Powell sauntered with her to the coffee machine in the corner. ‘Either way, Morriss, it’s opened up a bunch of new leads. So well done, nice one.’ Detectives had already started checking what few facts Ivy had been able to supply, plus Gold’s photograph and name had been issued to the media, mainstream and social. With luck, the image would jog a few memories and prompt people to come forward with more info.
‘Break’s not down to me, gaffer,’ she said, pouring herself a cup. ‘If there’s any credit going, sling it his way.’ She nodded towards a desk by the window where Chad was hunched over a keyboard, phone clamped under his chin. ‘The newbie spotted the new misper, did the math. In my book that shows initiative and nous.’
‘High praise indeed, Morriss,’ he said reaching for the jug. ‘Do I take it you pair have kissed and made up?’
Her sigh lifted her shoulders. ‘You can take it that I may’ve misjudged him is all.’
‘That so? Saying you fancy him—?’
‘Whoa. Hold your horses.’
‘Calm down, dear. I was only gonna ask if you fancied taking him on as a new partner.’
She was about to take a sip, but the cup didn’t reach her mouth. ‘I’ve got a partner. Why’d I need a new one?’ Dear.
He held her gaze before raising a presumably placatory palm. ‘Yeah, you’re right. You and Tyler are a tight team.’
‘I’ll drink to that.’ She eyed him over the rim as she took a sip. And now she’d made her peace with Mac, hopefully they’d be even tighter. Being at loggerheads with her favourite lumberjack had been a right pain. He was one of the people she’d phoned last night, grovelled to big-time down the line. In fact she’d mended so many fences recently she could probably land a job at Aintree. She’d pledged beer and a balti for Mac and Stace, and sweeteners for her mum and Sadie that’d be hand-delivered at the weekend: flowers, chocs, Baileys, Sauvignon Blanc, books, DVDs, fondue set, cuddly toy …
She gave a wry smile. Given how much the reparations would set her back, a win on the Grand National would come in handy. ‘Mac suits me just fine, gaffer.’
‘Yeah, and let’s face it, Morriss.’ Powell winked. ‘Chad-the-lad’s a tad on the green side for an old … hand like you.’
Old hand. ‘Nice one. Ta,’ she drawled, lobbing the cup at a bin.
‘It’s a compliment, Morriss. Means you’re mature, mellow, seasoned.’
‘So’s a block of cheddar.’ She sniffed. ‘What’s he got wedged up his nose?’
Powell followed Bev’s gaze. Jack Hainsworth headed towards them looking his usual bubbly self. She’d clocked him enter the room a minute or so ago, watched him make straight for the murder board. The only new addition was the picture of Tommy Gold.
‘Tommy Gold?’ Hainsworth sneered, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Is that some kind of a joke?’
‘Can’t see anyone laughing, Jack,’ she said.
Hainsworth ignored her as per. ‘That’s no more Tommy Gold than I am, guv. It’s a bloke called Dean Hobbs.’
‘Sure about that, Jack?’ Powell asked.
‘Damn right I am. I’ve come across the little scrote before.’
Bev tapped a toe, mentally humming “Why Are We Waiting?”
‘Telling or what?’ Powell again.
‘Dean Hobbs is a lowlife bell end.’ The name meant nothing to Bev, and going by Powell’s blank expression he was equally clueless.
Hainsworth raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve heard of Marty Cox?’
Who hadn’t? Pimp, porn merchant, purveyor of all things dodgy, including sundry drugs. So popular was Cox that a few years back someone had chucked acid in his face – a business rival’s lackey according to rumour. Whoever was responsible, Cox was the grossest-looking human Bev had ever seen. As for back-room desk-jockey Hainsworth, boy, was he relishing his moment in the sun. He’d paused like he expected a round of applause.
‘Get a move on, eh, Jack?’ Powell tapped his watch. ‘I’ve not got all day.’ Well said, that man. Bev couldn’t have put it better.
Hainsworth shrugged: water off a duck’s bum to him. ‘Cox hired Hobbs a few months back: minder, gofer, general fucktotum. Before that, Hobbs pretty much put the petty into crook.’ PPO, in other words: persistent prolific offender. Hobbs’s previous apparently included criminal damage, breach of the peace, stealing motors: small-beer stuff. Little wonder he’d not made the squad’s hit parade.
