A Second Chance Ch. 02

Callie and I made love again, my reaching down to suck at her hard nips, now freed of the elasticated bra cups that held them up so perfectly, the spaghetti straps hanging down her arms.

"Please Craig," she cried, "Now, please!" She came, I came, both of us staring into the face of the other, both sharing the look of stupid, surprised delight this time. "Oh Craig..." She whispered giving me the most wonderful look, all eyes.

And there and then I realised what the difference had been. Anna and I'd had sex, we'd made love, yes, but it wasn't like this. It had been great and amazingly sexy, but with the benefit of hindsight, it was just like a sexual workout, a pornographic, bedroom-based gym session, going through the motions but without the emotions. We had a great time, but I'd never had the feeling that she couldn't live without me.

What we'd had and done had been great at the time, only it had never been like this; it had been amazing sex, but I now knew it hadn't been love, not mutual at least. Sex with Anna had been far more energetic, exploratory even, and we were terribly cool about it. Anna would be very complimentary about my performance.

But Callie clung to me, begged me to not stop with tears in her eyes, then asked shyly if we could make love in the missionary because it was so 'lovely'.

We slept, disturbed once by Callie as she dashed to the bathroom, but coming straight back, sitting silently on the bed and pointing to all of the clips holding her corset in place. I sat up, unclipped them all, took the corset off and threw it across to the chair in the bay window, pulling her back so I could spoon her back to sleep.

We woke the next morning and were stupidly all over each other, kissing and cuddling, just holding each other, and waiting for the alarm to go off.

We got up, and it was the same as the day before, naked into the bathroom, me cleaning my teeth and shaving while my naked beauty sat on the WC, yawning and stretching, her great boobs looking just as good as they had the night before when I'd played with them and sucked and suckled.

I showered and she stepped in and joined me, scrubbing my back with the scrunchie, turning me to do my front, rubbing down to my groin and going so gently over the important places she'd paid so much attention to the night before.

Then it was my turn, and I did just the same to her, taking the opportunity to touch her all over, to rub at her shoulders, and we were both starting to pant with the excitement, but the beeping of the bathroom radio let me know that the hour had struck and we really didn't have time.

We dried each other off, and I sprayed myself with deodorant, running into my room to dress while Callie walked upstairs wrapped in just her towel, pausing halfway to stop, turn, bend forward and blow me a kiss. It was one of the sexiest things I'd ever seen.

After breakfast, I headed off to work, promising that I'd collect Emmie from school, then we'd all head out for dinner and announce the change in bedrooms. Callie said that she'd tell Emmie she'd have a lovely room with a view of the garden, that she was going to put her things in the other room... well, she'd have to think about that one.

I was buzzing all day about the whole thing, and left work early, unable to concentrate and wanting to head home.

There was something in the air and I knew not what, so passing a florist I stopped and grabbed a large bunch of flowers for Callie, knowing how romantic that would be, but then for some other strange reason that I can only put down to luck I asked for a second one; a mix of roses for Di and chrysanthemums for Mum.

I slowed at the roundabout by the crematorium which was on my way home. I pulled in and walked across to the garden of rest and I knew which flower bed both Mum's and Di's ashes had been scattered in and stopped there.

I knelt, placing the bunch on the flower bed in question. I looked at my watch still plenty of time.

I'd never done, or felt like doing, the whole 'talking to the departed' thing, what was the point; but that afternoon, I just had to.

"I'm doing it Di," I twisted and sat on the grass looking out across the last resting place of thousands of local residents, and then the green hills beyond, "like you said in your letter. It's not Anna but... I just know you'd both love Callie, and Mum? Emmie is the granddaughter you'd have dreamt of, honest, she's such a cutie!" I smiled at this one sided and wholly imaginary discussion. "I can't promise it'll last forever but..."

My phone rang, I saw it was Meghan the solicitor.

"Meghan, Hi!" I said brightly.

"Craig, where are you?"

"Crematorium," I said, "flowers on Mum and Di's plot..."

"Stay there," she snapped, and I could hear her voice in the background, "No, go straight to the police station."

"What?"

"The police are here, this morning they called on the two offices of David Gregg, Parsons Property Management, and the home of a council officer and a councillor. Mr Gregg and some of his lads are missing, apparently one of the taxi drivers said he was seen this afternoon looking very cross and shouting about 'Craig'. We guessed that was you. Then some big lad in pant-spattered overalls turned up at Miss Sinclair's daughter's school, claiming to be her Dad, but they wouldn't let him take her and when he started to shout and swear they called the police. She's at the police station now."

