‘Yes, boss,’ I muttered rebelliously. Shelley always makes me feel like a bloody-minded teenager when she goes into Mother Hen mode. God knows what effect it has on her own two adolescents. ‘Just tell Bill what I’m doing. I’ll be on my mobile if you need me urgently,’ I added.
I washed two thick slices of toast down with a couple of mugs of scalding coffee. The toast because I needed carbohydrate, the coffee because it was a more attractive option than surgery to get my eyes open. I pulled on jogging pants and a sweat shirt without showering and drove over to the Thai boxing gym in South Manchester where I punish my body on as regular a basis as my career in crime prevention allows. It might not be the Hilton, but it meets my needs. It’s clean, it’s cheap, the equipment is well maintained and it’s mercifully free of muscle-bound macho men who think they’ve got the body and charm of Sylvester Stallone when in reality they don’t even have the punch-drunk brains of Rocky.
I wasn’t the only person working out on the weights that morning. The air was already heavy with the smell of sweat as half a dozen men and a couple of women struggled to keep time’s winged chariot in the service bay. As I’d hoped, my old buddy Dennis O’Brien, burglar of this parish, was welded to the pec deck, moving more metal than the average Nissan Micra contains. He was barely breaking sweat. The bench next to him was free, so I picked up a set of dumbbells and lay back to do some tricep curls. ‘Hiya, kid,’ Dennis said on his next outgoing breath. ‘What’s the world been doing to you?’
‘Don’t ask. How about you?’
He grinned like a Disney wolf. ‘Still doing the police’s job for them,’ he said. ‘Got a real result last night.’
‘Glad somebody did,’ I said, enjoying the sensation of my flabby muscles tightening as I raised and lowered the weights.
‘Fourteen grand I took off him,’ Dennis told me. ‘Now that’s what I call a proper victim.’
He was clearly desperate to tell the tale, so I gave him the tiny spur of encouragement that was all he needed. ‘Sounds like a good ’un. How d’you manage that?’
‘I hear this firm from out of town are looking for a parcel of trainers. So I arrange to meet them, and I tell them I can lay my hands on an entire wagonload of Reeboks, don’t I? A couple of nights later, we meet again and I show him a sample pair from this truck I’m supposed to have nicked, right? Only, I haven’t nicked them, have I? I’ve just gone down the wholesaler’s and bought them.’ As he got into his story, Dennis paused in his work-out. He’s physically incapable of telling a tale without his hands.
‘So of course, they fall for it. Anyway, we arrange the meet for last night, out on the motorway services at Sandbach. My mate Andy and me, we get there a couple of hours before the meet and suss the place out. When these two bozos arrive, Andy’s stood hiding behind a truck right the far side of the lorry park, and when the bozos park up beside my car, I make sure they see me giving him the signal, and he comes over to us, making out like he’s just come out of the wagon, keys in his hand, the full monte.’ Dennis was giggling between his sentences like a little lad outlining some playground scam.
I sat up and said, ‘So what happens next?’
‘I say to these two dummies, “Let’s see the money, then. You hand over the money, and my mate’ll hand over the keys to the wagon.” And they do no more than hand over their fourteen grand like lambs. I’m counting the money, and when I’ve done, I give Andy the nod and he tosses them the keys. We jump into the motor and shoot straight off. I tell you, the last thing I see is the pair of them schmucks jumping up and down beside that wagon, their mouths opening and shutting like a pair of goldfish.’ By the end of his tale, Dennis was doubled over with laughter. ‘You should’ve seen them, Kate,’ he wheezed. ‘The Dennis O’Brien crime prevention programme scores another major success.’
The first time he said that to me, I’d been a bit baffled. I didn’t see how ripping someone off to the tune of several grand could prevent crime. So Dennis had explained. The people he was cheating had a large sum of money that they were prepared to spend on stolen goods. So some thief would have to steal something for them to buy. But if Dennis relieved them of their wad, they wouldn’t have any money to spend on stolen goods, therefore the robbery that would have had to take place was no longer necessary. Crime prevention, QED.
