“New model Corsa. Sporty looking, red with flash silver stripes down the side?”
“And a ridiculously large spoiler on the back? Looks like it was nicked off a Formula One race car?”
“Yes, that’s it! Do you know it?”
She looked reluctant, but nodded. “I think so. It sounds like
Andy Hart’s ride.” “Andy Hart? Who’s he? Some sort of freelance reporter?”
“No. He’s a copper. A keen young PC with more ambition than intelligence.”
My jaw dropped. “You mean I’m being watched by the police!”
My voice rose with the shock, and June shushed me frantically. “Keep it down, for f… goodness’ sake!”
“Sorry, but what are you saying here? I’m under surveillance by… your lot?”
“Not exactly, no.” She glanced around. The bar area was quite busy, with people coming for drinks, waiting for drinks, and leaving with drinks in a steady stream of alcohol. “See if you can find us a quiet spot to talk in. I’m going to get a drink.”
“OK. It’s Rob, by the way.”
“Yes. I know. Call me June.”
I managed to get us a table for two stuck in a far corner with a nice view of the kitchen. June joined me, clasping a large red wine. She noticed me noticing it.
“It’s been a long day and I know my limit, OK? Ignore it and I won’t ask about your fall.”
I shrugged. “Fair enough. I’ve ordered something. I know it’s not a date, but they won’t let you have a table unless you’re eating.”
“Right.”
“So what were you saying about this copper who’s watching my door?”
“I’ll get to that.” She took a healthy sip of her wine, set it down. “First off, though, you’ve got to understand something. Just by meeting here with you, I’m putting my career on the line. At the very least. And that’s before I even tell you anything. Once I start giving you information about an active police investigation, then
I’m breaking the law. So if it ever comes out, then I’m seriously screwed.”
“I see why you needed the wine.”
She grinned. “Just to make it clear, you’d be equally screwed. Obtaining confidential information from a police officer? Not taken lightly, I promise!”
“OK, I get the picture. I keep it hush. But why take the risk, June?”
“Sometimes doing the right thing means breaking the rules. And I am not best pleased with Mickey Fayden. This time he’s gone way over the top.”
A waitress came over with a very large plate. June stopped talking and sat back as it was placed between us. It didn’t leave much space on the table.
She raised an eyebrow. “Quick service! But what’s this?”
“This is the Super Sharer Stag Platter. I didn’t know what you liked, but this seems to have a bit of everything. Bready things, fishy things, meaty things, and… thingy things. Everything except actual stag, in fact. And I know it’s still not a date, but it’s on me.”
“Bribing a police officer now?” She said it sharply, but with a smile.
“Gesture of appreciation. A bit of a thank you.”
“I’ve had a long day, didn’t get off shift until late and then came straight here. So the gesture is accepted, and thank you too.” She selected a garlic breadstick, swirled it in a dip, and munched. “Have you ever heard of Lappies?”
I was trying out a breaded mushroom with sweet chilli, and shook my head.
“Chill Pills? Coolers? Spanish Bliss?”
“Never heard of them.”
“I’m glad to hear it. They’re all street names for a new type of designer drug. There’s not a lot of intel on it, but the word is that it was developed in a legitimate pharmaceutical lab, as a stress reliever. The product didn’t meet the requirements, and it was never licensed for commercial use. However, someone must have seen some potential in it, and nicked the formula. A few months after the project was officially discontinued, the stuff started showing up in Spain, where it was known as ‘La Paz’. ‘The Peace’, in English – or Lappies.”
“OK, so it’s a stolen formula. But what’s the big deal about a stress buster?”
“Oh, this is more than just a stress buster. La Paz is a total emotion suppressor. A dose of this and you don’t feel anything. No worry, no fear, no anger. You can still think quite clearly, but any emotional content is gone.”
I thought about it. “That’s a bit weird, but it doesn’t sound too bad.”