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

I drove like the clappers, only taking one slightly orange light at speed.

"Mr Douglas?" said a uniformed policeman, "Please, come this way."

I met a rather large looking detective who introduced himself as Detective Inspector Justin Flanaghan, who ushered me into the room where Emmie was playing card games with a community support officer.

"Craig!" she said, jumping from her chair to run to me.

"Hiya Babygirl," I said snatching her up and hugging her tight.

"Mr Douglas..."

"Craig please," I said.

"Craig, I don't suppose you own a Jaguar X-type?"

"Hell, no." I said, still momentarily in that place of the man that could never afford such a car, even though now I actually could.

"Well, Mr Gregg does and there's one on your drive, and rather tatty old PT cruiser parked across the entrance, that's owned by the partner of one of his employee's," the detective sniffed, "we think he might be waiting in there for you."

"Riiiight," I said.

"It seems he was heard shouting all kind of threats against someone this morning, walked along the street from his taxi office shouting a couple of names," he pointed at me then at Emmie mouthing 'Mum' then adding, 'I want them effing..." he stopped and looked at Emmie, so I lowered her down and she trotted back to her card game and the PCSO, "D-E-A-D," he spelt.

I nodded.

"It's worse than even your solicitor Meghan feared. We did some door knocking early this morning nicked a woman, a Mrs Petra Parsons, she runs the management company that your late sister had signed up to. She's also in collusion, possibly even in bed with, David Gregg. He of course owns the company she employs to maintain all the houses on her list. She was kind enough to tell us lots of useful stuff in an interview room this morning."

"Christ," I said.

"Exactly; now I understand Caroline Sinclair is still living at your house."

"Yes."

"We tried to contact her at the hospital, but the switchboard says her department is closed for the rest of the day. Could she have gone home?"

"Is there a dark maroon Honda CRV on the drive?" Something clicked in my head. Diana's CCTV! "Hang on," I said and took my phone out of my pocket. I called up the CCTV app, and there was the driveway from a hidden camera above the spare bedroom window, the Jag the policeman had mentioned with a front wheel on the pristine grass Di's gardeners still maintained, the cruiser across the drive and, shit, Callie's CRV just where she normally parked it. "Yeah, she's there."

"We think Gregg and one of his boys may be inside."

"She must be inside-with them." I handed the policeman my phone.

"CCTV!" he snapped, "Excellent!"

"Here," I said taking it back from him and the two other policemen looking over his shoulder. I pressed the red button. It asked me for a four-figure code, and I typed it in. It sent me back a huge green tick, "I've asked them to send it through to your control room."

"That'll do nicely." He said, pressing a button on a wire on his body armour. "Golf four two, Zulu one... Yes Zulu one, you should be getting some CCTV pushed through to you of a house in... yes, that's the one, yeah, send it through to Four Zero Alpha please!"

"There's internal video as well," I said, taking my phone back from him, and picking up the ground floor hallway camera, looking to the front door, and it just peaked into the sitting room, and I could see those paint and plaster coated trousers that the idiot thug Ronnie had been wearing when he'd first called about the electrics at Cairngorm. I could also just see that 'Bear' was in his accustomed place at the end of the sofa.

I pointed all of this out to the policeman.

"Right," he said, "A quick drive to your place, I think! Carl? Let the boys on the ground know that Ronald Hawkes is there with Gregg, nasty bastard according to his record, has previous of violence with weapon, knives mostly." he looked up, "is the entry squad already there?" Carl nodded, "No one moves until we get there. Tell them I want the drone in the air, I need to see in... Which room is that, Craig?" he pointed at the mobile we were all looking at.

"Sitting room, bay window to the left of the front door." I said, closing my eyes while I orientated the house, "north side?"

"Get that? I want to be able to see what's occurring!"

I made a phone call, and Emmie was dropped off at Bonnie's Mum's house by a policeman with a briefest explanation and the promise someone would be 'in touch within the hour'.

I was driven to a small cordon two streets from my place, and I chatted some more with Justin.

"It's just as you feared Craig, nothing ever got through to the council, almost two years of shit being ignored."