I moved over to a piece of equipment designed to build my quads and adjusted the weights. ‘A lot of dosh, fourteen grand,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you worried they’re going to come after you?’
‘Nah,’ he said scornfully, returning to his exercise. ‘They’re from out of town. They don’t know where I hang out, and nobody in Manchester would be daft enough to tell them where to find me. Besides, I was down Collar Di Salvo’s car lot first thing this morning, trading the BMW in. They’ll be looking for a guy in a red BM, not a silver Merc. Take a tip, Kate – don’t buy a red BMW off Collar for the next few days. I don’t want to see you in a case of mistaken identity!’
We both pumped iron in silence for a while. I moved around the machines, making sure I paid proper attention to the different muscle groups. By ten, I was sweating, Dennis was skipping and there were only the two of us left. I collapsed on to the mat, and enjoyed the complaints of my stomach muscles as I did some slow, warm-down exercises. ‘I’ve got a problem,’ I said in between Dennis’s bounces.
Just saying that brought all the fear and misery right back. I stared hard at the off-white walls, trying to make a pattern out of the grimy handprints, black rubber skidmarks and chips from weights swung too enthusiastically. Dennis slowed to a halt and walked across to the shelves of thin towels that the management think are all we deserve. Like I said, it’s cheap. I suppose it was their version of crime prevention; nobody in their right mind would steal those towels. Dennis picked up a couple, draped them over his big shoulders and sat down on the bench facing me. ‘D’you want to talk about it?’
I sighed. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure I can.’ It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Dennis. Quite the opposite. I trusted his affection for me almost too much to tell him what had happened to Richard. There was no knowing what limits Dennis would go to in the attempt to take care of anyone threatening my happiness and wellbeing. Considering the different perspective we have on the law of the land, we find ourselves side by side facing in the same direction more often than not. For some reason that neither of us quite understands, we know we can rely on each other. And just as important, we like each other too.
Dennis patted my left ankle, the only part of me he could comfortably reach. ‘You decide you want an ear, you let your Uncle Dennis know. What d’you need right now?’
‘I’m not sure about that either.’ I wiped the back of my hand over my mouth and upper lip and tasted the sharp salty sweat. ‘Dennis. Why would you put trade plates on a stolen motor rather than false plates?’
‘What kind of stolen motor? Joyrider material, stolen to order, or just somebody stuck for a ride home?’
‘A brand new Leo Gemini turbo super coupé. Less than a ton on the clock.’
He pondered for a moment. ‘Temporary measure? To keep the busies off my back till I got it delivered where it was supposed to be going?’
‘In this instance, we’re talking a couple of days after the car was lifted. Plenty of time to have dropped it off with whoever, I’d have thought,’ I said, shaking my head.
‘In that case, you’re probably talking right proper villainy,’ he replied, rubbing the back of his neck with one of the towels.
‘Run it past me,’ I said.
Dennis pulled a packet of Bensons and a throwaway lighter out of the pocket of his sweat pants and lit up. ‘They never have any bloody ashtrays in here,’ he complained, looking round. The paradox clearly escaped him. ‘Anyway, your professional car thief goes out on the job knowing exactly what motor he’s going for. He doesn’t do things on spec. He’d have a set of plates on him that he’d already matched up with another car of the same make and model, so th
at if some smart-arsed traffic cop put him through the computer he’d come up clean. So he wouldn’t need trade plates. Your serious amateurs, they might use trade plates just to get it across town to their dealer. But they’re not that easy to come by. OK so far?’
I got off the floor and squatted on a low bench. ‘Clear as that Edinburgh crystal you offered me last month,’ I said.
‘Your loss, Kate,’ he said. ‘Now, on the other hand, if I wanted a fast car for a one-off job, I’d do exactly what the guy you’re interested in has done. I’d nick a serious set of wheels, smack some trade plates on it from my local friendly hooky garage when I was actually using it, then dump it as soon as I’d finished the job.’
‘When you say proper villainy, what exactly did you have in mind?’ I asked.