‘From what I hear now,’ Hainsworth said, tugging a fleshy lobe, ‘he’s as much enforcer as errand boy.’
Bev cut a glance at the pic, trying to see how a slight-framed short-arse could play a Mr Muscle role in Cox’s set-up.
‘Don’t be fooled by appearances,’ Hainsworth said, clearly not liking the dubious look on her face. ‘That little oik’s known on the street as The Cleaner, as in cleaning up the shit after his boss’s dirty work.’
‘That’d be a full-time job, then.’ Powell mused.
‘Yeah, and people tell me Hobbs is well-handy with a duster … if you get my drift.’ Running a finger along his knuckles helped punch the message home.
‘Was handy,’ Powell said. ‘He’s dead – remember?’
‘Boo-hoo. I’m well gutted.’
‘This come from one of your snouts, Jack?’ Bev asked. Cops were supposed to call them CHIS nowadays: Covert Human Intelligence Sources. If Bev was in charge of acronyms they’d be known as CHIPs. P as in people not S as in sources. Either way Hainsworth had more grasses in his back pocket than the rest of the nick put together.
‘Yeah, they’re dead useful. You should try cultivating some of your own. ’Cause I’ve also heard a whisper about Cox muscling further in on the vice trade – wants more fillies in his stables. Could be he was using Pretty Boy over there to round them up, show them the ropes.’
She suppressed a sigh. For a blunt speaker, he couldn’t half talk a load of obfuscating bollocks. Still, on the upside ‘fillies’ was an improvement on the pre-PC terms a lot of cops used to come out with: whores, toms, tarts, prossies. ‘Are you trying to say he took Hobbs on so the guy could groom sex workers for him?’
‘Give the girl a gold star.’ Hainsworth sneered. ‘You can call ’em whatever you like, sergeant, they all do the same job, they’re all on the game. Big demand out there. And as we all know, Cox isn’t the only operator. The market’s tight. Dead competitive. You could even call it cut-throat.’
Bev nodded, aware how easy it was to step into someone else’s patch.
Especially a pimp’s.
24
Leaning back in the swivel chair, eyes closed and licking chocolate from her fingers, Bev now regretted not plumping for the family pack of Penguins. The snack had gone down a treat, but the virtuous restraint she’d shown in buying just the one bar meant she still felt peckish. She’d been making notes, taking stock, Doc Martens kicked off somewhere under her desk. Must have birds on the brain or something, ’cause she’d put Hainsworth’s intervention on a par with dropping a ravenous tomcat among the inquiry pigeons. Which was kind of lucky, because as far as Bev could work out most of the lines the squad had been following so far hadn’t really led anywhere.
Sumitra Gosh had come up blank on the CCTV footage: the off-licence cameras were mostly there for show, and even those that did work hadn’t recorded a single frame of note. The mystery voice, despite lots of exposure on local radio, remained exactly that. Okay, now the squad had more names to go on, DCs Darren New and Carol Pemberton might have more joy on the next visit to Tiffany’s. Next time they’d take excavators and try unearthing any links the club might have with Marty Cox and his hired muscle, a bloke who now answered to the name Dean Hobbs but who’d been christened Tommy Gold. Though how their once-unidentified stiff had ended with up two monikers was yet another enigma in Bev’s bumper book of the bloody things.
She puffed out her cheeks. At least poor old Ivy was no longer in the dark about her grandson’s whereabouts. Bev had tasked Chad and Goshi with gently breakin
g the news of his death, and in a similar vein to ask her if she had the slightest idea about his apparent double life. According to Chad, for Ivy it had been another item of breaking news.
Bev glanced at a map on the wall. She’d stuck in coloured pins showing where the squad now had feelers out. Cox’s empire stretched across most of south Birmingham and good – make that ‘bad’ – chunks of the inner city. As well as the pimping, porn and pharmaceutical industries, the crime boss was into property in a way that painted Rachman in a Farrow and Ball light. Cox rented out cheap housing and run-down business premises primarily to dodgy clients, even provided protection. Exclusive and at a price. If rumour had it right, Cox’s security racket had cost a couple of late-payers an arm and a leg – literally.
Bev shuffled her bum in the seat to ease a twinge in the small of her back, then picked up one of the pictures of Cox she’d been studying earlier. He was a big bloke, tall, balding, looked like Danny de Vito on stilts. You’d think he’d be easy to track down in person, but so far it had been a brick-wall head-against job. Not like it was for whoever had got near enough to shower Cox in H2SO4. Shoot. Just the thought sent a shiver down her spine. Talk about acid rain.
