by Val McDermid
The drop was only a few inches, but it seemed to last minutes. Gasping for the breath I’d been holding, I slithered down the hatch back on to blessedly solid ground and opened the boot. I lifted the carpet, and there, tucked into the spare wheel, was the answer to my prayers. I grabbed the tow rope, coiled it round me like a mountaineer, gently closed the hatch and clambered back up the car and on to the roof.
I fixed the rope to a downpipe that was conveniently near the skylight and dropped it through the hole. I bit on the torch again and slowly started the precarious descent. Needless to say, the tow rope wasn’t long enough to take me all the way to the floor, but it left an easy drop of a couple of feet, and I’d be able to reach it again if I moved a lab stool under it.
Getting in was the hard part. Doing the business with the camera was easy. I just started by the doors and worked my way through the shed, photographing the battered equipment, the jars of chemicals, the lists of instructions taped to the walls above the benches, and the plastic bags of white crystalline powder that made my gums numb. I don’t know a lot about the drug world, but it looked to me as if there was much, much more than a bit of crack coming out of Jammy James’s kitchen.
What there wasn’t was paperwork. No filing cabinets, no safe, nothing. Wherever Jammy James kept his records, it wasn’t here. I decided I paid enough in taxes. I’d done most of the work; it was time the Drugs Squad did their bit.
Wearily, I shifted a lab stool under the rope and climbed on top of it. My shoulder muscles were threatening to phone the cruelty man as I dragged myself up the rope and over the sill. I carefully lowered the skylight, restoring it to its previous position, give or take a millimetre or two. Then I untied the rope, did my crab imitation along the roof again. This time, the transfer of weight from feet to arms didn’t go quite so smoothly; my shoulders were too tired for a gradual lowering, and my arms jerked uncomfortably in their sockets, making me let go sooner than I should have. I wondered how I was going to explain the depression in the roof to the car-leasing company.
My body wanted to get into bed as soon as possible, but my head was singing a different song. I had two films from the shed that needed developing. It would help my case if I could show the prints to Turnbull. The devil on my shoulder told me to go home and crash out for a few hours, then go into the office early to develop my films. But I knew myself well enough to know what my reaction would be when the alarm shattered my sleep at seven. And it wouldn’t be to leap out of bed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to rush to the office and fill my lungs with the noxious fumes of photographic chemicals. With a groan, I shoved The Best of Blondie into the cassette player and opened the window all the way. If cold air and Debby Harry’s frantic vocals couldn’t keep me awake, nothing would.
I managed nearly four hours’ sleep. Never mind what Richard owed me in fees; he owed me more sleep than I’d ever catch up on. For once, it wasn’t Davy who woke me. It was Chris. She stuck her head round the bedroom door, followed by a hand waving a mug of coffee like a white flag. ‘Come in,’ I grumbled. ‘Time is it?’ I would have rolled over to look at the clock, but I couldn’t find the energy.
‘It’s quarter past eight,’ she said apologetically, sliding round the door and holding out the mug at arm’s length. Alexis had obviously warned her I’m not at my sparkling best first thing.
‘Shit!’ I growled, as I leaped upright. Or rather, tried to. As soon as I moved, my shoulders went into spasm, and I let out a muffled screech of pain. I managed to shuffle up the bed enough to drink without a straw and seized the mug gratefully. ‘Sorry I yelled. I’m in pain, and I’ve got to be at Bootle Street nick first thing with my brain firing on all four cylinders. So far, it’s not looking good.’
Chris tried a smile that turned into a Spitting Image grimace. ‘I just thought I’d better tell you that I’m off to work now,’ she said. Belatedly, I noticed she was suited up, her hair dried and sprayed into the kind of neatly sculpted shape that Frank Lloyd Wright would have turned into an art gallery. ‘Davy’s had a shower and breakfast, and he’s dressed and sitting in front of breakfast telly, which should keep him quiet for approximately twelve minutes, which is when the next news bulletin is due.’
‘Has Alexis left?’ Pointless question. Alexis is invariably at work by seven.
