‘No, boss, and I’ve witnesses to prove it.’
‘But you’re sure it’s Tunny?’
‘As sure as I can be given there isn’t a scrap of evidence.’
‘Any link between the arsonists and the fire?’
Coupland shook his head. ‘Unlikely.’
‘How’s he getting his information?’
‘The victims of the machete attack are on the care home manager’s list of suppliers that he gave to Turnbull. I reckon he’s passing the same information he’s giving us onto Tunny along with anything else he’s damned well asked for.’
Mallender considered this. ‘I don’t suppose he felt he was in a position he could refuse. Can hardly blame him.’
Coupland grunted in agreement, his body language suggesting he needed to bloody well blame someone.
‘Did CCTV capture any of this?’
Coupland blew air out from his cheeks. ‘Units were either disabled or non-existent, no forensics either.’
‘Sounds to me like he’s got the upper hand.’ There was a hint of accusation in Mallender’s tone.
‘I can only work with what I’ve got,’ Coupland said. ‘If there was a chance to bring in more officers, have more of a presence on the streets, overtime—’
‘—Not happening.’ Mallender cut him off. ‘We’ll need to rope in additional resources as it is, for the funeral.’ Funerals of crime bosses or close relatives created a lot of attention; extra police would be brought in from across the division when the time came for Tunny to bury his sister. No one seemed to question that money would be made available for that.
‘I’m not saying you’ve made a fist of containing the situation, Kevin, just that whatever you’ve been doing isn’t working.’
Coupland threw his hands in the air. ‘We’ve only just discovered the gang connection, boss, none of this could have been foreseen!’ He took a breath, a thought forming in his mind that he couldn’t resist saying out loud. ‘No pearls of wisdom from your summit, Sir? Any shared best practice from down south that we could benefit from?’
The DCI threw Coupland a look. ‘I stopped listening the moment you addressed me as Sir, Kevin, you only ever do that when you’re taking the proverbial.’
‘Sorry, boss.’ Coupland said, but they both knew he didn’t mean it. ‘Look, the moment I discovered Tunny’s connection I asked for his cooperation, I can see now I was wasting my time.’
‘Did he give you any names of who he thought might be responsible for the fire?’
‘A phone book would be more concise – that’s if they still make them.’
‘Get in touch with the VIU, they may have something that can prove Tunny’s involvement in these disturbances.’ The Video Intelligence Unit consisted of plain clothes officers who moved about the city videoing freed high profile prisoners after serving their sentences. The videos were circulated around local stations and uploaded onto You Tube with the intention of providing other officers and the public up to date information on their appearance, although in Tunny’s case he was so well known it gave him celebrity status.
‘He’s the subject of an exclusion zone banning him from certain streets, isn’t he? If there’s footage of him breaching that he’d be returned to prison. Job done.’
Coupland pulled a face. ‘He’s got minions to do his dirty work boss, besides, getting him off the streets doesn’t help us find our arsonist.’
‘No, but it’s a stick to beat him with while we conduct our investigation.’
‘You know what happens when you poke a bear, Sir? Or a hornets’ nest for that matter?’
Mallender shrugged. ‘Best I can come up with, in the circumstances.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘You haven’t said what your take is on this.’
‘You mean do I think it’s a tit for tat situation initiated by one of Tunny’s rivals?’ Coupland’s mouth turned down at the edges. ‘It’d be daft not to explore that angle. I’m not focussing solely on that, though to be truthful we’ve got bugger all in terms of other leads.’
‘What about local intelligence?’
Coupland was already shaking his head. ‘I doubt any informers will be willing to put their neck on the line. Besides, I don’t want to act on something likely to be thrown out by the CPS later, given the division’s recent record.’ He was referring to the criticism levelled at GMP by the police watchdog for taking on an informant who had offered his services to three other forces – a rent-a-snitch, for all intents and purposes. The other forces turned him down, yet GMP in its wisdom took him at his word. He went on to commit murder right under their nose. Two officers from another station were currently on leave pending an internal review. Coupland sighed; he had the ability to make things go pear shaped without help from anyone else, let alone working hand in glove with someone already involved in criminality.