“I know. That was my first thought as well. But the thing is, once you take out the emotions, you also take out inhibitions. It’s emotions that stop people from doing a lot of things. Fear of consequences, concern for others, and so on.”
She paused to take a long sip of wine. “Alcohol does that a bit,” she said, looking thoughtfully into her glass. “That’s why people wake up in cells thinking, ‘Oh heck. Why did I do that?’ But Lappies take it a whole lot further.
“The first definite case involving this new poison was in Madrid. A teenager was trying to walk along the railing on a bridge, missed, and went down fifty feet to hard concrete. The kids with him said that he wasn’t scared at all. Even when he fell, he didn’t scream.”
“Nasty.” I thought of what a long drop might do to a fragile human body, and winced.
“There were a few others like that. Then the first murder. A young woman stabbed her mother with a kitchen knife. Not in a moment of anger, as most of these domestic crimes are. She wanted money, her mother refused to give it her. So she went into the kitchen, got a carving knife and stabbed her mother through the neck while she was watching TV. Afterwards, when the drug wore off, she went crazy with grief. She loved her mother. But she hadn’t felt it when La Paz was at work in her. She acted without any feeling at all.”
I put down a spicy battered sausage, my appetite suddenly reduced. “That’s… terrible. Beyond terrible.”
June gave me a sombre look. “It gets worse. The original, lab version wasn’t addictive. But someone messed with it. Mixed it with something, made it so addictive that one dose was enough to get you hooked. The girl killed her mother to get money for another hit.”
I said nothing. Stories like that belonged in TV dramas or news reports. Stories that weren’t real, or whose reality was kept at a safe distance by the screen. They shouldn’t be told in a matter-of-fact way across the table.
June sipped her wine before continuing. “The stuff began turning up all over Spain, spilled across the borders into Portugal and the south of France. It was particularly popular among petty criminals – burglars and such like. Kept them calm and focused while they were about their business. But the pushers were opening up other markets as well. Students, even schoolkids. Helped them study or cope with exam nerves. Respectable business people, professionals, politicians – anyone who might be stressed or under pressure. Ironic really, since that was the original target group for the drug.”
“Were there any more deaths?”
“Oh yes. Eight murders, five suicides, and a dozen other incidents linked to La Paz in a twelve-month period. That’s the ones that were confirmed. The Spanish police put a lot of resources into tracking down the people behind it, but it was a tough one to crack. The dealers weren’t using the usual distribution vectors – the bars and nightclubs, and cars parked on dark streets. They were finding ways to get directly into the schools and universities, into businesses and community centres. Typically, they’d identify someone with good access and get them hooked.”
“How long did it go on for?”
“Over a year. Then they tracked down the source. Closed down production, picked up most of the people involved.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Most?”
“Somebody got away. One of the main people. Disappeared completely, and didn’t leave behind so much as a description. There’s a suspicion that he had a contact in the police who tipped him off, but it was never proved.”
June leaned back in her chair and finished
her wine. “There were no clues about this person. Nobody who had been arrested had ever met him; he always worked at a distance. He ran the business by text, mostly. But La Paz was off the streets and the source destroyed, so it seemed like game over. Until a few months ago. Then it turned up again. Here.”
“Here in the UK?”
“Here in this part of the UK.” She glanced down at the Super Sharer Stag Platter, now reduced to a few crumbs. “That was a pretty impressive starter.”
“Do you want a main?” I felt I had to ask.
“No, but I wouldn’t say no to a sweet.” She grinned. “If you’re still paying?”
For a non-date, this was turning out to be more expensive than some of my actual dates. Of course, it had lasted longer than most of them.
“Of course.” I returned the grin. “But I’ll skip if you don’t mind.”
“No problem. You can watch me enjoy mine.”
Several minutes later, over a large slice of honeycomb cheesecake, she resumed. “To understand what’s going on here, you have to understand Mickey Fayden.”
“That’s the detective sergeant who came with all the questions, right?”
She nodded.