‘’Fraid so,’ Chris apologized. ‘She said she expected to be finished by three, and that you should ring her at the office if you wanted her to pick up Davy later. I’m really sorry we can’t help out today.’
‘Don’t be,’ I said. The power of speech seemed to have returned with the second mouthful of coffee. ‘You two have done more than enough. Richard owes you.’
Chris smiled, a genuine one this time. ‘I know you’ll find it hard to believe, but we’ve enjoyed ourselves. I live with Alexis, don’t forget, so I’m used to dealing with the demands of small children, and she loves having someone to play with.’
‘You’re not getting broody, are you?’ I asked suspiciously. It’s bad enough that all my straight friends seem to be hellbent on repopulating the world without the lesbians joining in.
‘Building a house is more than enough to be going on with,’ Chris replied as she headed out the door. In the hall she turned back and gave me a mischievous smile. ‘Ask me again in a couple of years.’
If my neck hadn’t seized up, I’d have turned my face to the wall. As it was, I gulped the rest of the brew and slowly, excruciatingly, dragged my body out of bed and into an upright position. I walked to the bathroom stiff as a guardsman. Unfortunately, I’d slept too late to have a bath so had to settle for a shower. I tried to relax as the hot water did the business, but I’d only been under for a couple of minutes when I heard Davy’s voice outside the door.
‘Kate?’ he shouted. ‘Can I play with your computer?’
‘Not here, Davy. I’ve got to go to work in a minute, so I thought maybe you’d like to play on my machine in the office.’ I spluttered.
Silence. That was more unnerving than anything he could have said. I switched off the shower, wrapped myself in a bath sheet and opened the door. He leaned against the wall, looking dejected. My breath stuck in my chest. The line of his body, the angle of his head, the slight frown was so like his father it hurt. He looked up through his long lashes at the sound of the door opening. ‘When’s my dad coming home?’ he asked plaintively.
I managed to get my lungs working again. ‘Not for a couple of days, I don’t think. I spoke to him on the phone last night, after you’d gone to sleep. He said he misses you too and he’ll get back as soon as he can get a plane. I’m sorry, I know I’m not a lot of fun.’ I hugged him. Surprisingly, he didn’t pull a face and draw away. He hugged back. ‘It’s not that,’ he said. ‘I’m having great fun. I just wish he was here too.’
You and me both, pal, I thought but didn’t say.
I broke my personal land speed record getting out the door that morning. Dressed in under five minutes, second cup of coffee down the neck in less than a minute, breakfast one of the Pop Tarts I’d bought for Davy. It tasted like sugar-coated polystyrene, but at least it raised the blood sugar level. By the time I parked on the single yellow line round the corner from the office, I was almost functioning.
I hustled Davy up the stairs and into my office, checking the clock as I walked through the door. Seventeen minutes till deadline. Shelley was already at her desk, earphones in, fingers flying over the keyboard. I strode past her with a little wave, shooing Davy into my office. I switched on my PC, showed him the games directory and made him promise not to interfere with any of the other files on the machine. He dumped his backpack by the desk and was absorbed in Lemmings 2 before I’d had time to walk back out. I closed my office door behind me and perched on Shelley’s desk, nailing what I hoped was a pathetic and appealing smile on my face.
‘No, Kate.’ She hadn’t even looked up from her screen. ‘I am not a child-minder and this is an office, not a crèche.’
‘
I know it’s not a crèche. A crèche is what happens when two BMWs collide in Sloane Street.’
‘Not funny,’ she retorted, not pausing long enough to let her sense of humour kick in.
‘Please, Shelley. He’ll be no trouble. Just for this morning. Just till I can get back from court. I promise I’ll sort something else out for tomorrow.’
‘There’s no such thing as an eight-year-old boy who’s no trouble. I’m a mother, don’t forget. I’ve told the same lies you’re telling now.’
‘Shelley, please? I have a meeting with the Drugs Squad in ten minutes. Richard’s freedom depends on it. I don’t think they’re going to be mega-impressed if I turn up with Davy in tow.’ I was practically begging. I’d done so much of it lately it was beginning to become second nature. Another bad habit to lay at Richard’s door. What’s worse is that it doesn’t work.
