by Linda Coles
“Do you come here often?”
Amanda groaned inwardly. Seriously, did he have nothing better? That was the cheesiest chat-up line in the book, though there could have been a double meaning to his question. “I’ve just come a couple of times,” she said, “but as you say, they are the best. They give me a bit of a buzz, actually. Love the special sauce.”
She watched his face and waited. His eyes flicked across hers, searching for her own double meaning, she assumed. At last he nodded slightly. No doubt about it: he knew exactly what she was referring to – and it wasn’t the bacon.
He held his phone out – an Android – and waggled it in the space between them, like a secret being shared between two friends.
Amanda smiled knowingly. “What currency do you use? Monero or something else?” She wore a natural, easy-going smile, as if they were two friends discussing laundry powder.
Mr. Smooth was definitely eager to chat, although he clearly thought he was getting somewhere with the classy-looking woman behind him.
“Yeah, I started with Monero,” he said self-importantly, “though I use Dash now. I’ve tried a few, actually, but in the interests of keeping it away from prying eyes, I juggle things a bit.” He touched his nose and gave her an exaggerated wink. “And you?” he enquired chummily.
“Same as you, actually,” she said, smooth as butter. “Seems to work.”
The queue shuffled forward, and another man joined in behind Amanda, phone in hand.
Amanda turned back to Mr. Smooth. “How did you find this place?”
“Probably the same way you did. A friend told me I should try their sandwiches if I wanted a little stress relief. I thought they did ‘massages’“ – he made air quotes around the word – “until I figured it out. Wasn’t sure if I was going to get a helping hand or a hand job when I first came.”
He threw his head back and laughed at his own wit, and Amanda did her best to join in. The man in front of him turned around and scowled, but Mr. Smooth ignored him. “But it’s all done so nicely,” he went on, lowering his voice. “No one who didn’t know about it would be any the wiser.”
Amanda smiled. “Yes, extremely clever, and neat too.” Lowering her own voice even more, she asked him, “How many outlets are there? Any idea?”
They shuffled forward again. Mr. Smooth was up next.
“I don’t know of any others myself,” he whispered, “but there must be, right? To set it up like they have. It’s not like the days when ice cream vans first started serving alcohol from their fridge instead of Mivvies. My guess is the queues of blokes waiting for ice cream gave the game away on that one.” He made air quotes around “ice cream.” “None of that here, though,” he went on, glancing around him. “Just a few folks lining up for breakfast, you and me included.” He gave her another sickly wink and then moved forward to place his order.
She watched discreetly as he set his phone on the counter, screen up. She could see an app page open, waiting. It happened so smoothly that anyone not in the know really would be hard pushed to notice; she had to admit she was impressed. From her current position, Amanda was now able to see what was happening inside the van. One male was cooking and putting bacon sandwiches together. A second male slipped a serviette and sachets of special sauce into the bag, along with what looked like a sachet of salt. Except Amanda knew it wasn’t salt; it was something a lot more relaxing than that. And who in their right mind put salt on their bacon sandwich, anyway?
Mr. Smooth moved off with his order, waving lightly as he walked back to his car, and wished her a nice day as he went. Smiling, Amanda stepped up and placed her order for a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea and waited. How very vanilla of her, considering the present company.
It was extremely clever, Amanda mused. Nobody would suspect the white sachets had anything sinister in them and, as no large cash notes had changed hands (she had used only a few coins paying for the sandwich), there had been no obvious transaction either. To the casual observer the men in the van were simply selling and serving bacon sandwiches.
Damn clever.
So, who was the mastermind behind this venture? Maybe DS Duncan Riley could shed some light on that later.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Amanda hadn’t gone home to change before heading back to the station, figuring she’d be ready for dinner with Duncan later that day so what the hell.
She soon wished she had. The first wolf whistle landed while she struggled to climb out of the car without exposing too much thigh in the process.