‘Have you informed Superintendent Curtis about any of this?’
‘Thought I’d save that pleasure for you. He’s had the honour of my company twice this week already; don’t think either of us relish a third time.’
‘Cheers for that.’ A pause. ‘You all set for Judy Grant’s trial?’
‘All spick and span, boss.’
Mallender eyed him. ‘I see what you mean about spending too much time with the Super.’
Coupland was halfway to the door when he remembered. ‘How did it go in the end, Sir, your talk I mean, did you get a standing ovation?’
‘Keep walking,’ Mallender said, pointing towards the door and the corridor beyond.
Coupland’s phone pinged just as he returned to his desk. He tapped on the screen to see a notification from the Salford Network news app he’d downloaded a couple of days before. Angelica Heyworth had updated her article. The headline made him wince: ‘Cop admits assault on Austin Smith.’ Below it, an image of Coupland standing on the fire exit stairs holding a cigarette loomed large, with the ‘Play’ icon above it. He hit ‘Play’. The clip had been edited so that all Coupland could be heard saying was ‘I head-butted him,’ Over and over like an angry rapper. He groaned.
‘What is it?’ Alex had been watching him since he’d come back from his update with the DCI, saw him glaring at his phone. He told her about his run in with the journalist earlier.
‘She’ll run the story for a couple of days until something more sensational comes along, like a mugger suing a granny for hitting him with her handbag.’
‘You reckon?’
‘Course I do. It’s rubbish.’
‘Yeah, but stories like this aren’t tomorrow’s fish and chip paper any more, are they? They’re there, preserved on the interweb for the rest of eternity.’
Alex’s smile slipped. ‘Well, there is that,’ she conceded. ‘But with any luck no-one’ll see it,’ she soothed. ‘Unless it starts trending.’
Coupland threw her a look. ‘Cheers for that, you can get back to pulling the legs off spiders or whatever it was you were doing before you pissed in my sandpit.’
She tipped her head. ‘Glad to be of service.’
Coupland looked up a number on the division’s intranet and telephoned the VIU. The officer he spoke to was helpful enough. Yes, they had footage on Tunny dating back 18 months, none of it incriminated him in terms of breaching his exclusion zone order, nor was he seen fraternising with the heads of other crime families. ‘He keeps himself to himself,’ the officer said. ‘He’s a creature of habit too, does the same thing on set days, we’re thinking of scaling our obs down to tell you the truth.’
Coupland thanked him and asked him to email footage for the last two weeks over. It’d keep him out of trouble for the rest of the morning, if nothing else.
Two hours in and Coupland could see the VIU officer hadn’t been exaggerating. Tunny wasn’t so much a creature of habit but painstakingly anal about the places he went to: the same café in the morning for his breakfast, the same pub for his lunch and then home for tea. Evenings he would be dropped off at a wine bar which he co-owned, and at midnight he’d be driv
en home. He took his partner out to dinner on Friday, went to football on Saturday, church on Sunday. He had a weekly haircut, went to visit Catherine at Cedar Falls the same day every week, did the school run on a Thursday. Not a single boxing club, drug den or arms cache in sight. Coupland tried not to think of the money spent watching and waiting for these men to commit their next offence, while there was bugger all in the pot for his team to deal with the crimes that had already taken place. He sucked in a breath; someone far higher up the totem pole deemed it money well spent, who was he to argue?
Coupland scraped his chair back as he got to his feet, rubbing the back of his neck as he did so. He’d seen enough.
‘Fag break?’ Alex asked.
Coupland glanced at his watch. ‘Off to the barbers, if you must know.’
Alex cocked her head as she looked him up and down, ‘Well, if you are going to become the next media sensation, you might as well look the part, I suppose.’
