by Ali Harper
‘What do you know about the dealers?’ Jo asked. ‘The ones Brownie and Jack owe?’
‘I can’t get involved,’ said Martha.
‘A name, anything that might help us?’
Martha hesitated for the briefest second. ‘I think I dropped Brownie at their house once. He didn’t say that’s what he was doing, because he knows I wouldn’t have taken him. He told me he was visiting a mate.’
‘But?’
‘I saw him later that same evening. I knew he’d scored.’
‘And where was it, this place?’
Jo asked the question. I didn’t want to know. The less knowledge, the smaller the dilemma. If we knew where these dealers lived, we’d have responsibilities – twenty-four thousand of them. I remember frowning across the table at Jo, willing her to shut up. She never takes any notice, so I don’t know why I thought she would this time. Martha lowered her voice and gave us an address.
‘Perhaps we should pay them a call,’ said Jo, raising one eyebrow to me rather than Mrs Wilkins. Martha, I reminded myself.
‘What do you do, Martha?’ I asked.
‘Would you?’ Our unreliable client ignored my question and leaned across the table so that her nose was almost touching Jo’s. ‘If they know Jack’s got the money, they might leave Brownie alone.’
‘We’d need an advance,’ said Jo. ‘This is where danger money kicks in.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Martha, digging into her jeans pocket.
She wrote the address on a piece of paper she ripped out of her notebook and then we left the refectory. We went downstairs – Jo needed the toilet and Martha came with us, talking about her dream of moving out of Leeds, with Brownie, of making a fresh start. I went to get a packet of fags from the Union shop and, when I came out, Martha was standing by the lockers putting something in her bag. I crossed over and Jo came back from the bogs. We said goodbye, and Jo gave her a hug and I noticed Martha briefly close her eyes.
‘Don’t ring me tonight. I’m out,’ she said. ‘Got to meet someone.’ She forced a smile at us both. ‘I’ll ring you first thing.’
And that was the last time I saw her alive. The next time we met, her eyes would be fixed, unstaring, her skin translucent. I know hindsight colours the glass, but I remember watching her climb the stairs and having this feeling that she was a lost cause. She loved someone who didn’t love her back. Jesus, I grew up on that feeling.
That’s the only comfort I can get from this. That maybe, wherever she is now, it’s better than where she was then.
Chapter Sixteen
We watched her disappear up the stairs, out of the bowels of the University Union. When I replay those last few minutes there’s one thing that sticks in my mind. It’s like she knew what was coming, knew she’d already lost.
Once she’d gone we headed out of the Union building and back across campus towards the exit.
‘So, Mrs Wilkins is actually a mature student called Martha.’ I tried the new information on like a new jacket, trying to see if it fit.
‘Who knows?’ said Jo.
‘If she’s a student, where’s she getting the cash to pay us?’
‘She’s Walter bleeding Mitty, that’s who she is. Can’t trust a word she says.’
I checked the time on the Parkinson Clock. ‘It makes sense,’ I said, although I admit I was pulling at the material, shaping it to my way of thinking. ‘She’s in love, wants to help her boyfriend. She thinks his best mate has done a runner with the money he owes. She can’t tell us that, so she pretends to be Jack’s mum, so we’ll help her find him. Might have done the same in her situation.’
Jo wasn’t as willing to stretch the seams as I was. ‘Something doesn’t add up.’
‘She didn’t have much choice,’ I continued, not wanting to hear Jo. ‘If she had said she was looking for him because he’d stolen money belonging to drug dealers, no reputable firm would have got involved.’
Were we a reputable firm? If she’d told us the truth would we have got involved? Probably, but she wouldn’t have known that.
We turned down Woodhouse Lane and headed towards the labyrinth of streets behind the banks, where the van was parked.
‘You said Jack didn’t know about the money,’ Jo said. ‘How does she know Jack has the money if he doesn’t know he has the money?’
A double-decker trundled past us, too close to the kerb. Jo grabbed my arm, and at that moment, the truth hit us both, like a bucket of cold water, right in the face.
We stopped dead in the street, Jo still clutching my arm. We both spoke at the same time. ‘She put it there.’
