Pieces of Me

By Ian Williams

All proceeds I receive from this book will go to 2 charities. 'Msizi Africa' and 'Come Ride With Me.' The links to those charities are included in the book.

Detective Inspector Ian Carragher is a man of simple needs. He loves unhealthy food, drinking, football and his wife. However he struggles to show the last one, whilst over-doing all of the others.

At work he tries to act professionally but his childish jokes and sometimes unprofessional manner does not adhere him to the higher echelons of the police force.

When there is a series of murders in London which seemingly spread across the country its his chance to show his bosses what he is capable of. However along the way he also finds out whats really important in his life which beats any kudos he gleans from the Chief Inspector.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian Williams
• Release date: Sep 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466158221

Ian Williams

Ian Williams was foreign correspondent for Channel 4 News, based in Russia (1992–1995) and then Asia (1995–2006). He then joined NBC News as Asia Correspondent (2006–2015), when he was based in Bangkok and Beijing. As well as reporting from China over the last 25 years, he has also covered conflicts in the Balkans, the Middle East and Ukraine. He won an Emmy and BAFTA awards for his discovery and reporting on the Serb detention camps during the war in Bosnia. He is currently a doctoral student in the War Studies department at King’s College, London, focusing on cyber issues.

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Pieces of Me:

by

Ian Williams

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Ian Williams on Smashwords

Pieces of Me

Copyright © 2011 by Ian Williams

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

General stuff……

Ian Williams is a 38 year old childish idiot who lives in Chorleywood, however by the time you read this he may well be either in San Francisco, Dubai, South America…..or somewhere else.

Acknowledgements

Firstly to you, the reader, or more importantly the purchaser of this book. Its not often you can get a warm glow of righteousness and a feeling you have made the world a better place before you have even started to read the first page.

Therefore if you get half way through this nonsense and think, why am I wasting my time with this amateurish rubbish before grumpily closing and deleting this book from your kindle, iPad, laptop or whatever else you may be reading this on, just remember you may well have helped to save a child’s life, conserve the Earths rainforests, build hospitals in Asia or save the lives of pregnant women, now if that isn’t worth the meagre cost of this book I don’t know what is.

Here is a link to the charities you will be helping

http://www.msiziafrica.org.uk/

http://comeridewithme.org/donate/

To me

It’s taken me four years to do this. I could probably have messed about with it for another four as well but in the end you just have to think ‘ that’s it, get it out there and stop procrastinating.’

I realised when writing this that it is not an easy task. It takes a long time as sometimes you sit at your computer and nothing comes out, what should take a whole page of enlightening and constructive prose ends up as ‘he died’. So I learned that if you are not feeling creative go back downstairs, put the television on and make yourself a cup of tea…..I drank a lot of tea.

To my friends

I would like to thank Mr Benjamin Fitzsimmons, a.k.a. Blue Nose, a.k.a. grumpy and also Mr Mark Smith for reading the first draft and providing valuable feedback and suggestions which went further than ‘what the hell is this rubbish, delete it, stop wasting your time and get on with your life…..’

To everyone else, you are all in here somewhere, only a mixture of your names have tended to be used, no character traits have been linked to the names so please do not be offended if you have been shot, knocked unconscious, labelled an alcoholic or told you have got nice boobs…..you see you have to read the book now just to see who I am talking about.

The bad news

I already have an idea and mind map for my second book………

Table of Contents

Prologue - Gus Gus ‘David’

Chapter 1 – ‘Sorry red shite’

Chapter 2 - Nice set of cans as well

Chapter 3 – ‘Andguibh‘

Chapter 4 - and now Bacchus was concerned

Chapter 5 – Ian hated Jeremy Kyle

Chapter 6 – ‘Nice one McGeorge see you later on’

Chapter 7 – ‘So what's the plan then?’

Chapter 8 – ‘But why don’t you know who did this’

Chapter 9 – ‘Sorry Chief’

Chapter 10 – ‘Would you like another drink?’