The attack had been a while back, but the shiny pink flesh still looked raw. The left side of his face put her in mind of a slab of brawn; one milky eye drooped at the corner, skin round it had melted like candle wax.
Bev curled a lip. Couldn’t envisage many people venturing out in public with a mug like that. Maybe that’s why he didn’t put himself about much – scared of frightening the horses. Grimacing again, she laid the pic on the desk, then picked up an image of the guy that she’d printed off the web. Cox certainly hadn’t been so shy back in the days when he was more beefcake than chopped meat: sharp black suit, laid-back stance, cocky smile. He’d been a heck of a lot trimmer then and, she had to admit, pretty tasty. The slick jet-black hair, olive complexion and ski-run cheekbones reminded her of Elvis before he hit the burgers.
‘So the question is … ?’ she murmured, drumming the desk. Actually there were loads, but the one she’d like answered right now was whether the perp had taken out a bit player only because he couldn’t gain access to the star? Was Hobbs’ murder a warning of what Cox had in store? Or had Pretty Boy ruffled a fair few feathers on his own account?
Frowning, she started rummaging through a mound of papers, searching for Hobbs’ rap sheet. Hainsworth had dropped by with it an hour or so ago on the way to rendezvous with another of his pet snouts. Good pretext for an early pint, even better if he came back with something solid. Extracting the pen from behind her ear, Bev ran her gaze down the list of misdemeanours. Make that misdeminors. As Hainsworth had indicated, none was a hangable offence, but all pre-dated his association with Cox. Bev tapped the pen against her teeth. Given the current scope of the inquiry, who knew what – or how many – metatarsals Hobbs might have trodden on since he’d taken to knocking round with the big boys?
Thinking of toes. Leaning full tilt in the chair, she stretched both legs out in front and scrabbled round under the desk with her stockinged feet. Where the hell were her Docs? She was still firking about when the phone rang. Very nearly slid off the seat when she went to answer it.
‘Call for you, Bev. A Miss Manners.’
‘Sure it’s for me, Vince?’ Trying to recall the name. ‘I don’t know any Manners.’
‘I’d not go that far. Don’t be so hard on yourself, sarge.’ She heard a cheeky grin lurking in the desk sergeant’s voice. ‘And yep, I am sure. It’s you she’s after.’
‘Soddin’ ell, Vince.’ She pulled a face, as she tugged on a shoe. Like she didn’t have a zillion things on her pending plate. ‘Put her through if you must.’
‘Wotcha, chuck.’ Shit. He already had. ‘I always did have you down as a stroppy tart.’
She stopped cringing the second she recognized the voice. Straight out of Coronation Street, the accent made Bet Lynch sound like Brian Sewell’s sister.
‘Well, well, well. How you doing, Val?’ Bev’s eyes lit up. Vince must’ve misheard. It was Val Masters. Not Manners. ‘Big Val’, as she was known in the trade. The woman had been turning tricks in Balsall Heath when Bev first met her ten or twelve years ago. They both had, in a way, though Bev had been working under-cover. Casting her mind back, she curved a lip. The smile grew as she pictured Val sporting one of her trademark beehive wigs, decked out in all the gear, low-cut leopard skin tops, fishnet tights and fuck-me shoes. As a past-mistress at the game she knew the clobber turned her into a walking cliché, but as she’d told Bev more than once, she didn’t give a toss about dressing up to play what she saw as only a part-time role. ‘Keeping well, are we?’ Bev asked.
‘Still alive last time I checked.’
Bev laughed. ‘What you up to these days then, matey?’
‘Middle East peace envoy, me.’ Bev heard the rasp of a match. The wheezy breath suggested Val’s nicotine habit was still going strong. ‘Anyroad, chuck, it ain’t me I’m calling about.’
‘Nah, I bet you’re not.’ Bev stifled a snort as she gazed at the photo-spread on her desk: Cox, Gold/ Hobbs. Sounded more like a gentlemen outfitters or a posh aftershave. Except Cox was pimp-master general and thingamabob one of his foot soldiers. And who should ring out of the blue but a working girl wanting a word in her shell-like. Though at the mo, Bev’s caller seemed to have clammed up.
