Crunch Time (2 page)

‘No, itsh true, as God is my witness … the name's Jagger.' The sergeant typed the surname into the computer. ‘If you tell me your first name is Mick, you're straight into a cell, pal.'

‘It's Frank … Frank Jagger … pisshead.'

‘You got that right, pal. Time to blow.'

The legal drink-drive limit in Britain is 35 mg of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath. Anything over that limit warrants prosecution, but most police forces will warn a driver who blows between 35 and 40 mg, but anyone over 40 mg will end up in court. It takes a lot of alcohol to put an individual's reading to 70 mg – twice the legal limit – and those people who come into custody swearing on their mothers' lives that they only had a couple of pints or two small glasses of wine, yet blow over 70, are liars; they have been drinking heavily to get to that point and anyone blowing above that figure has been imbibing alcohol as though it's going out of fashion.

As was the case of Frank Jagger.

After allowing him to wash and freshen up, though this had little overall effect or benefit on him, Jagger was taken into the room in which the breath test machine, the intoximeter, was kept. Here he was seated next to the custody officer at the machine. Jagger watched through bleary eyes as the sergeant fired up the machine, tested it, then inserted the sterile mouthpiece into the extendable tube and gave Jagger the instructions: take a deep breath, put the mouthpiece between your lips and blow in one continuous breath until told to stop.

‘You got that?' the sergeant asked.

‘Sorta.'

‘Here.' The sergeant pulled the tube. Jagger took it, put it in his mouth, started to blow.

‘Keep going … keep going,' the sergeant encouraged him. ‘Bit more … stop!'

Breathless, Jagger took the tube out of his mouth and slumped in the chair. ‘Whassa reading?'

‘You need to do it once more, then I'll tell you.' The sergeant waited for the machine to carry out the first reading, which he kept to himself, then to purge itself. He then asked Jagger to blow again, which he did, and, exhausted by the effort expended, he slithered down in the chair again, his head lolling uncontrollably.

The machine did its work. The sergeant snorted and said, ‘Wow – you really have been drinking.'

‘Yep.'

‘One hundred and eight … my highest score this year. Congratulations, three times the legal limit.'

‘Do I get a prize?'

‘Yeah, a night in the cells, a visit to Salford Magistrates Court in the morning, a three-year driving ban, probably and a helluva fine. How does that sound? First prize.'

‘Sounds …' Jagger's head rolled in a wide arc as he tried to focus in on the sergeant, but in so doing he managed to overbalance and tip off the chair before the officer could catch him and before he could say ‘good'. He hit the tiled floor hard and cracked the back of his head.

Two gaolers dragged him between them to a cell where they hefted him on to the bed, arranged his body in the recovery position – on his side, knees drawn up – just in case he was sick in his sleep so he wouldn't choke on his vomit and die. They threw a rough blanket across him and kept a fifteen-minute interval watch on him for the night. Too many drunks had died unnecessary deaths in police cells, but under the care of that particular custody sergeant, Frank Jagger – if that was truly his name – was not going to become another sad statistic.

Jagger was asleep immediately.

It is police policy to rouse sleeping drunks every fifteen minutes – rouse them enough to get some sort of response – and this happened to Jagger for the remainder of that night, the cell door opening, the gaoler prodding him and making him talk, just enough for him to mutter, ‘Fuck off and leave me alone.' So, although Jagger slept in fifteen-minute blocks, it was a disturbed slumber and not one designed to combat the excessive amount of alcohol he'd drunk.

When the cell door opened at 6.15 a.m. the following morning, he was still drunk and in desperate need of a serious spell of uninterrupted kip. He raised his head and peered groggily through one caked-up eye and said, ‘Leave me alone, you fuckwits,' and yanked the blanket tightly over his head.

‘You got company,' the gaoler announced, then Jagger heard him say, ‘Sorry mate, you're in with a pisshead,' then the door slammed shut.

Underneath the blanket, Jagger's eyes flickered and he listened as hard as his drink-blunted senses would allow and at the same time started to try and get his brain working. It was a tough requirement. He felt worse than awful and a terrible clanging was going on in his head as if out-of-tune church bells were being rung by a vicious gang of demented campanologists.