I got up from the desk and went into Bill’s office, where I helped myself to his portable TV, a gift from a grateful client who had Mortensen and Brannigan to thank for the ending of his little software piracy problem. I marched through the outer office, wrestled with the door handle and staggered into my office, where I put it down on one of my cupboards. ‘There’s the TV, in case you get fed up with the computer,’ I said to Davy. I can’t swear to it, but I don’t think he even looked up.
I stalked back into the office and gestured over my shoulder with my thumb. ‘Look at that. You’re telling me that’s more than you can cope with? God, Shelley, am I disappointed in you.’
When all else fails, go for the ego. The only trouble is, sometimes the ego bites back. Shelley smiled like Jaws and said sweetly, ‘Just this once, Kate. And by the way, Andrew Broderick’s been on again. He says if he doesn’t get his car back soon he’s going to have to come to some arrangement about reducing our fee.’
There’s nothing like keeping the customer satisfied. I checked the fax machine on the way out, but nothing had arrived from Julia. I hoped that didn’t mean it was going to be one of those days. Not when the next item on the agenda was a close encounter with the Drugs Squad.
19
Q: What’s the difference between a schneid watch and a policeman? A: Schneid watches keep good time. By the time DCI Geoff Turnbull deigned to fit me into his busy schedule, I’d worn a furrow in the floor tiles of the front office. I was getting more wound up than an eight-day clock.
When he finally appeared, it took all my self-control not to bite his head off. Instead, I smiled sweetly and meekly followed him through the pass door into the real world of the city centre nick. We stopped outside a door that said DRUGS SQUAD – PRIVATE. I thought at first that was a joke, till I saw Turnbull pull out a key to unlock the door. He noticed me noticing and said, ‘You can’t be too careful, the stuff we have in here. These days, we’ve got more civilian support staff than we have coppers, and some of them have got more loyalty to their bank balances than they have to The Job.’
How to win friends and influence people, I thought as I smiled what I hoped would pass for agreement and approval. I followed him into an overcrowded office, crammed with desks, VDUs, bulging files, and not an officer in sight. The walls were lavishly adorned with colour photographs of villains. By the look of the pics, most of them were snatched, like mine. If anything, mine were sharper. Maybe Turnbull would be so impressed with my work that he’d offer me a job as a police photographer.
Turnbull’s personal office was partitioned off in one corner. He’d managed to bag the only window, not much of a deal since it looked out on a brick wall all of five feet away. He squeezed his rugby player’s frame behind the loaded desk and gave me the hard stare with small sharp blue eyes. He couldn’t have looked less like my idea of a Drugs Squad officer. I’d expected an emaciated hippy lookalike with a distressed leather jacket and a pair of jeans. Either that or a flash bastard dripping with personal jewellery who could pass for a major dealer. But Turnbull looked like the only drug you’d suspect him of using was anabolic steroids. He lived up to his name: short curly hair with a forelock like a Charolais, the no-neck and shoulders to match, with the gut of a man whose stomach muscles have given up the unequal struggle with Boddingtons Bitter. I put him in his late thirties, well along the road to the coronary unit.
He rubbed a beefy hand over his jaw, massaging plump flesh. ‘So, you’re Miss Kate Brannigan,’ he said consideringly. He managed to make the ‘Miss’ sound like an obscenity. ‘Not much of you, is there?’
I shrugged. ‘Enough to do the job. I don’t get many complaints.’
He leered automatically. ‘I bet you don’t.’
I raised my eyebrows and gave him the bored look. ‘DCI Prentice told me you were the person to talk to. I’ve got some information for you on one of your cases. Richard Barclay?’
‘Oh aye,’ he said, his Yorkshire accent deliberately exaggerated. ‘The boyfriend.’ He picked up his phone and dialled an internal number. ‘Tommo? Any time you like.’ He replaced the receiver and shook his head. ‘I suppose you expect me to believe your fella’s been fitted up? Well, you’re in for a disappointment. It wasn’t Drugs Squad officers that picked him up, it was Traffic, and even if they wanted to plant drugs on him, they wouldn’t have access to anything like those amounts. So you’re barking up the wrong tree there.’
