All Measures Necessary

By Steven Kay

A contemporary political thriller based on the ridiculous notion of what might happen if a left-wing, Labour leader was resurgent despite all the attempts by the media to discredit him. What if, as an election approached, he started to gain traction because of a serious downturn in the economy, unrest in the country and corruption revealed at the highest levels? What if the electorate started seeing him as an answer to their problems? How would the right and big business react?
Finding himself at the heart of a conspiracy is 30-year-old Health and Safety Inspector, Mitch Miller who falls in love with someone he shouldn’t and gets into very hot water. A modern day Romeo and Juliet facing car chases through the streets of Sheffield, murder, betrayal and kidnap.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steven Kay
• Release date: Oct 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370772797

Steven Kay

I aspire to publish books that fill a gap in the market: novels, collection of short-stories and non-fiction that the mainstream publishers might not take risks on. I intend to never compromise on quality of the writing though.

Book preview

authorsnote

I wrote this in 2016 — the calling of a snap election in 2017 rather spoilt my planning. Rather than waiting for a raft of further rejections from conservative, risk-averse publishers and literary agents, or trying to re-write it given fast-moving political events, I decided to publish and be damned.

This is a work of fiction. None of the people in it are real: everything is made up from that disturbing place that is the inside of my head. If you think you recognise characters — that is in your head, not mine. There is no autobiographical element to it whatsoever. The clue’s is in the name: fiction.

If by chance you enjoy reading it, or even think it is any good it would be great if you could write a review on Amazon or Goodreads or whichever online sites you use: just a line or two would be great. Perhaps even recommend it to your friends. Word of mouth is so important when you’ve not got a marketing department and financial backing behind you. Thanks.

Every operator must take all measures necessary to prevent major accidents and to limit their consequences for human health and the environment

— Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 2015

We declare our right on this earth...to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary

— Malcolm X

one

It all started with the dog in the window. A Jack Russell. Nothing unusual in that. I was told it often sat there — waiting for its owner to return. Sometimes it slept on an old blanket on the window ledge. What was unusual was that the dog didn’t appear to have moved all day. It was there when the neighbour went for his morning paper and was still there in the afternoon when he came back from his lunchtime pint at the club and his trip to the bookies. The dog was imaginatively called Russ. His owner, David Pitts, was a postman so his return from his round often fitted in with the routine of the neighbour returning from his leisure pursuits.

The neighbour would often look out for Russ, who sat watching every movement for Dave’s return — steaming up the window with his breath and pink, floppy tongue. The neighbour said he sometimes used to wag his walking stick and bare his false teeth at the dog to wind it up, but that day there was no such fun to be had.

He didn’t want to be seen to be nosey so it wasn’t until the next day when he saw the dog still in the same spot that he thought he perhaps ought to check the little fella. He pushed open the gate, something that would normally set Russ off, and went up to the window. The dog’s tongue was hanging out of his mouth and he was still. The neighbour tapped on the window but Russ didn’t move. He rang the bell, which was a sure-fire way to get the stupid thing yapping, but the Westminster chimes were the only sound from within. He peered in through the letterbox — nothing but a waft of warm foetid air emanating from the slot. The police were called and broke in via the back door.

It was two days after, late in the afternoon, that I got a call from a PC Shaw that set events in chain. Just as I was thinking of ending my day’s battle with visit reports, and wondering whether to buy stuff to cook or to succumb to the all too usual takeaway. My boss wasn’t in — off furthering her career doing important things at the bidding of senior civil servants as usual.

‘There’s been a death at Canklow — the incident number is 15 of Tuesday: a carbon monoxide poisoning it seems. The name of the deceased was David Potts, or Pitts, aged 42. The DCI wondered if you might have an interest, since the boiler appears to have been recently installed.’

‘So… what… you think there could be a defective installation?’

‘That’s a possibility. So, we’d like input from the HSE.’

‘And this was, what, two days ago?’

‘Yes, we found the body at around 2 p.m.’

‘And what are you wanting from me?’

‘The inspector has requested attendance from the HSE. How soon can you get there? He said he’ll meet you on site.’

Typical bloody plods. Expecting you to drop everything and come rushing — like you are some sort of service to assist them, on call twenty-four hours a day. No problem. Just pop the blue light on the bonnet: be round in a tick. They do their usual: of assuming they know everything, before it occurs to them, as an afterthought two days later, that there could be wider factors.

