Justified Sinner

By Alan Addison

Justified Sinner, (book 1 in the JP Associates series) introduces the reader to Tod Peterson, a 55 year old Community Education Worker who runs a local Community Centre in an Edinburgh down-at-heel housing estate. Tod has learned in his job to be street wise in a community where violence and drugs are a daily occurrence. His struggles, supporting the downtrodden, as he sees them, and his constant battle against the institutions and people of wealth whom he considers to be responsible for their oppression leads him down a precarious path. His extreme actions merely result in other problems arising, leading him to question whether ends will ever justify the means. As if things aren’t bad enough for Tod, they are compounded further by the presence of Tod’s lifelong friend , Detective Inspector Bob James, of Police Scotland. .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781470943882

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

20th March 2013

It was a morning much like any other in March in North Edinburgh, fog curling in from the Firth of Forth and cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.

Tod Peterson, Community Education Worker, had just bent down to lift the last steel door-shutter, the only shutter remaining that didn't have an electric motor to do the work. His fifty-five year old knees creaked louder than the rusting metal as he heaved upwards, hand on his lower back to take the strain.

He could hear the resident pack of dogs barking somewhere across North Telford Park and hoped, as ever, that they were moving away from his centre. His centre he mused, that was another story. The Management Committee would soon put him right on that score, if they could read his thoughts. Sometimes he thought they could. It was their centre, they were sick of telling him; a gift for the millennium from on high and the Council named it accordingly, North Telford Millennium Centre.

He was constantly reminded on an almost daily basis that he was a mere employee, temporary and expendable. Not like the community itself, it had the last say, or parts of it did. Yet he was forever crossing the demarcation line between grass roots democracy and paid administration. And constantly being pulled back by their barbs and gibes. 'You're just like the rest of them, think yer clever cause you've got a degree, but yer no so clever son, just lining yer ain pockets and using the Community tae help ye dae it. Ye see Tod, the difference between you and us is what we dae, we dae for nothing!'

Once inside Tod would fire up the boiler and switch on the floodlights, making his Centre a beacon of light in a dark, dark place.

He still regretted the day he'd lost his full-time janitor to another round of job cuts. Now all he had was a travelling troubleshooter when something went drastically wrong or he had been called to Waverley Court and couldn’t play concierge. ‘Another Council initiative from another Council department, with no more to do with itself than find the way forward,’ he muttered almost too loudly. ‘Forward thinkers right enough, but for those left behind it always meant the same, early retirement or redundancy or just more work for less pay.’

He'd almost made it inside the heavy front doors when Bernie's voice came through the fog. Bernie, an early morning cleaner from the project across the way, always listened for his shutter going up and always called over with the news of the day.

'Did ye ken Peter Bald?'

'No!' Tod called back into the mist. Bernie's use of the past-tense told him all he needed to know; Peter, whoever he was, was no more. He could still hear the dogs yelping across the park. It sounded as if they'd caught their breakfast and were ripping it to shreds. It always felt worse when you couldn't see the wild, rabid pack and only hear that sound.

'He's topped himself,' came the voice from the mist.

'Didn't know him,' shouted Tod loudly, as he moved further into the doorway.

'Aye ye did, he worked for the bank; security, got paid off. Couldnae handle it.'

Without replying he stepped over the threshold and into his sanctuary. Over the years he’d got used to constant bad news and yet it still bit deep, for he’d never really shaken off the guilt that came with having had a Cambridge education as well as a well-healed wife, now long gone.

By North Telford standards he was well paid and was never allowed to forget it. His guilt, coupled with what he’d learned in this job; that greed-economics hit the poorest first, meant at times he got angry. He’d tried herbal medicine, meditation and self-awareness training but had never succeeded in developing immunity to the hardship and injustice he witnessed every working day. In the end it was only the copious amounts of whisky that he consumed that kept him upright, or so he believed.

He unlocked his office door, knowing that Bernie would be over in a wee while for her brew. She'd talk more then and tell him how many bairns Peter had, and about his wife, and her disabilities, and their bedroom tax and the pending arrears that would force them to move out of their home; another moonlight flit with bairns dragging their belongings in black plastic rubbish bags behind them.

As normal when Bernie spoke, Tod would just shake his head, trying to give nothing away. At least Bernie could talk about it. Sometimes he wished he could, but then sometimes he was glad to be trapped in that silence he'd inherited from his non-responsive father and a Scottish male tradition that dictated a nonchalant reaction to bad news. Instead he’d put the kettle on and lift the lid off the biscuit box, hoping Bernie couldn't see him grit his teeth.