"But... but they're the bloody council!"

"Ah, but Mr Gregg was a fine upstanding citizen, making big donations to the mayor's annual fundraisers and a local charity," the car took a corner sharply, and I fought for balance, but my disbelief continued unabated, "a charity that only ever paid out 'expenses'; to Mr Kenneth Swift for 'consultant services'-that's Councillor Ken Swift, group leader and deputy-leader of the council by the way, and then for some 'fact-finding' trips across Europe for Mr Swift and a certain Penny Gabriel. Heard of her?"

"Yeah, I wrote to her at the start of all this, bitch never even replied."

"She's Executive Director of Environment and Regeneration at the Council."

"A big gun?"

"Runs all of the services that are interested in Mr Gregg, or at the very least should have been. Along with Councillor Swift, she'd been keeping her staff out of DG Property Services and AaaDeeGee Cars business."

"Bitch!"

"Yep; the council's human resources officer is going to have a nice file to read about her antics over the last couple of years. Both she and Councillor Swift are 'helping us with our enquiries', until we've wrapped up the whole happy gang."

"Have they broken the law?"

"Some municipal shit without question; the pair of them and Ms Parsons are currently in different interview rooms telling slightly different stories, Mr Swift is very annoyed and keeps telling the officer that he knows the chief constable and has played golf with the police and crime commissioner. If they stop talking then we'll find something to charge them with, but they bent the rules a bit, so I might as well." He smiled at me.

The car slowed and there was some chatter into radio headsets, and there was some chat between driver and Justin about 'just up here' and 'just around that corner, take us there'.

We slowed almost to a halt, crawling forward to where I could see Gregg's other thug Kenny, pinned to the floor behind the car that had stopped in front of a battered white Ford Transit 'DGPS' van. We climbed out of the car.

"DAVE!!" someone was shouting, "DAAAAAAVE!!"

He was trying to warn Gregg, but my place was still some distance, several high walls, and my excellent white UPVC double glazing, away.

"Shut up Kenny," said a huge man in the same black kit-laden body armour as all the other policemen.

"Arrrrrgh!" the man screamed, "you just fuckin' hit me PIG!" he snarled at the giant pinning now him to the side of the white van, "OWWWW!! Stop fuckin' hitting ya fuckin' PIG!"

"Leave it out Ken, there's four body worn cameras on you mate, but please stop playing up to them?" shouted the same policeman as Kenny struggled and cried out about the apparent pain he was being caused by the men containing him.

"You Cunt!" he shouted to me as I stepped out of the cover of the police car, "You fucking CUNT Craig," Some more pressure was put on his back and the cable-tie handcuff's cinched up some more, "Oi!" he shouted to me, "Dave's got your bitch, got your fuckin' whore, an yah know what, he's gonna want something in trade! No fucker's just gonna walk into your 'ouse! They're fuckin' well tooled up!" He was dragged to now open back doors of the police van, "she'll get fuckin' 'urt Craig, your fuckin' whore's gonna get 'urt an' it's because YOU upset Big Dave Gregg! Just you remember that! YOUR FUC..." There was another cry, but this time I could see that some pressure had been brought to bear him.

I waved, smiled a very large grin, winked, but ended with a raised middle finger towards him.

He roared at my lack of respect, and was pinned to the floor again, crying out as he knees hit the tarmac.

Past some 'road closed' signs, and 'police' yellow cones, Justin walked me along the quiet avenue that led to my place, past other large houses like mine, at the corner of my road. There was an unmarked van with quite a few lads around it, all dressed in black and packing some serious equipment, including some scary-looking guns. It had gotten very grown up and very serious.

Justin moved to the back of another large van,

"The scrote that Roads Policing have just lifted, he's said that they're all tooled up. What do we have Phil?"

One of the policemen turned to him,

"We're counting one lad in the PT Cruiser, two in the house, plus the girl, Boss," said Phil, "some reasonable footage through the garden windows and doors. The CCTV company checked their hard drive and sent us them getting in. They knocked at the door, then forced their way in with what looked like a gun, and are waiting for Mr Douglas to arrive, not sure what they're carrying, Stevie J reckons he saw a hint of a sawn-off." He took a deep breath, "worse still, the security company have told us about the quality of the door locks and windows, could be a struggle to get in quietly."

"Well, we need to get in, Gregg and Hawkes are going to start worrying where Kenny Doyle is," said Justin.