‘I don’t think he’s been fitted up,’ I said patiently. ‘But the drugs in the car were nothing to do with Richard, and the sooner you realize that, the lower the compo’s going to be for the wrongful arrest.’
Turnbull guffawed. ‘Was that a threat creeping out of the woodwork? By heck, Miss Brannigan, you like living dangerously.’
Before I could reply, a doorbell sounded. Turnbull leaned back and pressed a button on the wall behind him. I heard the door of the main room open behind me. I resisted the temptation to turn around and see who owned the heavy feet crossing the floor towards me.
Somehow, I wasn’t too surprised when the custody sergeant from Longsight walked into Turnbull’s office. ‘That her?’ Turnbull asked.
The sergeant nodded. ‘No question about it, sir. That’s the woman who purported to be Miss Hunter’s assistant the other night. She claimed her name was Kate Robinson.’
‘Thank you, Sergeant. I’ll talk to you later.’
‘Sir,’ the sergeant said.
We both held our peace as the feet retreated back across the Drugs Squad office. Turnbull stared at me, a triumphant little smile on his cupid’s-bow lips. I kept my eyes on his, determined not to show any weakness. As the door closed behind the custody sergeant, Turnbull said scathingly, ‘It’s not just you amateurs that can make deductions. I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Miss Brannigan. DCI Prentice’s phone call just made it a bit easier for me to get you in here without a brief hanging on our every word. Especially since your brief’s left herself wide open to charges of unprofessional conduct. I’m sure the Law Society would be fascinated to hear about her interpretation of professional ethics. And now we both know there’s at least one offence I can hang on to you for, mebbe we can cut the crap and get down to the business.’
I said nothing. When his bluster ran out, he was going to have to charge me or let me go. Either way he was going to have to listen to what I had to tell him. And I felt sure that his threats against Ruth were emptier than a dosser’s bottle. The last thing coppers like him want to do is to antagonize the tightly knit club of criminal solicitors. Turnbull carried on staring at me and started drumming his fingers on the desk. Then he opened his desk drawer and took out a packet of cigars. When I rule the world, the European Court of Human Rights is going to outlaw the obtaining of confessions under cigar-and pipe-smoke torture.
He lit his panatella, the only slim thing about him, and said, ‘Soon as I heard the story behind this car, soon as I heard that technically it was your responsibility, I wanted to talk to you. I mean, what better cover for a drug dealer’s wheels than supposedly investigating some daft car-finance scam? Count yourself lucky you didn’t spend th
e weekend in the CDC like your boyfriend.’
I shook my head. Clearly, I wasn’t going to get anywhere being sweetness and light. Time for no more Ms Nice Guy. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this,’ I snarled. ‘I come along here with enough information to close down a major drug ring and hand you a bloody great score sheet of arrests, and you treat me like I’m the criminal? Jesus, it’s no wonder you lot are always whingeing you don’t get support from the public. If you threaten to arrest everybody that tries to give you a tip-off, it’s a bloody miracle anybody tells you what day it is.’
He leaned forward and sneered. I bet he wouldn’t have if he could have seen how badly his teeth needed a scale and polish. I was surprised his breath didn’t strip them down to the bare enamel on a daily basis. ‘You were supposed to be the bloody lawyer the other night. I shouldn’t have to tell you that it’s an offence to withhold information about a criminal offence. So cough, Miss Brannigan, or I’ll have you banged up so fast your head’ll spin.’
I stood up and leaned on Turnbull’s desk. I was getting good and tired of being jerked around by the legal system. ‘Listen, Turnbull,’ I said coldly. ‘You threaten me once more and I walk out that door and you don’t get another word out of me till you’ve formally arrested me, cautioned me and allowed me to talk to my solicitor. I might not be a qualified lawyer, but I’d be willing to bet I’d score more points than you on a PACE quiz. Now, are we going to talk like grown-ups, or are we going to carry on playing silly boys’ games?’