It had been many years since he had felt so bad from alcohol and it wasn't an experience he would be repeating any time soon. It was an age thing.

He had become totally aware, though, that someone else – another prisoner – had been put in the cell with him. He could hear that other person breathing, could hear them shuffling around.

Jagger peered over the edge of the blanket and peeked at his fellow prisoner. It was a man – obviously – about Jagger's age, looking lean and fit, dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a black tee-shirt. His head was bowed as he stood by the door and he looked deep in thought.

Jagger groaned. ‘Wanna sit?' he asked, though his mouth felt as caked-up as his eyes. He was very dehydrated and needed about a gallon of cold, cold water, some food and a plateful of aspirin. He bent his knees to make room on the end of the bed.

‘You must be joking,' his fellow detainee responded sourly. ‘Stuck me in with a drunk, the shower of shit.' His lip curled and he shook his head. ‘Bastards.'

‘I'm a drunk-driver, not a drunk. There's a difference,' Jagger retorted. ‘Suit yourself.' His legs extended again and he immediately fell asleep.

I
t was 8 a.m. Jagger sat on the edge of the bed in his cell, hugging himself pitifully and rocking back and forth, eyes tightly closed, his head rotating. He hardly dared to breathe just in case he threw up again.

‘I feel horrible,' he mumbled drily. ‘My head's exploding.'

‘Serves you right,' his unempathetic cellmate admonished. He was sitting on the floor in one corner of the cell, as far away from Jagger as possible.

Jagger didn't even bother to open his eyes. ‘Prob'ly,' he gasped as his face screwed up with pain.

‘Prick,' the other man said under his breath, pushed himself up and crossed to the cell door, jamming his finger on the emergency call button set in the wall and hammering with the side of his fist on the door. The door rattled and Jagger flinched at the metallic noise that penetrated his skull like shrapnel. The balls of his hands went to his temples and he braced his head.

Suddenly the inspection hatch clattered open.

‘What?' the sullen voice of the morning gaoler demanded.

Jagger's cellmate placed his hands on the door and he looked through the opening. ‘I've been locked up here for two hours with a stinking pisshead of a drunk. I've had nothing to eat or drink,' he explained slowly with a seething undercurrent of anger. ‘Nor have I had chance to speak to my brief – which I demand.'

‘Breakfast is coming and I'll ask about your brief, OK?'

‘OK,' he accepted stoically. ‘And by the way, this fucker needs a shower, a change of clothes, Nurofen and water.' He thumbed a gesture at Jagger. The gaoler peered in, nodded, then slammed the hatch back into place with a crash that made Jagger jump.

‘Thanks, mate.'

‘One thing we ain't – it's mates.'

The thing about showers in police cell blocks is that they are always hot and powerful. There is no room for modesty, however, because for obvious security reasons there are no doors on the cubicles. But Frank Jagger couldn't have cared less that the gaoler was keeping one eye on him as he soaped himself down with a block of harsh white soap, shampooed himself with something rather like washing-up liquid, and rinsed off. He was beginning to feel human again as the aroma of vomit and urine was displaced by the cheap soap.

He shaved with a blunt disposable razor, using the soap as shaving foam, and though he nicked himself a couple of times, the process added to his slow re-emergence into the land of the living. He studied himself in the polished steel plate mirror screwed on to the wall – real glass mirrors were banned in the custody area – and thought he looked half-decent, even though the swelling under his right eye from the broken cheekbone of months before still distorted his face slightly, made his eye bloodshot and watery. Next he cleaned his teeth, using his first finger as a brush to apply toothpaste from an almost empty tube of Colgate.

‘C'mon, gorgeous, here's your zoot suit,' the gaoler said, handing the naked Jagger a paper suit and slippers to replace his horribly stained and ultimately unsalvageable clothing. Jagger stepped into the generously proportioned suit and was herded back to his cell where breakfast and a huge mug of tea awaited.

The food was cooling on a plastic plate, but even so, the slightly congealed egg, lukewarm bacon and toast tasted like a feast. The tea was like gulping nectar and at the end of the repast Jagger was approaching some sort of normality, even though he knew he was still drunk … well, perhaps not drunk as in the staggering, insensible sense, but still under the influence of booze.