Chapter 11 – ‘Wake up lazy bones we’re here‘

Chapter 12 – ‘It’s pronounced Shemek you idiot’

Chapter 13 – ‘Sorry darlin’

Chapter 14 – And that included David Holmes

Chapter 15 – ‘Hello police’

Chapter 16 – ‘Not far now…..come on’

Chapter 17 – ‘Please forgive me’

Chapter 18 – ‘Hello Spotty, where’s Superted?’

Chapter 19 – ‘Okay I like it’

Chapter 20 – ‘Roger that guv’

Chapter 21 – ‘GO GO GO GO GO’

Chapter 22 – ‘Shall I continue?’

Chapter 23 – ‘She wants what?’

Chapter 24 – ‘Oi Ayrton…you wanna slow it down a bit’

Chapter 25 – ‘I’m okay, I’m okay….’

Chapter 26 – ‘I was going to wait until tonight but I can’t’

Prologue - Gus Gus ‘David’

‘Come onnnnnn….come on for Gods sake, just a few drops….please!!!!’ It was no good; Nick Donovan was simply unable to piss.

It was Saturday night, Sunday morning, 4:11 a.m. in The End nightclub, London. Nick had been on it all weekend, yet again. The traditional wind down on Friday afternoon had begun with a long boozy pub lunch which set him up nicely to surf the internet at work, sorting out his fantasy football team selections to try and beat Johnny Soccer who was leading for the fourth year in a row, and email his mates to arrange the weekends mayhem. He had promised to go home on Friday and have dinner with his parents, however as his lunchtime fish and chips was digesting and that third pint of Stella Artois, which he definitely should not have downed in one to the rapturous applause of his equally juvenile work colleagues, began to kick in, he thought ‘fuck it lets go out’. So breezing through the next thirty six hours on a diet of alcohol, amphetamines, pizza, cocaine, more alcohol, a few pills ( not the legal kind ) and very little sleep, here he was, sweating from every inch of his body, apart from the inch (or six inches as he liked to boast sarcastically) he actually wanted to.

In the toilets he was shielded from the cacophony of sound and thumping baselines that were emanating from outside this cooler, sweatier, brighter hideaway where men walked around like zombies, carrying bottles of water, looking slightly dishevelled with that wasted far away look in their eyes, chewing gum like a New York cop out of the movies. Nick lent his head against the toilet wall; it was cold and wet and felt good on his forehead. He took a deep breath and tried to focus. ‘Never mind ‘Nick mumbled and tucked his ‘nudger’ back into his trousers and did up the zip on his jeans.

Turning around he was greeted by that familiar London sight of the toilet attendant, who are mostly Africans who spend their evenings talking nonsense to very drunk, wasted people, turning on the cold or hot water, squeezing soap into their hands and handing them paper towels before offering a fine selection of lollipops, chewing gum and assorted men’s fragrances, before looking at you and hoping those guilt pangs kick in and you give him yet another £1 coin…..no wonder they are always smiling thought Nick, ‘they must be loaded. Note to self, become a toilet attendant.

Having washed his hands, sprayed himself with at least his fifth different aftershave of the night (CK 1 this time) and taking another lollipop, so as to get some sugar in his system and to try and stop his jaws from grinding away due to the amount of drugs he had taken, he looked at himself closely in the mirror. As he got near the mirror he realised his eyes were like saucers, he almost looked like an alien as he stirred forward, the overhead strip lighting bathing him in a crisp white ethereal haze, the faint buzz of the lighting overhead just about audible above the vibrating walls and dull thud thud thud from the party of darkness and flashing lights just a few metres away. A bead of sweat was clinging to his hair, his cheeks were shining and his face flushed. There were damp patches all over his T shirt, but Nick simply brushed some imaginary fluff off the front of his t shirt, wiped his brow, popped the lollipop in his mouth, exhaled and then exited the toilets ready for round whatever the hell he was up to.