There was no time to get support from a specialist gas engineer that day. Another evening screwed for no reward.

It was well-gone six o’clock and dark outside when I arrived at Canklow, after my battle with Derek Dooley Way and the Parkway. It was obvious which house it was from the squad car and forensic vehicle outside.

‘Mitchell Miller,’ I said, showing my warrant. He didn’t offer me his hand.

‘Inspector Drake. Watch your step,’ he said. ‘There’s crap everywhere — not quite literally, but almost.’

I kicked my way past unopened post and miscellaneous items of clothing in the hallway. The house was cold — doors and windows had been opened: clearly to try to reduce the smell. It was apparent that the occupant wasn’t the most house-proud of individuals. The kitchen was a mess: empty tins of dog food and old, foil containers from curries, pots piled in the sink, and a floor as sticky as a fibreglass bath factory.

As Inspector Drake spoke I started scribbling notes in my notebook.

‘The deceased was found upstairs in the bathroom — he was wearing just his underpants and had vomited. At first we just thought he’d been drinking, there’s plenty of evidence of that, as you can see. But the scenes of crimes boys pointed out his pinkish tinge might suggest carbon dioxide poisoning.’

‘Carbon monoxide.’

‘Yeah. Anyway, we found receipts for the boiler — it was only put in two months ago.’

I smiled at a young woman in a white paper coverall coming downstairs with a pile of plastic evidence bags; she stepped gingerly across the rubbish-strewn hallway.

The inspector nodded towards the SOCO. ‘We’re still going through his papers — needless to say it’s not filed alphabetically.’

‘Any P.M. results yet?’

‘No.’

‘Had he been dead long?’

‘A day or two. It was a neighbour who alerted us.’ He flicked through his pocketbook: ‘…a Mr Scrimshaw of number thirty-two.’

‘And what other appliances are there?’

‘A gas fire in the front room, I think.’

‘And next door? Have they been questioned?’

‘Of course, but they didn’t have much to do with the deceased. There are no suspicious circumstances.’

‘But have they got gas appliances?’ The Inspector was clearly confused. ‘Well we’ll need to rule out the possibility of migration of carbon monoxide from next door. Have they been told to get their appliances checked?’

‘No, I don’t believe so. That hardly seems necessary.’

‘Well, if you want to rule out the possibility of further deaths. It is quite feasible that there isn’t always an airtight barrier between terraced houses — crumbling mortar, poor construction, that kind of thing.’

He raised his eyebrows. Somehow, I didn’t believe it was his decision to call in the HSE. Probably the forensic scientist had mentioned it and that meant he had to tick a box.

‘I’ll go and speak to them, unless…’

‘No, leave it with me. I’ll get one of my PCs to go round.’

‘They need to look out for yellow flames on gas fires… and ask them about when they got their appliances serviced last.’

He got on his radio and went out of ear-shot.

The front room didn’t look like it was used much, except by the dog who was also assumed to have died from carbon monoxide poisoning. There would be a post-mortem on the dog as well.

The wall behind the boiler in the kitchen was unfinished — in need of plastering where the brickwork was exposed, but I couldn’t see that Mr Pitts would have been too concerned about a patch of brickwork given the state of the rest of the room. I took down what make and model numbers I could without removing the cover and cleared a space on the worktop to climb up to look at the boiler more closely. So, maybe not the best practice for a safety inspector to use a chair to step up onto a worktop, I know: Work at Heights Regulations and all that shit, but I carried out a dynamic risk assessment — okay? A question of do as I say, not as I do.

The interesting thing was the flue pipe — it didn’t appear to be terminated into the boiler properly from what I could see — it was hard to tell visually from my awkward position on the worktop and I didn’t want to touch anything.

The inspector came back through into the kitchen.

I looked up from my note taking. ‘I suggest you get the Scenes of Crimes Examiner to photograph this flue connection. This is a possible source of our leak. Has anyone been up here or moved anything?’

‘No, I don’t think so. I’ll check.’

I got down off the worktop.

‘What I would suggest is that, as soon as I can in the morning, I’ll get our engineer to come and run a test on the boiler.’

‘I’ve been making enquiries about bringing in our own gas engineer — someone who will be able to provide us with expert evidence. We have to be careful to preserve the evidence chain. It has to be done according to CPIA.’

He spoke like he expected me to ask what CPIA was. Patronising sod.