He'd balanced his plate on his knees to eat and when he'd finished he placed it and the empty plastic mug on the cell floor and looked up at his cellmate. The man remained aloof, standing propped in one corner sipping his tea, not having touched his food which was on a plate at his feet.

Jagger exhaled. ‘That's better … you not eating?'

The prisoner toed his plate towards Jagger. ‘Yours if you want it.'

‘Nah, ta … I'm OK now … sort of … smell better, anyway.'

‘True enough, you were gross.'

Jagger shrugged. ‘So what're you locked up for?'

‘My business,' the man answered, giving Jagger a warning look.

Jagger held up his hands. ‘Nuff said. Just instigating conversation.'

‘Not interested.'

‘OK, OK.' He breathed out again, then inhaled to get more oxygen into his lungs. ‘What a fuckin' bender that was.'

The man chuckled, his guard dropping slightly. ‘You're a fuckin' mess.'

Jagger nodded. ‘Aye,' he said resignedly. ‘Life's become a bitch.' He placed the tip of his right forefinger against his forehead and closed his eyes, still feeling bad. His broken, slowly repairing cheekbone had a throb all of its own. ‘Not good,' he said, fighting a fresh wave of nausea which was interrupted by the cell door opening.

‘Both of you,' the gaoler said, beckoning.

Jagger pushed himself up unsteadily and, despite the shower and food, he remained unstable. His cellmate supped the dregs of his tea, picked up his plate and handed the items to the gaoler.

‘Not hungry?'

‘Shit food.'

‘Mind if I have it?' the gaoler asked.

‘If you don't mind food that's been gozzed on, be my guest.'

The gaoler glared at him, stood back and let both prisoners walk past him. They grinned at each other: any victory over the bastards was to be savoured.

The custody desk was a hive of activity. Detectives, uniformed cops, waiting prisoners, briefs, all milling about whilst a huge black guy with a tee-shirt emblazoned with the word ‘Janitor' moved patiently around people with a mop and bucket. The desk was split into prisoner reception and those already in custody and now there were two custody officers on duty, one to deal with the new arrivals – of which there was already a queue – and one for those already banged up, of which Jagger and his cellmate were two.

Jagger looked despondently around and was pushed up to the desk alongside his new-found friend, who was then pulled slightly back by the gaoler when the custody sergeant pointed at Jagger and said, ‘You first.'

The sergeant was a woman with harshly scraped back blonde hair and angular features, probably accentuated by her stressful role and tiredness.

Jagger gave her a winning smile, but that didn't stop her going through the process of ensuring that he actually understood why he'd been arrested and what had happened to him since, including his reasonably spectacular showing on the breath machine.

Jagger accepted it all with tired equanimity. He declined the offer of a solicitor and also the opportunity to make a phone call. ‘Thanks, but no thanks. I ain't got no one to call. Bitch dumped me, hasn't she? Just charge and bail me and I'll get going …' His voice trailed off as he saw the sergeant's head start to shake. ‘No? What then?' he asked worriedly.

‘You will be charged, yes, but you'll be going straight to court this afternoon. No bail … standard procedure with drink-drivers. Get 'em banned as soon as possible.'

‘You are fuckin' joking!' Jagger exploded. He banged the counter top hard with the flat of his hand, making everyone jump. ‘I've things to do, you evil witch,' he snarled into the face of the custody officer. She did not flinch, but looked blandly at him, blinked, very unimpressed by the display. He jabbed a finger at her and shouted, ‘You can't fuckin' well do this to me! I have things to do, people to see.'

‘In this case, the magistrates.'

Jagger went rigid at her remark, then a seething, violent look came over his face. He raised his right fist, bunched it tight and held it for a moment, quivering with rage, before he drew it back.

‘Hit me and it'll be the last thing you do,' she said coldly.

Jagger's cellmate, who had observed the interaction from a couple of feet behind, stepped forward and placed his fingers around Jagger's forearm. ‘Don't be a fool,' he said into Jagger's ear. He looked harshly at the custody officer, then into Jagger's blazing eyes. He shook his head. ‘The cunt isn't worth it.'