The first thing that hits you is the heat. With seven hundred sweaty clubbers, twenty bar staff, four DJ’s, and about four thousand thumping watts of music power and lighting, the small solitary air conditioning unit in the corner is never going to keep up. Nicks eyes gradually got used to the darkness and his ears took in the melodic vocals of Urdur Hakonardottir as she sang ‘I still have last night in my body, I want you here with me, I want you here with me’. The base of the tune was thumping through Nick’s entire body and he recognised it immediately. A rush of adrenalin (and drugs) stormed through him as he realised what was playing as he turned left and half clambered, fell down the steps onto the main dance floor in search of his friends. He didn’t have to go far before he was greeted with smiles, hugs and kisses from his assorted dancing fraternity who had kept him company all day and had partaken with equal vigour, in the cocktail of drink and drugs which had been purchased throughout the day, evening and night. They were dancing right near the DJ booth and Darren Emerson was playing another superb set. Nick looked up and gave him an acknowledging nod of the head before dancing trance like to the highs and lows of the song, his fellow clubbing fraternity decked out with matching water bottles, chewing gum and lollipops, happily chomping away at thin air, their brains unable to fully comprehend and process the sights, sounds and smells that were enveloping and over-whelming it, the rush of endorphins was becoming a tidal wave as the music and the atmosphere climbed higher and higher.

Nick hadn’t realised but he had been sweating more and more and was terribly dehydrated, the lack of water and food over the past two days had put a tremendous strain on his body. His heart, liver and lungs were working over-time to try and bring his body temperature back under control, however it was all too much and as the song reached a crescendo and the crowd were going wild Nick felt dizzy, a stabbing pain hammered through his chest, everything went white as his hearing faded and he felt as if he was under water. It only took a second for him to fall and another five for the realisation to kick in to his friends and onlookers that something was horribly wrong. However these six seconds to Nick seemed like hours as he fell to the floor and all his organs simply gave up. By the time the lights went on and the paramedics had crouched down to check for a pulse, twenty four year old Nick Donovan from the quiet village of Chorleywood was dead……

Chapter 1 - ‘Sorry red shite’

‘Eye Eye’ said DI Carragher sarcastically as he looked down on the grisly spectre that confronted him.

‘Oh, very funny’ PC McGeorge tone was disapproving as usual. In front of them, on the floor of his office was James Benjamin Langan, all six feet four and eighteen Jamaican stones of him. However he must have weighed a lot less now as he was surrounded by pints of his own blood which was still seeping out of the five inch tear in his neck and more alarmingly from the two holes where his eyes had been, hence DI Carraghers joke.

It was 11 a.m. Sunday morning the 2nd of September 2007. They were standing, not in a proper office building but rather the office at the top of the building attached to the ‘Booty’ nightclub. The club had a rather salubrious reputation and was on the Met Police’s watch list as drugs were rife, violence both inside and outside the club was a regular occurrence, some of the most violent London gangs frequented the establishment and to top it all off it was owned by one James Benjamin Langan, JB to his friends, Mr Langan to his employees and ‘Benny’ to his wife, which was a constant embarrassment when he was out with her but probably not something that would concern him any more.

‘So what do you think happened here then Mcgeorge’ queried DI Carragher.

‘Well from the looks of it and having taken statements from the cleaner who found him this morning at 8:30 a.m. and the head barman who had just come down to do a stock check at 9 a.m., he was here last night in his office with some of his crew and one or two women who were also his employees at the nearby Honey Club which is a lap dancing club in Paddington on Praed Street. From the amount of empty glasses, empty Moet & Chandon champagne bottles, plus various other half empty spirits bottles, not to mention the cocaine liberally thrown all over the coffee table and desk over there they had quite a night. Mr Langan was found like this, sprawled over the antique green leather sofa, his large mahogany desk has been checked but there isn’t much in there. The head barman says he left at 4 a.m. and there were only a couple of people left by then. They were Mr Langan, ‘Phoenix’ & ‘Crystal’ the barman isn’t sure of their real names but they work for Mr Langan at the Honey Club as ‘exotic dancers’ plus an associate of his called ‘Bacchus’, again the barman is unsure of his real name but did give us an address, Flat 3, 57a Abbey Road, St Johns Wood, he said its near the Salt House pub.