‘The kind of stuff I don’t do. Major armed robbery, mainly. A hit, maybe.’
I began to wish I had the sense not to ask questions I wasn’t going to like the answers to. ‘What about drugs?’
He shrugged. ‘Not the first thing that would spring to mind. But then, I don’t hang out with scum like that, do I? At a guess, it’d only be worth doing if you were shifting a parcel of drugs a reasonable distance between two major players. Say, from London to Manchester. Otherwise there’d be so many cars running around with trade plates that even the coppers would notice. Also, trade plates are ten a penny on the motorway. Whereas brand new motors with or without trade plates stick out like a sore thumb on the council estates where most of the drugs get shifted. You want to get a pull these days, you just have to park up in Moss Side in anything that isn’t old enough to need an MOT,’ he added bitterly.
‘What would you say if I told you there were a couple of kilos of crack in the boot of this car?’
Dennis got to his feet. ‘Nice chatting to you, Kate. Be seeing you. That’s what I’d say.’
I pulled a face and stood up too. ‘Thanks, Dennis.’
Dennis put a warm hand on my wrist and gripped it tightly enough for me not to think about pulling away. ‘I’ve never been more serious, Kate. Steer clear of them toerags. They’d eat me for breakfast. They wouldn’t even notice you as they swallowed. Give this one the Spanish Archer.’
‘The Spanish Archer?’ This was a new one on me.
‘El Bow.’
I smiled. ‘I’ll be careful. I promise.’ I thought I’d grown out of promising what I can’t deliver. Obviously I was wrong.
6
I walked into the office to find my partner Bill looming over Shelley like a scene from The Jungle Book. Bill is big, blond and shaggy, the antithesis of Shelley, petite, black and immaculately groomed right down to the tips of her perfectly plaited hair. He looked up and stopped speaking in midsentence, finger pointing at something on Shelley’s screen.
‘Kate, Kate, Kate,’ he boomed, moving across the room to envelop me in the kind of hug that makes me feel like a little girl. Usually I fight my way out, but this morning it was good to feel safe for a moment, even if it was only an illusion. With one hand, Bill patted my back, with the other he rumpled my hair. Eventually, he released me. ‘Shelley filled me in. I was just going to phone you,’ he said, walking over to the coffee machine and busying himself making me a cappuccino. ‘This business with Richard. What do you want me to do?’
On paper, Bill might be the senior partner of Mortensen and Brannigan. In practice, when either of us is involved in a major case and needs help from the other, there’s never any question of the gopher role going to me just because I’m the junior. Whoever started the ball rolling stays the boss. And in this instance, since it was my lover who was in the shit, it was my case.
I took the frothy coffee he handed me and slumped into one of the clients’ chairs. ‘I don’t know what you can do,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to find out who stole the car, who the drugs belong to and to make out a strong enough case against them for the police to realize they’ve made a cock-up. Otherwise Richard stays in the nick and we sit back and wait for the slaughter of the innocents.’
Bill sat down opposite me. ‘Shelley,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘stick the answering machine on, grab yourself an espresso and come and give us the benefit of your thoughts. We need every brain we’ve got working on this one.’
Shelley didn’t need telling twice. She sat down, the inevitable notepad on her knee. Bill leaned back and linked his hands behind his head. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘First question. Accident or intent?’
‘Accident,’ I said instantly.
‘Why are you so sure?’ Bill asked.
I took a sip of coffee while I worked out the reasons I’d been so certain. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘First, there are too many imponderables for it to be intentional. If someone was deliberately trying to set up Richard, or me, they wouldn’t have bothered with the trade plates. They’d just have left it sitting there with its own plates, so obvious that he couldn’t have missed it. Why bother with all of that when they could have planted the drugs in either of our cars at any time?’
Shelley nodded and said, ‘The thing that strikes me is that it’s an awful lot of drugs to plant. Surely they could have achieved the same result with a lot less crack than two kilos. I don’t know much about big-time drug dealers, but I can’t believe they’d waste drugs they could make money out of just to set somebody up.’