“Oh, for hell’s sake,” she mumbled as her heel caught on the floor mat. Cursing, she yanked her shoe off and set one stockinged foot on the ground, looking for all the world like a hippy celeb staggering out of a limo. The observer whistled again and was rewarded with a swift middle finger from Amanda.
With both feet on the ground and once again contained within their shoes, she clumped off towards the station, noticing the backs of a couple of the men as they scurried inside ahead of her.
Jack swivelled round in his seat as she approached and his face lit up with a cheeky grin. “I didn’t know you cared, Amanda. I’d have dressed up a little if I’d known.” He rearranged his tie theatrically.
“Not you too, Jack,” she groaned, and feigned a swat at him. “Can’t a woman wear nice clothes occasionally?”
“Oh, that she can. And you should do so more often – you scrub up rather well.”
She cocked a brow at him. “Hardly practical in our job. I’ll be back to functional tomorrow. And my feet are killing me already in these shoes. Where’s my Doc Martens when a girl needs them?” She slipped her shoes off under her desk and rubbed the side of her foot. “But it worked, though. I now know what’s going on.”
“Really? Go on, then.”
“I will, but I need coffee first. You want some?”
They set off for the kitchen, and as they waited for their coffees, Amanda filled Jack in on what she’d learned from chatting with Mr. Smooth and her observations on the inside of the operation.
“So, the salt packs aren’t salt at all,” Jack mused. “I wondered why they weren’t printed when you found them in that rubbish bin, but I thought no more about it. And they wouldn’t get mixed up with the real salt because that would be in printed sachets, I’m guessing.”
“Precisely.”
“But we still don’t know how many vans are operating, do we?” Jack said thoughtfully. “And I suspect it’s more than one. How the hell do we find out, do you think? This could be nationwide or just a local network.”
“Quite, but I think the first place to start is van ownership. We loosely traced this one back to one of Duncan’s contacts, so we could do the same with any others on our patch. See what we’re dealing with ourselves before taking it further afield.”
“I’m on to it. Shouldn’t be too hard to get a list of license holders from the council. I’ll get Raj to give me a hand.” Jack drained his coffee mug and thumped it down with satisfaction. “That, Lacey, was a good cup of coffee.”
Amanda smiled at his back as he returned towards his own desk and work. It seemed she’d been dismissed.
“Well, I guess I’d better tell Dopey what we’ve got going on,” she said, and padded off barefoot towards DI Dupin’s office. He was seated at his desk engrossed in a document in front of him, his bald patch more prominent than ever, it seemed. She knocked on the doorframe with a knuckle to get his attention.
Without looking up he said, “What is it, Lacey?”
“How’d you know it was me, sir?”
“You forget I’m a detective too, Lacey, and to answer your question, first of all I saw you, and second, your perfume.”
Immediately Amanda wondered if she’d been putting too much on.
“And no, you haven’t. Put too much on, that is.”
Dear God, he was a mind reader, too.
Finally, he looked up from what he had been reading and smiled at her. Dopey Dupin
didn’t have a mean bone in his body, which was one of the reasons the team took the piss. Every DI needed mean bones occasionally.
“What can I help you with?”
While he wasn’t what you’d call an attractive man, he had a nice smile and clear eyes, and had always been decent to Amanda.
“It seems we’ve stumbled on a prescription opioid distribution racket, through mobile food vans. Selling codeine and oxy to the business community, from what we’ve seen so far.” She explained the rest – the salt packets, the app, the clientele.
Dupin sat quietly for a moment before he spoke. “What’s your plan?”
When Amanda explained what they intended to do and that she and Jack were meeting with a DC from Manchester later, he nodded approvingly. “Keep me up to date. I may need to go regional if it’s more widespread, and why wouldn’t it be?”
Amanda nodded her understanding, and Dupin resumed reading his document, indicating she was dismissed.
When she’d left his office, he picked his phone up and dialled.