#

After she left to go to her next cleaning job Tod began the task of checking for damage from the previous night's clubs. He opened the function-hall door and was accosted by the odour of stale sweat left by the over-active bairns. Although the hall was eerily silent he could hear the children screaming the roof down.

That was all the proof he needed to testify that North Telford Millennium Centre did what it said on the tin; the smiles and laughter of the bairns as they came and went from their home from home. But that was never enough for Her Majesty’s Inspectors, no they wanted more, they wanted the way forward. This always meant more paperwork, statistics, national plans, city-wide plans, area plans, team plans, project plans, individual plans, evaluations, qualitative and quantitative data, more statistics, more plans uploaded onto a cloud; an information storage system that nobody ever looked at, nor had the slightest interest in.

Then there was the unfathomable need for new computer systems and the whole clamjamfry would start all over again. Meanwhile his bairns would continue to fail, just another working-class statistic with the same opportunity they'd always had - none!

That was the interesting thing in all of this; for all the schemes, programmes, technology and cost the bairns were still failing, leaving school after eleven years with virtually no certificates and even fewer prospects. He'd heard it said often enough that it was the fault of the parents and as ever he towed the line and advertised parenting classes at the centre. Give them more confidence and the skills to succeed; raise their self-esteem and all would be well in the state of North Telford.

Aye right thought Tod. All he could see passing from one generation to the next was the same old failure. Failure of a system to deliver a good literate education. What it delivered in its stead was the same old guarantee that the status quo remained in place; the wealthy, wealthy, and the poor, piss poor.

Then came McCrone. A document that concerned itself with teachers' pay and conditions. A document that guaranteed that teachers didn't have as much face to face time with their charges. A document that dictated that more time be spent on reports and in-services. Tod remembered the teachers at his old primary school staying behind to help children with their homework or taking them on walks or managing the sports teams at weekends. But that was before McCrone. ‘If bairns were trains McCrone might have changed his name to Beecham.’

Now, here was the Curriculum for Excellence, another new initiative that would guarantee working-class children would not fail, no matter what. Higher education and worthwhile employment awaited them.

‘Mm.’

He could hear those bairns now as they crossed the park on their way to school. He hoped the rabid pack had gone, but doubted it.

Walking to the front doors he looked out across the park, as he had done most mornings since being in the job.

'Hi Tod, can we come tae your Centre the day instead of going tae school?'

'That's a great idea, but I’d have your teacher after me if I did. See you tonight though.'

The fog was lifting and he could see the dustbin lorry make its way down the drive. The men always stopped off to use the toilets and have their early morning brew. If he wasn't too busy with statistics Tod took time to chat with them. The recent football results or which team was next in line for bankruptcy were popular topics for conversation but although he’d never admitted it, Tod had lost interest in football when the big money came in and it was all but impossible for local laddies to get signed up. But he was happy to keep face with tradition and would nod approval when football, the male life blood of Scotland, came up for discussion.

Life off the pitch on the other hand was a subject close to his heart and he enjoyed the early morning banter with these environmental service operators. He often wondered if their new name meant more pay and thought to ask them.

Over the years he’d built a mind-map of the early-morning goings on around the Centre. Big Archie plodding up for his rolls to Tich's newsagent. Tich had progressed from an old wooden barrow delivering papers and rolls to owning the local newsagent. Once upon a time he pushed his barrow with the Pedigree pram wheels around North Telford, calling SUNDAY PAPERS, FRESH ROLLS and folk would wander out in their dressing gowns or string vests, depending the season, and blearily pick up their weekly fix of Oor Wullie and the Broons and warm Scottish rolls. Tod couldn't help wonder if Tich ever felt the urge to open his shop door early on a Sunday morning and cry out across the street. How many would recognise this call from the past and be driven from their beds.

Big Archie had been, as his name suggested, big at one time, but now Tod wondered how much longer the prefix Big would be prefixed to his name. As each day passed Archie became more and more stooped, as if treading a path that just got deeper and deeper as he walked. Retired off early due to the company he worked for out-sourcing his skills to a company based in the west of Scotland. They'd said they understood his difficulties and offered him the opportunity to move house, if he wished to keep his job. But the truth was Gina his wife wasn't well enough to travel to the doctors and that was only two hundred yards away.

The one time Big man would be in soon to break his journey. He always brought two rolls for Tod, which couldn't be refused. Right across North Telford people would be receiving small gifts this morning, as every morning. Small gifts handed out for the heroic act of just being there. Of sharing their world and its ups and downs.