Chapter Eight
The barber shop on Bolton Street closed to the public every Monday afternoon, the chair reserved for Kieran Tunny and his crew. It offered only one style – shaved heads. Inside, the seats were taken with big men and skinny youths waiting for a number one cut. One youth sucked on a lolly while he scrolled through his phone, another picked at a spot under his nose. They were the same young guns that’d been lounging on Ma Tunny’s garden wall like lazy sentries. The youth picking his nose caught Coupland’s eye, flicked him a snot covered finger. The older men sat back in their seats, discussing the result of Saturday’s match. All eyes fell onto the interloper, bringing their conversation to an abrupt halt. Tunny, reclining in the barber’s chair, sent Coupland a look that would have stopped most men in their tracks.
‘So, what are you getting today then?’ Coupland asked. ‘Hair extensions?’ He moved around the salon as though taking an inventory. No Brylcreem on sale here, though there was plenty of beard oil. ‘Thought your man here was in the business of removing hair,’ Coupland observed.
‘There’s money to be made grooming beards, not shaving them off,’ the barber shrugged. Wearing a faux leather apron over jeans and a white shirt he was a good example of practising what he preached, no hair up top but a thick pirate style beard that glistened under the spotlights.
‘Not on my watch,’ Tunny said, his eyes running along the line of clean shaven minders until, satisfied, his gaze settled on the gobby detective.
‘Can I help you, Mr Coupland?’ His tone was pleasant enough. With the muscle sat around him he could afford to be.
Coupland nodded, mirroring Tunny’s jovial manner. ‘Yeah, you can. I want you to stop leaning on people.’
Tunny settled back while the barber ran clippers over his scalp; the look on his face told Coupland his request came as no surprise. ‘Trust me, I haven’t even started.’
Coupland eyeballed him in the mirror. ‘Several of your goons have been seen running round the city brandishing machetes. That’s hardly small beer.’
The barber didn’t blink at the mention of machetes; Coupland wondered what other topics of conversation he was privy to.
‘Depends where you drink,’ Tunny commented. ‘Anyway, what makes you think it has anything to do with me?’
‘Because of the places the reports are coming in from. The estate beside Cedar Falls where the mobile hairdresser they use lives, the laundry where the bed linen gets washed and the garden maintenance firm they use. It’s not rocket science for Christ’s sake. And now I’m getting reports of assaults on local balloon heads, I’m starting to think you’re reneging on our agreement.’
‘So you’ve got ’em then? Whoever slaughtered my sister? Because that’s the only reason you’d want me to call off the hounds, surely?’
Coupland huffed out a breath. ‘We’re making headway, Kieran.’
‘What does that mean exactly? And if your next sentence contains the words lines of enquiry I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’ His minders leaned forward in their seats, ready to spring into action if needed.
‘My officers are all over this investigation, and yet everywhere they go your henchmen are there, biding their time.’
Kieran sighed. ‘If your guys were on top of things you wouldn’t be here doing my head in. People talk to us.’
Coupland pulled a face. ‘But how reliable is their information? When people are intimidated they’ll tell you what they think you want to hear.’
‘You included?’
Coupland’s brows shot into his hairline. ‘Me? I say it as I see it, Sunshine. Too long in the tooth to change that.’ His eyes met Tunny’s, held his gaze, ‘And for the record? You’re way too old for the fat head look. Maybe try growing it more round the sides?’
Both men stared at each other. ‘I’ve got no beef with you, Mr Coupland. Some of your colleagues on the other hand…’
Coupland was already shaking his head. ‘I can’t speak for them. All I know is when I took my oath I swore to serve without fear or favour. Just because you are the scourge of the earth as far as GMP is concerned, doesn’t mean your sister deserved to die, and it is my intention to bring the person who did this to justice.’
‘And how are you going to go about it? Knock politely on doors holding your shiny warrant card?’
‘It lost its shine a long time ago,’ Coupland drawled, ‘but I have ways of extracting the truth, yes.’
Tunny made a snorting noise.
‘Is that not enough?’ Coupland demanded. ‘You want us to run around with guns?’
Tunny shook his head. ‘No need, I’ve got more ammo than Greater Manchester Police put together.’