“I got the impression that you didn’t much like him.”
June laughed at that. A cynical and world-weary laugh that pretty much confirmed what I’d thought. “Me and Mickey have some history. We went through training together. He was convinced that he was there as a special favour to the force, and while he was waiting for them to recognize that and make him chief constable, he would favour me with his attention – because after all, he was also God’s gift to women. I told him to get lost, and called him a loser. Now, Mickey doesn’t take rejection well, and he got a bit pushy about it. I pushed back, and broke his wrist. That could have ended his career right there. Perhaps mine as well though, so officially he slipped in the shower. But skip on a few years, and I’m still a PC, while he’s a DS, the rising star of CID. He takes every opportunity to rub my nose in it. ‘Not doing bad for a loser, eh?’ he tells me every time we meet. I think that the label hurt him worse than the wrist.”
“OK. But what’s that got to do with…”
She held up a hand. “I’m getting to it, all right? So, here’s Mickey Fayden, desperately ambitious, made it to DS but wants to move up to DI – detective inspector – as fast as he can. And he hears this rumour about a new drug on the street.”
“La Paz?”
She nodded. “Or Lappies, in the local speak. Now, Mickey has also heard something else of interest. About someone with a few question marks about their past history who’s just moved into town. Moved in from Spain, as it happens. Had a bit of cash on him as well. Enough to buy a run-down old pub near the city centre and have it completely refurbished.
“Now, to all appearances the new boy in town, who goes by the name of Mateo Canoso, is a perfectly legitimate businessman. He’s in the country legally, he’s investing in the community, he’s making friends in useful places. But the pub he’s done up used to have a bit of a reputation. The sort of place where you could get something a bit stronger than alcohol. And there’s a whisper on the street that the new-look King William has a new line of merchandise as well.”
“The King William? I know that place. Know of it, that is,” I added hastily. “It’s not far from the high street, is it?”
“On Market Street. Just the other side of the Plaza. Two minutes’ walk from where Laney died. Hold on to that thought; we’ll come back to it. How about coffee?”
June took hers black, no sugar, and decaf. She shook her head at my cream and three lumps. “Do you know what that will do to your arteries?” she asked.
“I usually have sweeteners,” I lied. “Anyhow, I allowed you the wine.”
“Wine’s healthy. In moderation, of course. Never mind, it’s your body. Where were we?”
“Mateo Canoso and the King William.”
“Ah, yes… So, Mickey puts all this together and his eyes light up, because here’s his next rung on the ladder. He rushes off to his boss, and explains how he’s going to stop this new drug before it gets started. It goes all the way up to the detective superintendent, who loves the idea, and Mickey gets the green light. Of course, it’s all a bit rushed, but he doesn’t want anyone else to get in on the act. So he rounds up some troops, gets a warrant, and in they go. Canoso is arrested, and search teams take the King William apart.”
She sat back, cradling her coffee and smiled steadily. “I was on the cordon. It was beautiful. Mickey was running in, out, and round about, all gung-ho and excited… But as the search went on, he got more and more frantic.”
“I take it they didn’t find anything.”
“Not a thing. No factory, no Lappies, not so much as a used spliff or a smuggled duty-free. Mickey had the teams go right through the place three times, before he slipped off quietly. All very embarrassing for the lad, and just to make it worse, Mateo starts talking about wrongful arrest, not to mention charging for repairs to his shiny new pub.”
“And I suppose the – what did you call him? Detective superintendent? – he would have been a bit upset?”
“Oh yes. More than a bit. And word quickly filtered down that if Mickey doesn’t get this sorted out fast, then his next posting is going to be custody sergeant at the most remote station still open. Well, with that sort of threat hanging over him, Mickey got to work and did what he should have done in the first place. Ran some background checks, dug into Canoso’s history. And he comes up with something useful.
“First, he finds that Canoso is a bit of a strange name. It actually means ‘grey haired’, and it was the name taken by Mateo’s dad when he moved to Spain. From England.”
