CHAPTER 1
Detective Chief Inspector Ian Farrel was not naturallythe superstitious type. However, today was thethirteenth and it was a Friday. In actual fact, ascoincidence would have it, he was having a bad day. He hadhad bad days before—a lot of them. Many of them Fridays andmany the thirteenth, but then again Saturday to Thursdays, odddates, even dates and days off work also figured in his bad ornot-so-good days.
Four years ago his wife left him. Coincidentally, that dayhappened to be a Friday the thirteenth. She'd had enough of hisexcessive work schedule, the long hours and the number of dayshe worked on his job without taking a break. It was too much.She needed him to be around to take her out and spend moneyon her, but she came to realise his job came first—it alwayscame first. So, she wanted out.
Farrel was a good cop. He had always been a good cop eversince he started out as a beat officer. He hated to think thatcriminals were getting away with murder. Well, not necessarilymurder but thieving from the old folks and beating people up,to name but two. Parking offences had never been his cup oftea when he was on the beat. He managed to develop a methodof saying `get the hell out of here with that car' in a way thatoffenders could not really complain about.
He was promoted and then worked his way up to becomea member of the Criminal Investigation Department. Duringthis latter part of his career he gained respect as well as a fearfulreputation, not only in the Underworld but also with hiscolleagues. He had thrown himself into the job wholeheartedly,almost as if he were the only crime fighter in the entirecountry.
So, his wife left him and rather quickly took up with a slick,smart aleck import-export operator, who seemed to be ableto take time off at the drop of a hat and spend a great deal ofmoney on her.
Farrel despised the man for taking her from him as well ashis home comforts, but he was unable to do anything about it.It was not surprising then that he was extremely satisfied, to saynothing of amused, when the son-of-a-bitch was arrested by aneighbouring force for business irregularities: running drugsinto the country, embezzlement, fraud, money laundering,unpaid taxes, and, of course, not paying the fines for hismotoring offences. The book that they threw at him was ratherlarge and heavy with the judge sentencing him to seven years.Later Farrel rang the officer in charge of the case to congratulatehim on a job well done. The other policeman never knew thereal reason behind the congratulatory call.
Almost immediately after, his ex wanted to return to him,but, with as much good will as he could muster, Farell turnedher down. She had, after all, betrayed him once and playedfast and loose with a member of the criminal fraternity. Heexplained that he wouldn't be able to trust her again and arguedthat it was possible she could do something similar again andcause him still more embarrassment.
The problem was that he was still a young man andhe missed the comforts of a home life. He had moved into atwo-bedroom apartment and catered for himself, even thoughthat meant eating out in cafés, in the police canteen or grabbinga takeaway from the local fast-food joints. Yes, it was a bad diet,but at least he didn't have to waste time preparing meals ordoing the washing up. He worked all the hours he could, andthe apartment, in reality, only served as a dormitory.
As time passed, he became a rather tetchy individual,running on a short fuse and unable to suffer fools gladly. Thesquad recognised his bad days as well as the better ones. Thegood days usually consisted of an arrest or when some criminalwas sent down for a long time. Those were days for a smallcelebration.
Gradually, his men came to the conclusion that perhaps itwas a good thing Farrel was a detective and not a judge, for if hewere, not only would the nation's prisons be full to overflowing,but the country would be building prisons at an unprecedentedrate to keep up with his sentencing.
Things had not been going well lately and everyone knewthat today was not a good day for Farrel. It was definitely a badday. They all recognised the signs, except that is for the youngman who had recently joined the squad. Now the men weregathered for the normal morning briefing.
"That's not what I heard," Farrel shouted in irritation, ashe glared disdainfully, his steel blue eyes fixated on the youngDetective Constable who had just volunteered a piece ofinformation. At six foot three, Farrel looked down upon mostpeople including the young DC at five feet ten inches.
Outside it was a beautiful day. The morning sun streamedthrough the large windows of the squad office which facedsoutheast. Farrel though, was not a man to notice or beinfluenced by such weather or anything else that Mother Naturebestowed on or withheld from him. He was well known for hiscynicism and pessimism, and today was certainly not the timefor being unable to deliver a positive piece of information.
"In fact, that story is absurd," he continued. "I don't knowwhere you got it from, but if that cheap little crook TommyActon were on holiday, it would be one the judge had givenhim, or a job that Big Mick Jeanes had sent him on. Anyway,if that were the case, lovely little Jill Franks would be with him,but she's not, she's still around here somewhere, and, from whatI understand, she's keeping her pretty little head down becausesomeone has scared her witless."
The young, clean-cut, immaculately dressed DC RichardCopley flushed with embarrassment and shuffled his feetnervously, his eyes downcast glued to the floor. Some of the menin the room grimaced, some winced and others grinned a littleself-consciously. After all, each had at some point during theirservice with him experienced the rough edge of their superior'stongue. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt was a thoughtthat probably crossed each man's mind. They knew that theyoung man had recently joined the police service straight fromuniversity. His college tie bore witness to that and he was quitelikely to be promoted very soon due to his qualifications andconnections.
Farrel knew that this did not sit well with some of the older,hard-bitten men in the squad. They had survived through sheerhard work and putting their reputations and sometimes eventheir lives on the line in what on occasions was a very murkybusiness. The young man's superior manner and educatedaccent did not help either, but everyone admitted that he neverknowingly used them to his own advantage. He was just a veryfast learner.
Farrel himself had joined the police service as a youngtwenty year old and in the intervening years—he was comingup to complete twenty-two years' service—he had worked hisway up to his present rank. His reputation was highly respectedby his seniors and almost revered, if grudgingly, by other policeofficers. He was, of course, not without his critics, who wouldpoint to his very unorthodox methods to gain the necessaryresults, yet they could never deny they were effective and alwayswithin the law—if a little dubious, according to the purists.
Farrel cast his eye upon each member of the squad one byone for some sign of progress. DS George Preston, his 'loyalsidekick', as he thought of him, perhaps two or three years hissenior and some five inches shorter but more heavily built, wasa highly confident officer who commanded respect from the restof the group. If Farrel needed to delegate an important...