Coupland didn’t doubt it. He felt the same frustration he had when trying to get his point across to a senior officer. If they started losing the argument they pulled rank. In Tunny’s case he pulled out the My guns are bigger than your guns speech. ‘Is that meant to intimidate or impress me?’ He asked.
Tunny shrugged. ‘Your choice. Either way the clock is ticking. You carry on with your investigation, Mr Coupland, and we’ll try not to get in your way.’
The barber pulled a pair of scissors from the tool belt round around his waist and began to trim stray hairs from Tunny’s eyebrows, but not before two henchmen moved either side of him.
‘Ken here is the only fella in Salford allowed to come near me with a sharp implement,’ Tunny boasted. Even his minders weren’t allowed to carry blades.
Once he’d finished, Ken brushed bits of hair from Tunny’s shoulders before handing him a mirror. The gangster studied his reflection, turning his head this way and that as he checked out his profile. ‘More hair round the sides, you say Mr Coupland?’ he asked, running sausage like fingers over his scalp. ‘You may be onto something there.’
He nodded, handing the mirror back to the barber before stepping out of the chair. He was fast on his feet for a big man, moved in front of Coupland as though blocking his path. Although the men were of similar height and build there was little muscle in Tunny’s bulk. He had men to fight for him, had no need to defend himself if the situation arose. Coupland could hold his own with him, he was sure of it, if the fight was allowed to be fair. He squared his shoulders in readiness.
Tunny laughed, stepping back to show he was no threat. ‘I have a good feeling about our collaboration, Mr Coupland. A good feeling indeed.’
‘There’s no bloody collaboration, Kieran, just an understanding of the rules of engagement.’
‘There are restaurants spitting distance from here that call a chip a pomme frite. We both know what to expect when the waiter brings our plate over.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Coupland said. ‘If it doesn’t have a photo of the dish in the window I don’t go in.’
‘Whatever you choose to call our joint efforts I am confident they will bring about the desired result. Remember, you lot run Salford in the day, Mr Coupland,’ Kieran fixed him with a look, ‘but at night the city belongs to me.’
&nb
sp; *
‘So come on then,’ Alex kept her smile in check, ‘What’s it like being a grandad?’
A beat. ‘OK, so I’m not his grandad, I’m his Papa.’ Another beat. ‘Why, do I look like a grandad now?’ he asked, lowering the car’s sun visor to take a look at his reflection.
‘You look no sodding different Kevin! Do I look like a mum?’
He returned the sun visor to its upright position, satisfied. Alex slid a glance in his direction when he didn’t reply. ‘A bit,’ he said, enjoying the moment, ‘but in a good way.’
‘In a good way how?’
Coupland rolled his eyes to the ceiling. With a wife and daughter to deal with he should know the warning signs by now but sometimes he couldn’t help it, ploughed in where wiser men would have taken the Fifth Amendment. Alex was already pulling a make-up compact from her bag to study her profile. Her baby weight had gone, though her waistline would never be the same. Carl mentioned once that her face was fatter; she didn’t speak to him for a week. She threw a warning look in Coupland’s direction like a boxer defending their title.
He gritted his teeth. ‘You weigh things up more.’ He raised one hand from the steering wheel in mitigation. ‘Look. It’s not a criticism, I get it!’ he said. ‘A good day in this job is when we go home safe. You mean the world to those kids of yours, why would you do anything to risk that?’
Alex folded her arms. ‘You saying I haven’t got your back?’
‘Did I say that?’ Coupland asked, ‘Did I bloody say that? Having a conversation with a woman is like navigating the Amazon with an egg cup and one spoon.’
Alex huffed out a sigh. With two children on the go she didn’t get the time to work out as often as she used to. It didn’t matter that many of her male counterparts didn’t make the effort; that wasn’t the point. The job may not be open combat but it required stamina, and if you didn’t have brawn you had to be fast on your feet. She hoped to Christ he didn’t think she was holding him back.
‘I was trying to say I respect your level headedness,’ Coupland said.
‘Why does it sound like an insult coming from you?’
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