We stared at each other as we tried to make sense of the revelation.
‘Where would she get that much money from?’ I said. ‘She’s a student.’
‘She’s not a fucking student.’
‘But she wouldn’t give it to Jack, she’d give it to …’ I tailed off. Christ, it was obvious when you thought about it. ‘Shit, she did give it to Brownie. She didn’t know they’d swapped rooms.’ We stood stock still on the pavement as a group of students weaved past us.
‘No wonder she wants us to find Jack. He’s disappeared with her cash.’
‘Where did she go?’ I stared down Woodhouse Lane, the main road that runs from the university, past Leeds Beckett and into town. Follow it the other way and it leads to Headingley and Hyde Park. It’s safe to say that there’s always at least a couple of dozen students walking this road, even on a Saturday. I scanned the groups, looking for the scarf. ‘Wait here,’ I said to Jo.
I turned and sprinted up the road towards Hyde Park. I got as far as the traffic lights at the junction with Clarendon Road, a three- or four-minute run. But there was no sign of her. Martha had dissolved, like a ghost, into the environment, the perfect place to disappear. Hyde Park lay in front of me, Woodhouse down to the right, and the university campus to the left. Students everywhere you looked. With no clue as to which way she’d set off I didn’t stand a chance. I gave up, paused a moment to catch my breath and jogged back down to where I’d left Jo.
‘Disappeared,’ I said.
‘You know what?’ said Jo. ‘I’m sick of this.’
For a moment I thought she meant the business and my stomach lurched.
‘We’re being taken for a right pair of patsies,’ Jo continued. ‘I don’t trust a single fucking word that anyone’s told us.’
‘I know.’ I had my hands on my knees still trying to catch a breath.
‘We’re running around after everyone, when really we’ve got what they want.’
‘What?’
‘It’s like men. You don’t chase after them, you let them come to you.’
‘Run that by me again.’ I was still having difficulty catching my breath, let alone trying to work out what Jo was saying.
‘Flies round a honeypot. I vote we tell them we’ve got the cash.’
‘Tell who?’
‘Everyone. Jack, Brownie, Martha.’ Jo stood up, and we continued on towards where we’d parked the van as I thought about what Jo had just said.
‘We’ve got to find them first,’ I said. ‘We don’t know where any of them are. Even Pants will have gone by now.’
‘We’ve got an address for the dealers. We could start there.’
‘We can’t give the cash to them. Not until we know for definite whose it is.’
‘I didn’t say give it to them. I said tell them we’ve got it. There’s a difference.’
I thought Jo was splitting hairs. ‘But—’
‘We go round, tell them we know where the cash is, but we want Jack in exchange. ‘
‘What if they don’t know where Jack is?’
‘That’s their problem. We can tell them we want Brownie too. Give them twenty-four hours to find them both. Or we’ll give the cash to the police.’
‘“Give the cash to the police”?’
‘Say we’ll give the cash to the police. Not really.’
‘
They broke Pants’s arm. They might kill us.’
Jo thought about this as she rummaged in her pockets for the van keys. ‘They want the cash.’
‘What about the guy with the gun?’
But Jo wasn’t listening. She was off on one. Again. ‘We go round. Say we’ve got a message for them. We set up a meeting for tomorrow. Somewhere where we’re in control. Then we sit back and watch them scramble. I bet you they all come out of the woodwork.’
It was ten past six on Saturday evening. A full twenty-four hours since we’d taken the case and I felt like we’d found out a lot, and yet nothing, all at the same time. Jo’s idea continued to play in my mind. I grabbed the van keys from her hand.
‘What time does The Spy Shop close?’
‘Half five. Why?’
‘Damn. We need equipment.’
‘I can ring Buzz.’
‘“Buzz”?’
‘He’ll open up for us.’
I frowned at Jo. ‘He’ll open the shop specially?’
She shrugged. ‘He lives in the flat above. It’s not like he’s got anything else to do.’
‘You have his phone number?’ I couldn’t stop the smile that was creeping across my face.
Jo punched me on my upper arm. Hard. ‘He gave me his card. Big freaking deal.’
