Judgement Call by Nick Oldham Page B

… you’ll get me in trouble,’ he said, and reached for his jeans. ‘Come on, we’ve got a prisoner to take up north.’
    â€˜He’s been ready an hour … and a half,’ the dour station sergeant at Dover nick said as he took in the faces of the two Lancashire officers. ‘We thought you’d gone home without him.’
    â€˜Big apologies,’ Henry stammered, not really knowing what to say. ‘It was a watch issue.’ He held out his left arm and waggled his wrist. ‘It stopped for some reason,’ he lied.
    The sergeant looked as though he was going to say something but instead his eyes simply played over the two shamefaced PCs and the corners of his mouth turned down cynically, knowingly. He was good at simple maths, easily calculating one plus one. He shook his head sadly and beckoned them through to the cell complex. They walked past a holding cage in which sat the lone figure of Jack Bowman, prolific burglar from the valley. All the paperwork was ready, as was Bowman’s property, which Henry checked, signed for and took possession of. He went back to the holding cage.
    â€˜Mornin’, Jack,’ Henry said, starting to wake up. At last. He let his handcuffs dangle off his finger.
    Bowman was a sour-eyed lad in his late teens, rake-thin like all good burglars should be, with the build of a whippet. Not very tall, with a pinched face that displayed no hint of compromise. Henry, who kept abreast of as many villains as possible, knew that Bowman was one of the numerous offspring of the Bowman clan who inhabited the Hall Carr estate in Rawtenstall. The Bowmans were a state-funded enterprise and supplemented their all too generous hand-outs by means of small-time, but large-scale, volume crime. Hence they were experts at breaking into homes and cars and were great at shoplifting, which they had off to a fine art. Jack was probably the best burglar in the valley, moving around like a shadow and entering people’s homes by a number of methods depending on the circumstances. He was real nifty with a fishing rod and hook through letter boxes, and was also a great opportunist having burgled many homes by simply slipping in through open doors. He was also known for breaking and entering by the traditional route – removing panes of glass from ground-floor windows and climbing through. He was also good at shimmying up drainpipes. Sometimes, if he didn’t break the glass in windows, he would replace it on leaving and occasionally victims couldn’t even work out how their property had been violated – until a gust of wind blew the glass out and it smashed.
    In fact, he was an all-round burglar, and was rarely caught.
    Bowman stood up, saying nothing, and passed his hands clasped together through the bars of the holding cage for Henry to ratchet the cuffs onto his wrists.
    â€˜Not too tight?’ Bowman looked disinterestedly at Henry. ‘I’ll take that as a no,’ Henry said. ‘All set for a long journey? Done your number one and two?’
    â€˜I’ll expect a comfort break somewhere.’ Bowman broke his silence.
    â€˜We’ll see. Depends, doesn’t it?’
    â€˜On what?’
    â€˜Attitude and behaviour, and if I think I can trust you.’ Henry’s face was only a foot away from Bowman’s. He lowered his voice and tried to sound menacing. ‘You fuck about, I’ll put another pair of cuffs on you, OK? If we do stop and you try anything daft, I’ll flatten you and that’s a promise. OK? So just sit back and enjoy the ride and we’ll stay amicable.’
    Bowman kept his eyes on Henry’s but the expression on his face didn’t change.
    Henry manoeuvred Bowman into the back of the Vauxhall so he was sitting behind the front passenger, putting a bit of a diagonal gap between prisoner and driver. There was nothing worse than a prisoner trying to strangle the driver, it made for