Chapter Sixty-Four
M1 or M40? That was the question facing Duncan as he skirted around Birmingham heading south towards Croydon. If he hadn’t needed a car he’d have taken the train, caught up with some reports or read the paper, listened to a podcast or something – all much less stressful than afternoon traffic on the Midland’s motorways. Google and Siri told him the M40 was the quickest option, though not by much. He yawned, glanced at the clock on the dash and estimated the time to a service centre he might want to stop at. He dimly remembered that Oxford was the one to aim for, though in truth most of the motorway network’s service stations were pretty grim. Torn seating in the food court areas, filthy toilets, and the general décor and state of repair of these over-used locations left a lot to be desired. Millions of people went through these places every year, so much so they were like small towns, on the move 24/7. Some had designated truck stop areas, some caravan areas, but they all had one thing in common – huge volumes of cars and bikes at any given time. Unfortunately, this meant that refurbishment was almost out of the question.
He made a mental calculation to the stop at Oxford and dreamed of a hot coffee to stir him up with; travelling so far on his own was tedious work. Then he remembered the mini-quiches Sam had made and, driving with his right hand, slipped his left into his bag on the seat and rummaged for the tub.
“Got you,” he said as he wrestled the lid off and removed a little pie. The lightly browned cheese on the top made them look quite delicious and he took a bite from one, sinking his teeth into the soft filling and fresh homemade pastry. He groaned at the taste of them.
“Sam, you’ve outdone yourself, my girl. Absolutely delicious.”
Shame she wasn’t there to hear his praise….
Crumbs fell down his front and he brushed them away before taking another bite, the act of eating relieving the monotony of driving in a straight line for so long. When both pies had been devoured, he savoured the cheesy taste on his lips before calling her to say thanks. She answered almost immediately.
“My God, Sam, those little pie things were delicious. You’ll have to make some more of them.”
“Have you eaten them both already, then?” she enquired.
“I was going to leave one for later, but the first one was so good I thought, Sod it, I can only eat them once.” He heard Sam giggle a little at his praise and enjoyed the sound of it. It was a shame they’d had to go about getting back on track the way they had, but he felt sure she was changing back to the Sam he had loved and married.
“Well, I’m glad you liked them. I hoped you would. Listen, I’ll send you a text later before I go to sleep, all right?”
“Okay. Give the girls a kiss goodnight from me, won’t you?”
“Of course, and enjoy your meal out. Drive safely.” Sing-song. Then she was gone and Duncan was back to the solace of a mind-numbingly boring drive down to Croydon.
It was almost 6 p.m. when he pulled into the hotel car park after four hours of snarl-ups and roadworks, and he parked up below one of the available street lamps for extra security. The amber glow gave his car an eerie finish, changing the colour from navy to almost green. He grabbed his bag and headed inside to check in, feeling dog-tired and wishing he was staying in for the evening rather than going out for a curry. But he’d agreed to go, so that was the end of it, though his stomach didn’t much feel like a curry. Something plain would perhaps ease whatever was going on in there. He put it down to too much coffee and sitting scrunched up for too long.
“Duncan Riley checking in,” he said to the receptionist, an older woman with perfectly coiffed hair. She reminded him of a TV sitcom wife from the 80s. But efficient was her middle name, and within a few moments she was handing over his key and directing him to a room on the first floor. She wished him a good evening.
Duncan skipped the lift and opted for the stairs. His room was near the far end of the first-floor corridor. Silently, he let himself in and browsed around the functional room. Bathroom immediately to the left, bed further in to the left, desk and chair at the foot of the bed against the wall opposite. TV screen, tea- and coffee-making equipment to his right. A piece of nondescript art hung over the bed. The computer-generated image matched the décor colour of green and oxblood almost exactly. The scent of air freshener from a can lingered in the room, probably to mask that someone had smoked there recently; an underlying whiff of tobacco was still evident. He opened the window a little to recirculate the odour back outside, and a cold draft blew into the room. Still, he gave it five minutes to clear.