We’d gone to The Spy Shop when we first had the idea for the business. A small shop, sandwiched between kebab houses and Indian takeaways, it sells a wide range of professional surveillance and counter-surveillance solutions designed for any situation, according to the website. In reality it’s for suspicious lovers and unscrupulous entrepreneurs wanting to keep an eye on their rivals. Basically, it’s geek heaven. You want a gadget, The Spy Shop is your first port of call.
Buzz was standing in the doorway when we arrived, his hands stuffed into the front pockets of his skin-tight black trousers. He wore black-framed glasses and black and white basketball trainers. I swear his ears pricked up when he saw Jo marching towards him.
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Hey,’ said Jo.
We stood there for a moment. Buzz’s attention seemingly transfixed by a piece of chewing gum splattered on the flags of the entrance to the shop.
‘Thanks for opening up,’ I said. ‘We really appreciate it.’
He moved to one side to let us enter. ‘Check out the intel?’
‘Which?’
‘The 6950?’
‘Not had time,’ Jo said as she marched past him.
‘Man,’ he said to me as Jo disappeared into the store. ‘They run at four gigahertz. These bad boys’ll make time.’
I had no idea what he was talking about. I smiled in what I hoped was a friendly way and followed after Jo. Buzz closed the door behind us, locked it and then put himself behind the glass counter.
‘We need a bit of kit,’ said Jo, once she’d had a brief glance at the shelves. ‘We’ve got a situation.’
‘Sick,’ said Buzz. ‘Let me have it.’
They had a conversation that might as well have been in Japanese from all I understood. No mistaking the body language though. Any fool could have understood that.
When we’d got what we wanted, Buzz rang it up through the till and packed our new purchases into a carrier bag, taking his time over each one. Jo handed over some of the cash Martha had given us.
‘So, like, if you did ever want to find out more about the intel, we could—’
‘I’m busy for the rest of the year,’ said Jo.
I winced, and Buzz’s cheeks coloured.
Jo removed the bag from Buzz’s grasp and headed for the door.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said to Buzz, once she was out of earshot. ‘She’s …’
I scrabbled around in my mind for the right word.
‘Awesome,’ said Buzz.
‘That was a bit harsh,’ I said as I caught up with Jo on the pavement outside. I stuffed the receipt Buzz had given me back into my wallet.
‘What?’
‘Poor lad. He’s completely smitten.’ I knew I was pushing it.
Jo punched my right shoulder. ‘Political lesbianism. It’s the only ethical solution.’
‘Well, I don’t know how you’re going to break that to poor old Buzz.’
She punched me again, her carrier bag hitting me square on my right kneecap. ‘You can’t win the war when you’re sucking the enemy’s—’
‘OK, OK! Thanks.’ I held up a hand as I limped along behind her. ‘I get the picture.’
When you’re really tired it’s hard to have confidence in your decisions and I knew my mood wasn’t great, but when we got back to the offices it plummeted. We had to squeeze our way in through the boarded-up front door, opening the two temporary padlocks the locksmith had fitted. The writing was still on the wall and the furniture in pieces.
Jo propped the rounders bat against the doorframe leading to the back. We stared at each other, neither of us wanting to stay in the mess. I made a note to pop to Bobats and buy some paint. Couldn’t keep reading ‘Be Scarred’.
‘So, what’s the plan?’ asked Jo.
‘Gipton,’ I said.
Gipton. East Leeds. Not much of a tourist spot. Fact is I’d only ever been there once, a really bad drug deal that still brings me out in hives thinking about it. One of my low points, when I wasn’t taking drugs for fun but because I couldn’t handle the moments they left my bloodstream. The car I was in got done over in the two minutes I was inside the house, and the drugs I scored were cut with Vim.
I wasn’t that keen on returning but, on the other hand, I was pissed off. I’d had so many dreams when we’d first rented this place. We’d painted the walls, bought the desks, got the phone lines installed. I’d worked my arse off and for what?
Last night, whoever trashed our office had had the advantage. Anyone can break in when there’s no one home.