“His dad’s English?”
“Was. Died a few years back. And not just from England, but from this part. What’s more, the old man was a bit of a lad in his day. Did some serious time – ten years for armed robbery; would have been more but they couldn’t actually link him to a weapon – and then got into the drug business. Not proved, though, and when things started getting a bit hot he skipped off to Spain – where, it seems, he had a nice little family set up all ready for him. Including Mateo. Changed his name to Canoso, which might have been a sort of joke due to the fact that he apparently had long grey hair. And that his real name was Grey. Andrew Grey.”
June was looking at me intently as she said this. But the significance hadn’t escaped me.
“Grey?” I asked incredulously. “As in Laney Grey?”
“That’s right. Andrew Grey, aka Andrew Canoso, was her father. She was Mateo’s half-sister.”
I sat back, struggling with the implications.
“This got Mickey all excited again,” June continued, “because Laney’s a well-known local figure. She’s got access to all sorts of places – schools and colleges, community centres, all the venues where she did workshops and poetry readings and the like.”
“All the sorts of places that were targeted by La Paz in Spain!”
“Right. And Mickey’s got a whole new line of inquiry. He gets right on it, starts digging into Laney’s history, and gets some surveillance on her. He wants to know everything about her – where she goes, who she sees, and especially if she meets with Mateo. And they get something. CCTV picks her up crossing the Plaza, coming from the direction of the King William. But by the time they’ve phoned the CID office to let them know…”
I closed my eyes, knowing what was coming. To my surprise, I felt a hand on mine. I opened my eyes again, and looked at her.
“It wasn’t your fault, Rob. They were following her, so it was all on CCTV. I didn’t know that myself at the time, but it’s clear enough. She stepped out in front of you. You never had a chance to miss her.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
She released my hand, but not my gaze. “Don’t lose sight of that. No matter what people are saying about you.”
I needed to move the conversation on
. “So what did Mickey do?”
“You know what he did. He came after you.”
“Yes – but why? Like you said, it was an accident. What’s he got to gain by rattling my cage?”
She played with her spoon, twirling it round in the dregs of her coffee. “He wasn’t convinced at first that it was an accident. He was more than half certain that it was a hit, perhaps arranged by a rival gang.” She saw my expression, and shrugged. “OK, I know it’s daft. But Mickey’s getting desperate now, having lost his only lead, and he’s not the sort of man to let facts get in the way of a good theory. And to be fair, your job would be a good cover for moving drugs around.”
“Not possible,” I said firmly. “Every package we deliver has a full audit trail, all the way from the factory till it’s signed for by the customer.”
“And you check the contents yourself?”
“Well, no, but…”
“And do you ever have extra little deliveries, off your usual routes?”
I thought of the Fiesta runs, and felt a sudden moment of doubt. Sometimes the odd package might go out without all the usual paperwork. Cutting corners to help out a customer in an emergency – that’s what Colin said. Of course, he did most of the Fiesta runs himself…
Colin as a drug runner? I shook my head. “That’s ridiculous!”
“Of course it is.” She grinned at me. “But you can see how Mickey could start to build a case – at least in his head. And he has this thing he does, this ‘investigative strategy’.” She wiggled her fingers in the air to indicate the inverted commas, and expressed her opinion of it with a sneer. “He calls it ‘pushing buttons and seeing what lights up’. So that’s why he had a word with you. He reckoned that if you were dodgy, he only needed to push your buttons to get a result.”
“Sounds a bit random to me. Does it ever work?”
“It did once. By accident. When Mickey was still a new DC, he was supposed to get a statement from the injured party in an assault. But he got the addresses mixed up, and went to see the main suspect instead. Real Keystone Kops moment, and it could have gone so badly wrong… But Mickey got lucky. When he turned up, the suspect assumed he was there to nick him, and decided to get in first with a confession. So Mickey got the arrest, and turned his cock-up into a new technique for investigation.”
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