Post Mortem by Gary Bell (free children's ebooks pdf .TXT) 📕

‘And that’s where these E10 Cutthroats are supposed to have come from?’

‘A mile down the road in Leyton, according to Patch. E10 is its postcode district, E for east London, so that would make sense. Walthamstow and Leyton are in the north-east of the city. On your map, that’ll be to the right of Hackney and above Stratford. About … half past one on our clock face.’

‘Half past one?’

‘More or less, if the Scrubs is over there at ten. It’s a good hour’s drive from the prison, anyway. Newham, where your client lives and where the raid took place, is around five miles south of Leyton, close to the north bank of the Thames and London City Airport.’

‘Got it.’ She was quiet for a while, her presence marked only by the scratch of ink on paper. ‘That brings us to where this begins, four days into the new year when Andre manages to jog his way into an armed police operation being carried out on some mystery warrant.’

‘Correct.’

‘For some reason, a bunch of dealers from this E10 crew are just sitting around in a bar five miles south of their own area, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for the cops.’

‘It’s worth noting at this point that they did try to flush their drugs,’ I countered. ‘Despite the recent theories, these men weren’t so eager to be jailed that they cuffed themselves and marched in two-by-two. Plus, that’s a hell of a big risk. Even if their plan was to wind up inside, who’s to say that they’d be remanded at the Scrubs?’

‘They were bound to be remanded in the same prison,’ she said. ‘Maybe they didn’t care which they went to. Maybe that’s why they had Class A drugs, to throw the scent off the Spice. I don’t know. What I do know, though, is that five men were taken –’

‘Six,’ I interjected. ‘Six young men were arrested for possession with intent to supply and banged up in the Scrubs.’

‘Right,’ she replied. ‘Six, including Andre. They were all charged at the station that night, refused bail the following morning and banged up in the Scrubs en masse by the weekend.’

‘What comes next?’

‘The following Wednesday morning, when thirteen men were found dead in their cells.’

‘Spice,’ I said.

‘According to the newspapers from the time, though, the official conclusion was death by misadventure. Spice is synthetic, man-made crap, it doesn’t come out of any FDA-approved lab.’

‘The FDA is in the USA,’ I told her. ‘Ours is the MHRA.’

‘Same difference. What I’m saying is it doesn’t exactly come with a list of ingredients or allergens.’

‘No. I’ve just been reading up on it actually …’ With my one free hand I swapped the laptop for my notebook and looked back over my scrawl. ‘Spice was initially a brand name that has come to be used generically for any synthetic substitute for cannabis. In the past, it was marketed as a legal high.’

‘I remember it. There used to be a stall selling it at Leeds Fest, right there alongside the bar. Thankfully, I stuck to overpriced cider.’

‘Good. These synthetic cannabinoids can be made from any one of about seven hundred research chemicals, apparently, which are thought to come from China via Eastern Europe. Their effects vary depending which compounds have been used, though we’re seeing so many zombies because the chemicals reduce respiration, causing the body to suffocate as the heart rate soars.’

‘And that’s appealing to these users?’ she asked in disbelief.

‘Well, that’s not all it does. On a good day – when it doesn’t suffocate you to death – Spice can create feelings of euphoria and altered perception. It has also been known to give its users impossible strength, an inability to recognise pain and delusional, animal aggression.’

‘Like the Hulk?’

‘More or less. The Internet is full of reports from all over the world about Spice addicts who have gone on gruesome rampages. Biting faces off. Strangling animals. Being tasered, stabbed and even shot repeatedly, only to keep on coming.’

‘God, and that’s how those thirteen men died?’

‘Yes, at some point between their cells being locked on Tuesday night and then opening again on Wednesday morning. The following Monday, ten thousand pounds’ worth of Spice disguised as regular rolling tobacco was found hidden inside a vehicle in the staff car park. The car belonged to Charli Meadows, which would have travelled from her home, a mile outside of the E10 area.’

‘How’d they find it? Was it a tip-off? Did they have a warrant?’

‘It doesn’t appear so. As part of their contracts, staff consent to searches at any time while on the premises. Spice is notoriously difficult to identify, most canine units can’t even detect it, but it sounds as though the Prison Service had brought in some new, specially trained super-dogs to search the vehicles after those deaths.’

‘And yet she still risked smuggling it in … Surely she must’ve known there’d be an increase in searches.’

‘I was of the same opinion.’

‘You think she was being forced into it?’

‘I think there’s a strong possibility. Either that, or we challenge mens rea and convince the jury that she believed it to be regular tobacco.’

‘But if Macey and his gang are genuinely trying to control the flow of drugs already in the Scrubs, then which side was Meadows working for? The old dealers or the new? Must have been the new, right? Being so close on the map.’

‘Therein lies our mystery,’ I said. ‘There’s a chance she was doing it for some time before getting caught. Then again, these so-called Cutthroats would’ve been brought into the building just the week before. Meadows did mention that she was often responsible for searching and processing new inmates. They might’ve propositioned her then.’

‘I can ask Andre. Find out if Meadows was the one working the inductions when he arrived at the prison. What about the night the inmates died? Was she on duty?’

‘I don’t believe so.’

‘She didn’t say?’

‘She barely answered a question for herself.’

‘We need to clarify,’ she said.