasn’t it? They can’t have anything on him, not really.”
“Why? Because he works for you? You’re always so careful, aren’t you, Stones?”
“It’s what my mum always told me to be.”
“No, they had nothing on him. It was Gleeson’s idea. Moxon wouldn’t have done it.”
“Gleeson? Is he drugs squad?”
“Drugs squad? What ever gave you that idea?”
“Er... just a rumour.”
“Detective Inspector Gleeson is Serious Crime.”
“What sort of serious crime?”
“Can’t tell you that, Stones.”
“Shame.”
We jumped as a couple of kids ran round the car, screaming and laughing. Their parents called them away, and Teri relaxed again. Me, I was still on tenterhooks.
“It was because Thompson’s known as a driver,” she said. “Gleeson wanted to pick some drivers up and lean on them, to see what it might produce. He was just chancing his arm.”
“Teri — is this all about the new outfit that’s supposed to be moving in?”
“You’re not involved in that, are you, Stones? I don’t suppose you’d tell me if you were. But I didn’t believe the theory. It was just talk on the streets.”
“No, I’m not. You know me better, Teri.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“So how come your lot are shooting in the dark looking for drivers? Why haven’t they picked up the dealers?”
“Dealers? You’re on about drugs still. What’s the matter with you?”
“Sorry. Not drugs then, something else. Some major consignments of... something you can’t tell me about. But you’ve never picked up the main men?”
Teri sighed. “We got close. Gleeson’s lot had observation on them, but the operation went wrong.”
“Wrong? You mean they spotted your people?”
“Not exactly.”