"There," I said disturbing the moment, but pointing to the screen and to the steel 'coal-hole' cover to the basement entrance and reaching for my key fob in the deep pockets of my raincoat, "Here's the key to the first sidelock on the left, the second sidelock on the right is this one. The one in the middle is a combination -- 0407 -- my late sister's birthday. It brings you straight into the kitchen from a cupboard door. The kitchen door is above this camera angle, stairs to the right."

Phil, who had been giving my interruption a bit of a 'this is nothing to do with you' look, suddenly grinned.

"That'll do Boss! Piece o'piss look. You keep the bastards talking and we'll make our way in." He took my two keys.

They all disappeared, and I understood they went over the fence of a neighbour covered by two of the greenhouses, giving a clear run to the basement door.

"I'm happy to do anyth..." we were all interrupted by my mobile ringing, I held it up and it said 'Callie' for everyone to read. Justin mouthed 'answer it' to me, and I did so, pressing 'speaker' so everyone could hear. Justin looked at me again and tapped his watch, mouthing 'get me time'.

"Callie!" I said brightly, "Sorry mate, Charlotte's invited Emmie to tea with Bonnie, and a 'Thomas the Tank Engine' session. I'll be picking her up in an hour or so, so I'm still at work."

Hint number one; Bonnie's older brother was into that particular franchise, while Bonnie hated it; therefore, so did Emmie. Hint two, tea at Bonnie's finished at six, no later-it was five forty already.

Justin nodded to me and gave me a thumbs up. The phone was quiet, and we could hear something in the background, obviously a hissed voice.

"Craig..." I could hear the panic in her voice, "I'm... I'm having a bit of a bad day..." there was some more hissed background noise, "could you..."

I butted in,

"Cal, I'm so sorry, but I'm having issues with one of the two Maureen's at work," there was hint number three; I'd given her chapter and verse about the two MARGARET'S and their love of her Mum's books; I looked at the CCTV screen showing in the back of the van, "Honey, look... just give Bear a bit of a cuddle," I pointed at the end of the sofa that was visible on the screen, and this gave me Justin's most enthusiastic thumbs-up, "and I'll be there in half an hour latest, OK?" It was quiet again for a moment and the policeman was making cutting movements across his throat, "Callie, this is a big financial package, this is what I do mate, I'll be there soon, PROMISE, NOW GIVE BEAR A CUDDLE!" I said with real emphasis, that had been my final, obvious lie, I'd told her I did repairs, and the finance was left to grown-ups, "It'll be fine, promise!"

"OK," she said, "Please Craig?!" she whined.

"OK, Give Bear a kiss for me," I said with real feeling, "Gotta go mate, sooner I finish, sooner I'm there!" I cancelled the call. Suddenly she appeared at the other end of the sofa, looking quite scared, and picking up Bear and hugging him for all her worth.

"Perfect!" said Justin, "Team two, start your approach!" he looked back at me, "couple of boys wandering down to get the guy in the car blocking the entrance... should be there..." there was a noise, "three clicks, they've got him."

I looked at the CCTV and saw dark figures running between the greenhouses and the side of the house.

To the right of the van, I could see a quite young man in an AaaDeeGee cars taxi drivers' white shirt being frog-marched towards us, his head almost at his knees, huffing and puffing and making some very surprised sounding squeaks and obviously in some kind of shock.

"OK, a little bit of a distraction for our friend Mr Gregg I think; Phil, when I give a double-click on the radio, I want the PT to drive away a bit sharpish, and with some noise please."

Phil nodded.

"I'll get Josh to shift it, he's wearing a white shirt like our young taxi driver there."

"Excellent," The policeman turned a switch on the kit in the van, and we could hear the entry team's whispered progress.

"Sidelocks... one... two... nice... now... 0... 4...0...7... main lock open... will the door open quietly? Oh yeah, no noise!" hissed the officer triumphantly, "just the job... right, we're in, staircase in front as promised, one... foot... at... a... time... OK Boss, we're at the kitchen door... I can hear the blokes arguing."

"OK, time for Josh to move the car." He flicked a switch on his radio mike, "now Josh..."

I could hear the PT Cruiser that had been blocking my drive, screech away into the distance.

Over the police radio I heard shouting, it was obviously being picked up by police body worn cameras and microphones.