Fleshing out a character. I needed a counterpoint to my villainess lead character and chose Dexter, an experienced ex-copper with knowledge of the area. These preliminary scribbles may not have made it into print, with the exception of a couple of sentence I liked too much to discard, but they served a purpose in fixing the nature of Dexter in my mind.
Dexter had last been through this estate a couple of years ago, back in the days when he was still a copper. All the shop fronts had metal grills over the windows, graffiti covered every available surface and there wasn’t a car in sight still in possession of a full set of wing mirrors or hubcaps.
Moonlight cast iridescent pools of shadow that softened the harsh outline of the towering apartment blocks. Rows of concrete lampposts stood useless and redundant, their globes having been smashed in a single night of riot and mayhem two years ago and never replaced. There had been little demand for their reinstatement; no one who walked these dark and dangerous streets after nightfall had any pressing desire for illumination.
The estate was still in the same place and so were the shop-front grills, but the graffiti had gone. Completely. He stopped the car and looked up at the flats. No sign of ply board covering broken windows. Dexter climbed from his car and looked around. The roads were deserted, but the finely honed instincts of an ex-copper told him he was being watched. A dozen unseen eyes were shadowing his every move. Like jungle predators waiting for their next meal to enter the killing zone, there were eyes everywhere.
None of them friendly.
There was little point asking the neighbours if they knew anything. Selective myopia was a common condition on these landings. If a herd of wildebeest had galloped through their bedrooms, they’d still claim not to have noticed anything out of the ordinary. A bad memory and poor eyesight were essential qualities for healthy living in these tower blocks.
A couple of years back, the Betts family were top dogs in this area. Three toe-rag brothers and the old man who was the worst of the lot. The boys ran this estate and old man Betts ran the three boys. With an iron fist in both cases. Violence was the common theme and crime flourished under Betts rules. Dexter had wasted more hours than he cared to remember in attempting to find witnesses to the numerous offences carried out within the boundaries of the estate. Nobody ever talked. Like the wartime poster said, careless talk really did cost lives. The life, or at least the health, of the person doing the talking.
The Betts family were no longer at the top table. The old man, Dennis Betts, had vanished a year ago and his sons were either dead or banged up in maximum security. The disappearance of Dennis Betts had brought about a power vacuum in the area almost overnight. It was widely rumoured that the old villain had been snatched on his way back from the drinking club he part owned and was feeding the fish somewhere out in the Irish Sea. His bodyguard had turned up a week later, most of him anyway, in a drainage ditch at the side of the East Lancs. Road, but Dennis had never been seen again.
The corpse of the bodyguard, minus his hands and feet, had clearly been intended to be found and to provide a clear message that the old order was about to change.
Dexter had asked around, but the identity of the new man at the top had still to be confirmed. Now Dexter wanted to see the old Betts stamping ground for himself before he committed himself to further action. He’d never backed away from a job in his whole career, but Dennis Betts had been a hard bastard and an opponent worthy of respect. Nobody knew better than Dexter how big a step it had been to crush the power of the Betts regime and the unknown man responsible was obviously someone who posed a considerable danger to anyone foolish enough to stick their nose where it was not wanted.
A distant figure slowed as Dexter’s face became visible in the gloom, then turned abruptly at right angles and vanished into an alley between two buildings. A second figure followed at a discreet distance in the manner of a reprimand coming after an incautious remark. Separate, yet closely linked. The second man pulled his hood down, covering his face and took the same evasive action. Druggies, Dexter surmised. Dealer and client. These days, more likely to be crack, a development that boded ill for Dexter’s former colleagues in the Drug Squad.
Crack was bad news. Heroin lifts you up and lets you down slowly so you stay peaceful. Unless and until you hadn’t the means to buy your next fix. That aside, heroin addicts tended to be relatively gentle souls asking nothing from the world outside their close relationship with the white powder. Crack cocaine is a different beast. Under its spell, peaceful men discover a taste for mayhem and those who are already wild become madmen.
The wind stirred the branches of the only tree within sight, its leaves rustling like the whispering of naughty children.
Dexter always reckoned this estate had been planned with criminality in mind. A maze of cul-de-sacs and blind alleys made the estate as inaccessible to an outsider as a mediaeval hill village in Spain. No problem if you knew your way around, but a nightmare for non-residents, especially if the visiting stranger was a police officer.
Dexter had never countenanced the idea of no-go areas, but the ease with which dead-end streets could be barricaded, trapping unwary officers, had brought about more than one tactical withdrawal in order to ensure the safety of his team.
These days, without any back-up worthy of the name, Dexter wouldn’t even consider engaging the enemy on their own turf. The prospect rankled, but he’d have to be more subtle if he wanted this particular enquiry to be productive. Direct action was a non-starter.
He climbed back behind the wheel of his car and drove slowly away from the estate. He’d seen nothing to suggest his safety had been at risk, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t the case.
Addendum:
Those two descriptive sentences deemed too good to discard –
‘A second figure followed at a discreet distance in the manner of a reprimand coming after an incautious remark’
And
‘The wind stirred the branches of the only tree within sight, its leaves rustling like the whispering of naughty children.’
Gulliver Smith 