Jo was right. We were being played and I’d had enough of reacting. It was time to create. We needed to claim the advantage. We needed to surprise.
Chapter Seventeen
We packed the van for a stake-out and made our way across the city. It was half past nine, which, we’d figured, was the best time to pay dealers a visit. Late enough to be dark, early enough to get sorted before heading out on a Saturday night adventure. In other words, prime scoring time.
We drove out to the east, through the city centre, and into the suburbs. Leeds is funny like that. You can drive half a mile and go from leafy community to inner-city nightmare. The tree-lined avenues of suburban Roundhay next to red-brick, ethnic Harehills, with its pound shops and neon-lit takeaways. There’s Chapel Allerton, a kind of middle-class, post-grad village a few hundred yards from Chapeltown, where, decades ago, the Yorkshire Ripper stalked his prey.
It was time to stand up, assert ourselves. If we were going to run for cover at the first sign of any trouble, we were never going to make it in the business we’d set up. We’d argued about who was going in – I wanted to, but Jo had said: ‘Nah, you can’t. You don’t have the cleavage for this gig.’
Much as I hated the fact, she was right. I’d insisted on having a go, but after much gaffer tape it had proved considerably easier to hide a recording device between Jo’s boobs. Stuck to my chest, the small mic stuck out like a coat hook. What can you do? I gave up wishing for curves a long time ago.
So, Jo was going in and I was there as backup. First sign of trouble and I’d be outside with the engine running. I’d stashed the rounders bat in the passenger footwell. The advantage is all about surprise.
We parked three streets away. Jo stashed her mobile in the glovebox. ‘Look after it,’ she said, as she stalked off into the darkness. I pulled a face she couldn’t see and crawled into the back of the van. I turned on the surveillance equipment and heard Jo’s voice crackle through the airwaves.
‘Nearly there,’ she said. ‘Wish me luck.’
I could hear the thump of her heart beating, and then, moments later, a knock on the door. Typica
l Jo, always manages to make a door knock sound like a drugs raid. It took less than thirty seconds for someone to answer it. I heard Jo, her Scouse accent unmistakable, say: ‘Hi.’
Then I heard what I thought was a male voice, low and gravelly. ‘Yeah?’
‘Message for you,’ Jo said.
‘From who?’ the same voice asked. I marvelled at the technology – even at my safe distance you could hear the suspicion in his tone.
‘They didn’t give a name,’ said Jo, as her heart beat faster down the wire. ‘It’s about the dosh Brownie owes?’ The inflection rose at the end of the sentence, so it sounded like she was asking a question, like she wasn’t quite sure of her facts.
‘Brownie?’
‘Brownie from Burchett Grove, that’s what they said.’
I heard a bang that could have been the sound of a door flung open or slammed closed. I thought I heard the same male voice say something, which might have been, ‘Come in’, but equally could have been, ‘Do one’. Then I heard a load of static, followed by a crackle so piercing it forced me to pluck the headphones away from my eardrums. When I returned them, I heard nothing.
I turned the receiver off and on again.
Still nothing.
It was like it wasn’t even trying. A dead, blank sound. I cursed Buzz. He’d told us this baby was infallible. The silence through the headphones hurt; my own blood pumped against my eardrums.
I waited a few minutes. Wouldn’t do to blow our cover over a technical hitch. I counted the seconds off. Jo only had a few lines to deliver. We had the money. We wanted Brownie and Jack. We’d meet them in Millennium Square at two o’clock tomorrow. All she had to do was give them her mobile number and get out. Great plan. Only I couldn’t hear a sodding word.
I waited, counting the seconds off in my mind, maybe three minutes in all, until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I tugged Bobats box of latex gloves from under the front seat and pushed a pair into the back pocket of my jeans. What else would come in handy? I grabbed the torch and jumped out the back of the van, locked the doors and jogged down the three streets to the address we’d been given, counting the numbers down. The house Jo had gone to was in darkness. Total blackout. I carried on past without breaking pace. Perhaps I’d get more from the back. I looped round the block, glad I’d worn a hat. There was no one else around, and I knew I was chancing it. No woman in her right mind wandered these streets alone at night.