Scrap

SCRAP 6
‘Here we go.’ Bill has spotted the police Rover 3500 lurching up the road towards the yard. ‘You’re not here,’ he calls to Jason. ‘Why dad? I‘ve not done anything wrong.’ Bill pushes him towards the stairs. ‘You’re not here because I say you’re not here. If you’re not here you can’t say anything.’ Jason reluctantly climbs the stairs out of sight, grumbling, ‘but I don’t know anything.’
The dogs start up, growling, barking and pulling at their chains. DS Roberts and DC Staples get out the car and squeeze past them, tiptoeing over the mud. ‘Yes lads,’ greets Bill, ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Had any copper come your way lately?’ Asks Roberts, scanning the piles of rusting metal all around him. Bill considers the question, ‘a few car wiring looms, hot water cylinders, car rads, that sort of thing. And your good selves, of course. Why, what did you have in mind?’
Roberts has played this game before with the wily Bill Coward. ‘Something more in the way of heavy duty electricity cable.’ Bill shakes his head, puts on a puzzled expression. ‘No, nothing like that.’
‘Mind if we have a quick look round?’ Bill shrugs, ‘Be my guest. Mind you don’t spoil those nice shiny shoes, won’t you. There’s a lot of shit around here.’ They know he is not referring to the state of the yard. The police officers look at the filthy mess at their feet, the dog poo, pools of engine oil, mud and more mud. They know they have no hope of finding anything.
‘We’ll take your word for it,’ says Roberts, who knows full well that the cable is here somewhere. ‘Let us know if any comes in, will you?’ Bill smiles a friendly smile, ‘Of course, but you know I never buy bent gear.’ Roberts picks a path back to his car. ‘I wouldn’t dream of suggesting it,’ he says, sarcastically.
As soon as they are out of sight Bill shouts for his son to come out. ‘We got work to do,’ he says and they spend the rest of the morning stripping cable and burning the evidence. The gleaming copper is piled in the bottom of a deep metal skip and covered with a couple of tons of light metal scrap which can be easily extracted later with the big magnet.
By the time the plods arrive with their overalls, heavy duty gloves and wellington boots there is no trace of any copper or cable. Despite a 2 hour search they find nothing.
‘Somebody knows where it went,’ says Roberts. They couldn’t have driven it off the island because the bridge was up.’ Staples has been ruminating on this also. ‘Maybe they got it out by boat,’ he suggests. ‘We should visit that bloke in Queensway. We pulled him in over that dodgy cheese last week. Couldn’t pin it on him but there is something about that man that stinks.’