‘That’s what our engineer does. We are not strangers to this. I was about to explain…’

‘But the engineer will need to be recognised by the courts as an expert witness. I have procedures to follow. I am dealing with a potential homicide here, not just an industrial accident.’

It shows you just what a professional I am that I didn’t just roll my eyes but looked him straight in his. ‘You will not find a more expert expert. Our engineer has years of experience of investigating gas incidents. Did you have someone better in mind?’

‘Er, I need to make some enquiries.’

‘Look, is this to be a joint investigation? Do you want to follow the protocol for investigation of work-related deaths or shall I just leave it all to you?’

He was not pleased with me. His face said it all, but I didn’t care. I was tired and had had enough of being treated like a lackey. I had been here several times before: playing second fiddle to coppers.

‘So, what we’ll need to do is run the boiler for several hours with the house empty — what can happen, you see, is that after a while the boiler gets starved of oxygen if it fails to draw in enough fresh air from outside, and then you get a spiralling of incomplete combustion. We’ll need to get the neighbours to vacate their properties while we run the test, so that there is no risk of anyone else being affected.’

‘I might need to bring someone to oversee this test.’

‘Bring who you like but we should take advice from HSE’s engineer.’

‘We’re definitely looking at a defective installation then?’

‘It seems likely. We can run basic checks on the neighbours’ appliances at the same time. But we’d best advise them not to use them for now.’

I checked in the back yard where the flue came through the wall — treading carefully to avoid the dog mess in the dark. The flue wasn’t very well finished from what I could see by torchlight, there was a gap around the bricks where it went through the wall, so the flue was not fixed very well.

The Inspector was waiting in the hall ready to get off to more important things. I reported my thoughts on the flue.

‘Do you think we can get fingerprints done on this flue pipe after we have done the test tomorrow? That way we can verify who it was that fitted it? Might it be sensible to get a PCSO posted, so that other possible key-holders don’t come in and disturb things before morning? Especially if the positioning of the flue pipe is crucial’ Twice as much as me this guy was probably getting paid.

The local newspapers were full of the story — it was the dead dog that attracted all the sympathy — not the middle aged balding bloke found on his bathroom floor in dirty pants, covered in vomit. Even back at the office it was: oh, the poor dog! No thought for poor Dave and his loves, his life, his contribution to the world. Such hypocrites! Poor dog! Never poor calf when they tuck into the plate of veal or poor chicken when they buy their cheap, southern fried chicken — the product of the cruellest factory farming. You shouldn’t eat the stuff if you can’t face how it was made and how the animals suffer at the end. That’s one thing about this job: you get to see it all — the factory farms, the slaughterhouses and the terrified animals waiting their turn, the squealing pigs as they are stunned and jerk about as they are hung up and stuck, to be drained of their blood. Not that I’m judgmental, mind.

We ran tests the next day — stood around outside in the cold while the inside got warmer and warmer. Every three minutes we checked the readings coming off the monitors tracking the carbon monoxide levels, but we couldn’t find anything conclusive — these things never follow the script. The boiler was managing to suck sufficient fresh air in through its flue to avoid vitiation — the spiralling of incomplete combustion — despite the poor termination. Once we’d cleared enough space to get a decent stepladder in, we could see that there was indeed a gap where the flue had come free from the elbow joint. The engineer’s opinion was that the weather conditions could make all the difference — just a bit of breeze in the right direction being enough to change the flue’s balance. We thought back over the previous few days of cold, still air — those days where radio newsreaders get muddled with their fost and frog.

The gas fitter who had recently installed the boiler was arrested and bailed. I was not consulted over their discussions nor invited to join in the interview. Typical of the police — there’s nothing they can ever learn about investigation, the words subtle or considered not featuring in their official-issue dictionary.

They find it hard to believe that someone such as me could even be a Tier 3 interviewer — like interviewing skills was their sole preserve. So much for it being a joint investigation. So much for our lead on gas safety legislation. In the end the CPS dropped the case without any reference to HSE. They didn’t think there was sufficient evidence for manslaughter charges. The mess of paperwork was handed to us. My boss asked for a report and I spent hours trying to weigh up the evidence. The interview with the gas fitter was full of gaps — the police hadn’t considered all the technical angles — but to go back and interview him would have been a waste of effort after so much time had passed. And he had had months to rehearse all his arguments at the inquest and in court, and been coached by his solicitor. The file didn’t even have details of whether the flue pipe had been fingerprinted to determine who had touched it. I checked with the police and just