‘You expecting me to take a wild guess here, Val?’
‘Nah, I’m expecting you in the Cat and Fiddle. Selly Oak. Six o’clock. I’ll fill you in then. Don’t be late, or I’ll change my mind.’
25
Bev was beginning to think she’d turned up at the wrong place. After convincing Powell there’d be more mileage in hooking-up with Val Masters than showing her face at the late brief, she’d arrived at the pub bang-on five to six. Ten past now, and apart from a couple of whiskery old duffers nattering over a pint and a maiden-aunt type nursing half a stout in the corner, the bar looked to have less life than an abandoned crypt. That included the landlord’s tabby, a mangy, lazy-eyed tomcat. Smelly creature had certainly pushed its luck when it tried weaving a figure of eight round Bev’s legs as she paid for her drink. Never a big – make that any size – fan of felines, she’d encouraged it with a subtle foot in the butt to fuck off and fiddle. Instead it had stalked her to a table by the wall and now sprawled nearby on the tacky snot-green carpet, gazing up adoringly. Talk about taking the piss.
Glancing again at the station clock on the wall, Bev slipped off her jacket. So what pressing engagement was keeping Big Val? Having been given nil chance to grab a number, Bev couldn’t even put in a call to check if her arrival was imminent. ’Course not. That’d be too easy. Besides, knowing Val like she did, Bev reckoned it was the reason she’d hung up so rapido earlier: she’d always been a tad hard to pin down, had Val. In some respects, anyway.
Masking a smile, Bev reached for her glass and registered how quickly the tonic was going down. She needed to make it last, ’cause if Val didn’t show soon she’d be out of here like a shot. Not, unfortunately, of gin. She took another sip, then held up the glass to check the level again. The dowdy woman in the corner must’ve thought it was a matey gesture because she nodded and raised a toast with her empty glass. Silly mare.
Bev looked away sharpish. Best nip it in the bud or she’d find herself getting the next round in. Not to mention she had more pressing matters on her mind than making new pals. Even so, assuming Big Val’s invite hadn’t been to swap knitting patterns, then in the snouts’ stakes it looked as if Jack Hainsworth’s tame snitch would pan out to be the better bet. At least Jack’s informant had bothered turning up at their assignation. What’s more, Highgate’s answer to Deep Throat had told Jack that two or three years back Tommy Gold had assumed a new alias – namely, Dean Hobbs. Bev had picked up only the gist of the latest development via a brief call from the DI, but she could see how the timing fitted. According to Ivy, it had bee
n around that long since Tommy left home, i.e. stopped living with his gran. And what had Ivy said about how he much he hated his ma’s guts after she’d buggered off? She nodded to herself. That’s right. He never wanted to hear the name Gold mentioned again. Or, apparently, use it himself.
Bev traced a finger round the rim of her glass. She could just about comprendo why he’d kept up the pretence with Ivy. If they were as close as Bev had been led to believe, presumably he’d gone out of his way not to hurt the old girl’s feelings. Which meant keeping her ignorant about the name change on the grounds it would look as if he was rejecting hers too. How sweet. Bad boy Tommy had a soft spot after all. Bev snorted. ’Course he did. As Powell relished pointing out from time to time, even Hitler had been kind to his dogs.
She sniffed. Wrinkled her nose, sniffed again. Yet another waft of cat-fart. Right. She’d had enough of this lark. She’d done as bid and turned up on time, and Val had clearly changed her sodding mind anyway. Bev drained the glass, just shy of banged it down on a beer mat, then turned to retrieve her jacket from the bench.
‘Where you off, chuck?’
Val? Frowning, Bev glanced over her shoulder. Nah, it couldn’t be. She narrowed her eyes. Could it? Flicked a glance to the corner. Yep, the seat was empty, its former occupant’s butt about to park itself next to Bev’s.
‘Shove over, then.’
Still gawping, Bev slid along the bench on auto-pilot. After giving Val the twice-over, it struck Bev the only thing she’d not changed was her mind. The beehive was history. Mousy lank hair fell to hunched shoulders, without the slap her face was bland and forgettable, and the nerdy pair of specs did nothing for her – not that they’d do much for anyone. As for animal print, the only one sporting it round here was the cat.
‘Why … what …?’ Genuinely flummoxed, Bev was stumped for words.
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