His head was starting to ache a little as he unpacked his bag and took his toiletries through to the bathroom. Since he wasn’t being picked up for at least thirty minutes or so, he turned the taps on and ran a bath, pouring the little bottle of shower gel into the running water. White bubbles formed and grew upwards while he shaved and stripped. Then, satisfied with the temperature, Duncan slid into the tub. The warm water felt good on his body, the tiring drive easing out of his muscles, and he began to relax a little. His thoughts drifted to Sam and the change in her, her thoughtfulness baking the mini-pies, and he wondered if they’d turned a corner. Perhaps they should go away somewhere soon, the two of them, somewhere warm; maybe the south of France or farther afield even. It wasn’t like they couldn’t afford it, and the girls always enjoyed staying with their grandparents.
His phone rang back in the bedroom and dragged him away from his thoughts, though he didn’t get out of the bath, not yet. Whoever it was would wait or leave a message or call back soon. He closed his eyes a moment and floated somewhere between Sam and work. His phone rang again.
“Sod it,” he grumbled and stood up, letting water and soapy suds run down his legs onto the floor. He wrapped a towel around him before heading to the bedside table.
“DC Riley here.”
“Ah, were you sleeping?” A woman’s chuckle followed, but Duncan didn’t recognize the voice or the number that flashed up.
“It’s DS Lacey, Amanda. Dinner?”
“Yes, sorry. Miles away. Is it that time already?” He glanced at the clock on his phone. 6.40 p.m.
“We’re early, so I called on the off chance, but if you’re sleeping . . .” She let the words hang with a touch of jovial sarcasm.
“Give me five. I’ll be down shortly.” He disconnected the call, quickly dried, and dressed in jeans and a clean shirt with a jacket over the top. With hair that was still ruffled and damp, he left his room to meet his dinner mates, letting the door swing closed behind him.
All three slipped into Amanda’s car, Duncan in the back.
Parked on the other side of the car park were two men in disguise and on surveillance.
They were not detectives.
Chapter Sixty-Five
It wasn’t far to the restaurant. Parking directly outside was impossible unless you were happy to be towed away, and even detectives weren’t exempt from that carry-on
. And bus drivers got tetchy if you parked in a bus stop. Amanda drove past Chat House and pulled up in a nearby side street with plenty of room. Duncan’s head was now throbbing and he wished he’d stopped at a chemist for Paracetamol on the way. Amanda caught the look of pain on his face and asked, “Are you all right?”
“A headache, that’s all, though I couldn’t tell you when I last got one. I don’t suppose you have any painkillers, do you?”
Considering the topic they were about to discuss over dinner, it was fitting, Amanda thought. She rummaged in her bag and produced a packet with four left in it.
“Life saver – thanks,” Duncan said, and removed two from the individual blisters, popping them straight into his mouth.
“There’ll be water inside,” added Amanda. She handed him the rest of the pack. “Here, take the rest in case you need them later.”
Duncan nodded his appreciation and followed them both into the restaurant. The warmth was welcome; even the short walk from the car was cold enough to require hat and gloves. The smell of rich tandoori spices and garlic filled the room. For a weekday night, the place was busy, and the clientele was heavily male. Amanda wondered where all the women were; perhaps these customers were all on a boys’ night out? She imagined the women doing the same someplace, a wine bar maybe.
A man dressed in black and white showed them to their table and handed out menus.
“Can I get you something from the bar?” he enquired.
“A half for me,” ordered Jack.
“Mineral water, thanks,” Duncan said.
Amanda ordered a white wine, not caring that it was a school night.
With the waiter on his way, Jack took up the small talk. “How was the journey down?”
“The usual. I don’t think I’ve ever driven straight through without roadworks somewhere along the way. I reckon they only need a home for their cones, so they lay them on our motorways.” He rubbed his temple and poured a glass of water from the jug to speed the pills up a bit. A light sheen of sweat had formed on his top lip. It glinted slightly, enough for Amanda to notice. She didn’t say anything.