‘Besides,’ I added, ‘why in God’s name would anyone want to frame Richard? I know I sometimes feel like murdering him, but I’m a special case. Not even his ex-wife would want him to spend the next twenty years inside, never mind be willing to splash out – what, two hundred grand?’
Bill nodded. ‘Near enough,’ he said.
‘Well, even she wouldn’t spend that kind of dosh just to get her own back on him, always supposing he paid her enough maintenance for her to afford it. It’s not as if he’s an investigative journalist. The only people who take offence at what he writes are record company executives, and if any of them got their hands on two kilos of crack it would be up their noses, not in the boot of Richard’s car.’ My voice wobbled and I ran out of steam suddenly. I kept coming up against the horrible realization that this wasn’t just another case. My life was going to be irrevocably affected by whatever I did over the next few days.
Thankfully, Bill didn’t notice. I don’t think I could have handled any more sympathy right then. ‘OK. Accident. Synchronicity. What are the leads?’
‘Why does somebody always have to ask the one question you don’t have the answer to?’ I said shakily.
‘Has his solicitor got anything from the police yet?’ Bill asked. ‘Who’s looking after him, by the way?’
‘He’s got Ruth. If the cops have got anything themselves yet, they’ve not passed it on. But she asked me to call her this afternoon.’ I stirred the froth into the remains of my coffee and watched it change colour.
‘So what have we got to go at?’
‘Not a lot,’ I admitted. ‘Frankly, Bill, there aren’t enough leads on this to keep one person busy, never mind the two of us.’
‘What were you planning on doing?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know anybody on the Drugs Squad well enough to pick their brains. So that leaves Della.’
Bill nodded. ‘She’ll be as keen to help as me and Shelley.’
‘She should be,’ I agreed. Not only did Detective Chief Inspector Della Prentice owe me a substantial professional favour in return for criminals translated into prisoners. Over the past few months, she’d also moved into that small group of women I count as friends. If I couldn’t rely on her support, I’d better send my judgment back to the manufacturer for a major service. ‘The only other thing I can think of is cruising the city centre tonight looking for another serious motor with trade plates on it.’
‘The logic presumably being that if they’ve lost the car they were counting on, they’ll need another one?’ Bill asked. ‘Even though the drugs have gone?’
‘It’s all I’ve got. I’m hoping that our man will be out and
about, trying to find out who’s got a parcel of crack they shouldn’t have. But that’s a one-person job, Bill. Look, leave me numbers where I can reach you, day or night. I promise, if I get anywhere and I need an extra pair of hands, I’ll call you right away.’
‘That’s truly the only lead you’ve got? You’re not holding out on me?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘Believe me, Bill, if I thought there was anything for you to do, I’d be on my hands and knees begging,’ I said, only half joking.
‘Well, let’s see what Della has to say. Right, team, let’s get some work done!’ He strolled back over to Shelley’s desk. ‘This bit here, Shelley. Can we shift it further up the report, so all the frightening stuff hits them right at the beginning?’
Shelley rolled her eyes upwards and got to her feet, squeezing my arm supportively as she passed me on the way to her desk. ‘Let me have a look, Bill,’ she said, settling into her chair.
As I headed for my own office, Bill looked up and smiled. I think it was meant to reassure me. It didn’t. I closed my door and dropped into my chair like a stone. I put a hand out to switch on my computer, but there didn’t seem a lot of point. I swivelled round and looked out of the window at the city skyline. The lemon geranium on the sill was drooping. Knowing my track record with plants, my best friend Alexis had given me the geranium, confidently predicting it was indestructible. I tried not to see its impending death as an omen and turned away. Time was slipping past, and I didn’t seem to be able to take any decisive action to relieve the sense of frustration that was burning inside me like indigestion.
‘Come on, Brannigan,’ I urged myself, picking up the phone. At least I could get the worst job over with. When the phone was answered, I said, ‘Andrew Broderick, please.’
Moments later, a familiar voice said, ‘Broderick.’