He watched as the straggler bairns, persistent latecomers shuffled up the road to school. Tod couldn't get them to come to his youth clubs either. What was it the system called them... the hardest to reach. Aye a system reaching out to help all and sundry but not quite reaching the parts that needed it most. Not quite reaching many in North Telford as far as he could make out.

The nursery mums followed on from the school stragglers. Over the years he’d watched many of the younger women in the area turn to over-eating as their drug of choice. And it showed as they struggled up the hill. The system had words for their infliction too and health interventions that didn't hold back when it came to making them feel even worse. Weight measurement programmes for the morbidly obese. 'Aye and they say that tae yer face,' Tod would be told by many of the mums. If only the public health officials had done their research they'd have found that that kind of labelling merely left folk reaching for their Coke and crisps - just some more cold comfort down on Cold Comfort Farm.

Ironically Tod was one of those systems health statistics. According to his doctor he was heading for a double whammy. Having reached the obese stage he was now heading fast towards morbid - in more ways than one. The only thing he could be sure of now, with or without NHS confirmation, was that he'd never see his six-pack again, he'd put bets on that.

He'd only recently given up the cigarettes, after the smoking ban came in. The pub just wasn't the place it had been. The pleasure of standing in the street like some leper thrown from the village did nothing more than leave a guilt complex that hung like the plume of smoke hovering in the pub doorway. He'd more or less given up the pub then, other than when exceptional circumstances dictated. Like most of his old companions he had taken to drinking in the house...cheaper, easier and more comfortable, unless of course one needed company.

He'd stopped craving that years ago too and had swapped the banter for a bottle of Grouse and telephone calls, when he was drunk enough, to converse with friends he no longer saw.

#

Archie arrived with Tod's rolls and slapped the morning paper on the reception counter.

BANKER'S GREED REACHES NEW HEIGHTS

'Put that kettle on Arch, if you don't mind? I fancy a brew,' called Tod from his office.

'A see that bastard Stark is still taking the bonuses. One point five million and the bank has lost billions,' Archie was filling the kettle and shouting from the kitchen.

Tod could barely hear him and didn't bother to reply but carried on counting the subs from last night's clubs; fifty-pence per child. He'd wanted to waiver the cost but word had come down from on high; We have to be seen to be fair to all our citizens, whether it's North Telford or Morningside.

Equality was the way forward and positive discrimination was now illegal. Even some in his Community Education team agreed that the children would value their experience more if it cost them money. He had argued that some single parents or parents with large families couldn't afford it. They have more disposable income than I do! the literacy tutor Charley had said in her best received pronunciation at the last team meeting. No-one had bothered answering this point, other than Janet, the most radical of the workers, who had stood up quietly and walked out. Everyone in the team knew that Charley was married to a dentist, lived in the New Town of Edinburgh and kept stables at East Linton. Tod just shook his head and stood up to put the kettle on. 'Anyone fancy a brew?' he'd asked.

'Can't see you getting a bonus for running this place Tod!' shouted Archie. ‘You’ve already been offered VERA but ye didnae fancy her.'

Tod smiled. VERA, Voluntary Early Retirement. He'd wanted to go for it, in fact had put his name down, but wasn't offered enough incentive. Most of the money had been used up on managers' packages and final salary pensions. It was said many had left with three figure sums and a pension that would choke a horse. Either way what that meant for Tod was that he'd be working until he was sixty-five; fifty-five at present and an extended mortgage with no equity and a credit card bill that would have him in the ground, if he thought about it long enough.

CHAPTER TWO

2nd April

April second and still bloody freezing, thought Tod, looking up from his computer and through the filthy window of his cramped office, just as the police CID car turned into the Centre car park.

The occupants of the car couldn't see him though, even though the morning sun was creeping round the high flats and floodlighting his window. The dirty glass and broken vertical blinds would guarantee that he'd remain invisible to all. He'd complained too often already to the management committee that the word vertical, when applied to the blinds, was a misnomer, as most of the slats were bent or broken and twisted round each other, as if hanging on for dear life.

The arrival of the CID, in the person of Detective Inspector Bob James was nothing new. He usually popped his head round the door once or twice a week to have a brew with Tod and share the goings on; the crime statistics that kept North Telford at the top of the Scottish league. Bob’s visit also served to prove that Police Scotland, and the City Council, were adhering to their new partnership working agreements, set out in the new Scottish government guidance for work in communities.

'Hey Peterson,' boomed DI James from the hall, 'did you not hear us come in? Get that kettle on man, we've been up all night!'