As you can also see the wall safe is still open. Bit of a cliché but the safe was hidden behind a painting, some sort of graffiti artist, we could track him down but it seems irrelevant. There are unused bullet cartridges on the floor just below the safe. If there was a gun there as well then it’s gone. There is money scattered over the floor, looks like it was in the safe, but not all of it was wrapped. The barman says the night’s takings had been in there, just over £10,000, although he is not sure how much was actually taken as it was being dished out to the party revellers plus he had a few visitors he owed money to. We can get forensics in to check the inside of the safe for any residue. There are also some contracts in the safe relating to this club and the three lap dancing clubs that he owns plus a very interesting financial report on his business dealings, who with, how much etc which is going to be very helpful to CID and Operation Trident.’

Carragher - ‘So what do you think the reason behind the murder was then? Gang related or a robbery?’

McGeorge - ‘Hard to tell at this early stage but I would guess its gang related, probably drugs and they maybe took whatever was in the safe as it was open when they arrived, alternatively they tortured him for the combination, although this would seem doubtful as if he had been screaming the place down somebody would probably have heard something’

‘Yes, you are probably right there. What about any CCTV recordings from inside the club?’

‘I asked about that and apparently they turn off the security recordings once the club closes. Plus, as he knows a few dubious characters around here he has a side entrance to get up here which is not monitored or recorded. I have requested the tapes are taken in as evidence so we can review them for any leads but it looks doubtful. I have got PC Robinson in the other room checking them over, do you want to go and have a chat with him?’

‘I will do it on the way out. Okay then, good work. Get forensics down here as soon as you can to give this place the once over. There is certainly plenty to work with here so hopefully they will turn something up.’

‘Will do chief, you off duty now?’

‘Indeed, off home for some kip. The Mrs is probably in a right mess as she was out with the girls last night while I was working so I might make lots of noise and see how bad her hangover actually is’

‘Okay well see you later then’

‘Yeah, see you tomorrow for an update’

DI Carragher walked out of the office and down the metal stairs into the club. The hand rail was still sticky from the previous night’s revelry. There was also the unmistakable smell of stale alcohol, as it had only been seven hours since the club had been packed. Ian passed the small room near the entrance where the security tapes and equipment were. The door was ajar and he could see PC Greg Robinson staring intently at the screen.

‘Hiya Greg son, how you doing?’

‘Okay thanks red shite’ whispered Greg guiltily. This was his nickname for Ian which he should only really use outside of work hours. Ian was a Liverpool fan. Greg was originally from Sunderland and had the accent to match. Plus it was impossible for him to string a single sentence together without taking the piss out of someone or using several expletives.

‘Your Mackem’s aren’t doing very well are they then, what is it, bottom of the league, hardly any points…’ goaded Ian

‘Howay, yer red shite bastard, leave us alone will yer, I was screaming at the tele on sat’ day, another awful performance, nearly got thrown out of the pub for throwing me beer at the tele like’

‘You what…how did you not get barred for that then?’

‘Because the landlord is a fellow Mackem and he was standing right next to me but he didn’t see me do it as he was on his knees pounding the floor with his fist screaming obscenities at the floor. He was more annoyed than I was. Even more so when he looked up and saw beer dripping down off his brand new forty two inch flat screen.’

‘Jesus, you North East lot are mad. I love my football but throwing good beer away…..disgraceful, at the least you could have thrown a soft drink.’

They both looked at each other and smiled. ‘So come on…’ enquired Ian as he bent down to survey the monitor, ‘have you found anything interesting?’

‘Loads man. Can’t believe the people that come in here. Loads of gang members, seriously hard blokes, plenty of women as well, with not much on either, couple of bobby dazzlers in there as well’

‘Greg this isn’t an interview for