'Ask Jade if she wouldn't mind; I've this email to finish,' called Tod through his closed office door.

'She's not here!' replied Bob before turning to his Detective Constable. 'Have a look in the ladies son and see if you can find Jade an ask her tae put that kettle on.'

‘Not on your life,’ whispered the DC, under his breath.

Jade, Tod's admin-support was part-time, some said very part-time and when she did make it into work, she'd spend the first hour doing her hair and make-up in the toilets.

The DI wasn't in a waiting mood. 'Well are you deaf John or just plain daft? See if you can find Jade!'

Tod still hadn't appeared from his office.

'Come on Tod! We haven't been in our beds for a day and a half,' the DI shouted at Tod's door, 'and we don't see any sign of your elusive secretary.'

When Tod still didn't appear DI James turned back to John Mackay. 'Joking apart son, go and find that kettle and put it on would ye.'

'I think you're forgetting I've been up all night too,' pleaded the DC.

'Sorry son, did it sound like a request? Just fast-track your way to that kitchen over there and put the kettle on or ye might find yourself wearing it for a helmet.'

There were times when DI James could be a fatherly figure to his underlings but he wasn't the type of father you'd want to disappoint. Six feet three and built like a brick shit-house, but without a roof. Bald as a coot and polished to a high shine, the braver of the PCs at Fettes called him Kojak, but never to his face. His high cheek bones and dark, permanent five o'clock shadow just added to the feeling that what you were dealing with, with Bob James, policeman or not, was a man who did not take prisoners.

Tod knew differently though and came out of the office to intervene in the feud.

'I'll put the kettle on in the absence of my PA,' he said, with more than a hint of irony, 'and give your constable a break Bob, he looks shattered.'

Tod was one of the few people who got away with talking to the DI like this. But then he was the only one who knew that under his friend's fierce exterior beat the heart of a pussy-cat. The two went back a long way, back as far as primary school, best mates they'd been then and still were.

Bob's choice of career with the police and Tod's ambition to study English at university had brought strain on their relationship at times and they had been known to chide each other, often. The socialist in Tod saw Bob as having joined with society's oppressors while Bob continually struggled to cope with Tod's left-wing views on what he termed, the establishment.

But no matter what destiny had put in their way and what world view had been laid down, they remained best mates and everyone knew it. They were at opposing ends of a great political divide but the affection they had for each other went beyond politics. Their shared past was stronger than ideology and it waited there in the background ready to bite anyone who questioned it.

'So what have you been up to all night then Bob?' Tod asked, as the pair headed back towards his office, 'Or is it better not to ask?'

'Are you okay?' Bob asked suddenly.

'Why shouldn't I be?' answered Tod, without turning to face his friend.

'Oh nothing, ignore me, it's been a long night.'

Once they were in the office Bob closed the door. 'By the way, I tried to get you on the phone last night, left a message on that bloody machine, did you get it?' DI James looked back through the open doorway to make sure no-one was within earshot. 'I've got to watch what I say here mate, this is absolutely confidential. You'll have seen the recent news about the banker, Richard Stark.'

'Stark, what a brass neck, millions in bonuses and the bank not long baled-out by the public purse to the tune of fifty-six billion and it's still losing money. You'd think it was a work of fiction if one didn't know better,' relied Tod.

'Aye, you know what they say, where's there's muck, there's brass. Well his neck, brass or otherwise, has come a cropper. He's dead. Last night, and it looks like murder. We've been at his house in Barnton all night. I phoned you when we were on our way there around eight-thirty; I was thinking we'd get a pint when I finished at ten. Little did I know what would befall us when we got there. That young constable out there, Mackay, just out of uniform two weeks ago; he took it hard. We’d a call from a neighbour; she thought she'd seen a strange looking character leaving the house; she said he was done up like the Hunchback of Notre-dame.

The DI turned and peered out at the car-park, deep in thought. ‘You’ll need to get yon blinds fixed. 'Stark has some pile mind, must have cost a small fortune. A lot of good that will do him now, sitting there at his dining table with the biggest syringe you've ever seen sticking out of his vein. It's the strangest murder scene I've ever come across and I've seen a few, as you know.'

'Why, what do you think happened?' asked Tod.

'Well, someone might have done for him and stuck him full of smack but all the evidence, apart from that sighting by the neighbour, points to there having been no-one in the house at that time. Christ, no villain in their right mind could have been in that place and not helped themselves. The place was immaculate, like him, sitting there in his golfing top, at his grand dining table.' The DI remained deep in thought as he spoke