I hummed. “Hopefully, that’ll make it not so cold at the dog fight. I mean, it was okay in the barn but ruddy freezing outside.”
“You really think you’ll be able to find out where it is on time?”
“It’s a big opportunity for us.”
“I know, but you don’t even know-”
“I’m hoping Phil can find out,” I said, cutting him off. I didn’t need him telling me how difficult it was going to be to get myself over to the Scottish event; I already knew. “I’ll need you to get in touch with the Scottish police after lunch, let them know what we’re planning and see if they have any news for us.”
“Okay. Do you think it’s, like, an established haunt of theirs?”
I glanced over at him. “I don’t know. They move around a lot, don’t they? But this is a big event. It would make sense if they had a particular venue for it, though I don’t know how they’d get away with keeping it hidden over time.”
“Probably by not making it common knowledge where it’s located,” Stephen said pointedly. I sent him a slight frown.
“I’m doing my best here.”
“I know, I know,” he assured me, patting me on the shoulder.
We ate the rest of our lunch in silence, though I knew we were both thinking about the case, a small frown between Stephen’s thick eyebrows making it clear that he was turning things over.
We were heading back upstairs to our desks when he voiced his thoughts.
“Say it was an established location, one that’d hosted the event for years, even,” he said slowly.
“Aye?” I said, not sure where he was going with this.
“Well… maybe your dad went.” He looked at me as he said it, clearly checking for my reaction. I tried to keep my expression neutral.
“Maybe.”
“So maybe he had it written down somewhere. Or,” he clicked his fingers, looking animated, “maybe your mum knows where it is.”
“I…” I pressed my lips together and turned away. I didn’t like the idea of having to pester my mum again, nor ask Phil if he had any more of my dad’s things, which I didn’t think he did.
“Just ask her if he ever went to Scotland. Say you’re on a work trip up there or something.”
“So lie to her, you mean?” I said coldly before shaking my head in annoyance, both at the situation and my reaction to it. This was what came from mixing your professional and personal life, I thought bitterly. “I need a coffee.”
I got sharply to my feet and strode away towards the break room to give myself some space.
The problem was that Stephen’s idea wasn’t a bad one, and I was determined enough to go to the Scottish event that I knew I’d have to give it a try. I just hated the thought of lying to my mother again, so soon after getting her back, even if I thought I could get away with sounding casual. I considered telling her the full truth; that I was investigating my old school mate and my dad had clearly been tied up with the same stuff. She knew he hadn’t been earning an honest living, that was part of why she left him, so that wouldn’t be a shock, but I didn’t think she’d react well to me wanting to dig up the past.
“Fine,” I said finally when I returned to my seat. “I’ll do it.”
“Sorry, Mitch.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” I sighed. He accepted that with a nod but still looked at me sympathetically, clearly upset on my behalf that this was apparently necessary.
I thought about calling her immediately but, though it was only a very remote possibility, I didn’t want to risk that someone was listening into my phone calls, so I sent her a text instead, asking to meet up. She responded ten minutes later, her messages typed out with the same accurate grammar as a letter, and I smiled to see it. That dimmed when I remembered why I needed to meet with her this time.
Stephen rubbed my shoulder, and I gave him a nod. “I’m fine.”
“I know. But it still isn’t easy. Once this is over, you can put all this behind you, and you’ll never have to lie to her again, yeah? Focus on that.”
“Aye,” I sighed.
The week passed with a strange jumble of a tense hour or so dropped in amongst hours of monotonous desk work. I got Stephen to work on putting a thorough file together on Phil so that we’d be able to hit the ground running once we got him arrested.
I met with Phil first, on Wednesday night, and for once, it was just us without his workmates in tow. He seemed interested in the Scottish event when I cautiously brought it up but told me that he didn’t know any more than I did.
“I’ll keep my ear to the ground,” he assured me, slurring his words slightly. With anyone else, I might’ve worried that they would forget the conversation the day after because of how much he’d drank, but I knew Phil better now, and I was sure he’d remember.
I saw my mum the day after, in an upmarket coffee shop near her house. It was a bit of a drive for me, but it was good to see her even if I did have a reason to be here. It remained strange to see her looking so much older than I remembered, and I had to resist the urge to take her arm to make sure she didn’t fall. She wasn’t really at the age to need it, but she’d been so agile and active in my memories that seeing her moving slower and more carefully made me want to treat her like glass. She brushed off my attempts to help with grumbles that she wasn’t that old yet when I’d tried early on, and I was doing my best to respect that.
“Did Dad ever do a trip to Scotland?” I asked after twenty or so minutes of chatting.
I’d followed Stephen’s advice and told her that I had to go to Scotland for work soon so that my asking about my dad wasn’t so out of the blue. The lying still made me feel uneasy when faced with my mum’s trusting face. She looked a little confused by the question before she gave a small shrug, taking a sip of her milky latte before she answered.
“I can’t really remember, love. He might’ve gone to Inverness once.”
“Aye? Whereabouts?” I asked, trying to sound casual and probably failing.
I wasn’t nearly so good at schooling my expression when I was dealing with people I knew and loved, which was probably a good thing in the end. I didn’t want to find lying to my mother or Sam easy.
“I don’t know, Darren,” she said, shooting me a slight frown. “He might’ve had a friend up there, I think. Why’re you asking?”
“No reason, really.” I paused, my thoughts churning. “It’s just, if he had a mate there, maybe I could drop by. See if they remember much about him and maybe kip there if they don’t mind.”
“I don’t know that he was that close with them. You know how your dad was. He’d call a stranger on the train his best friend if it got him somewhere.”
She sounded bitter as she spoke, and I couldn’t fault her for it. My dad had been like that, friendly to the point of emotional manipulation when it was about him getting what he wanted.
“Well, could I call them and see? Do y’know their name or anything?” I pressed.
I hoped that this person might be involved in the same circles as my father, so they would be able to point me in the right direction. It was a long shot, probably, but so had talking to my mum about it, and she had at least confirmed that my dad had been up to Scotland and that he’d met someone there.
“I really can’t remember anything more than that, and besides, I don’t know why you’d want to stay with one of your dad’s old friends, anyway. They weren’t often very nice people, Darren,” she said, looking put out about me insisting. “Now tell me more about this lovely girlfriend of yours. Have you got any photos?”
I accepted the change in topic, and we chatted for a while longer. My shoulders relaxed now that the hard bit was over, and I could just spend time with my mum without there being any agenda behind it.
We were getting ready to leave when she put a hand on my arm.
“I’m sorry I was short with you earlier, love. You know your dad, and I didn’t get on, but I still wished him well, you understand?”
“I know, mum.”
“It’s natural that you want to know more about him,” she went on, squeezing my arm.
I forced myself to nod, though I hated pretending that this was about some leftover grief for my dad rather than just work. It felt like the same kind of emotional manipulation he would’ve taken part in, but I swore to myself that this was a one-off, and I was only doing it because I had to.
“You could try your dad’s address book if you didn’t throw the old thing out?” she suggested.
It touched me that, even though she hadn’t liked my dad and didn’t support my idea to meet his mate, she was still supporting me. I swallowed a lump in my throat and nodded again.
“I’ll see if I can dig it out. Thanks, mum.”
I gave her a kiss on the cheek, and we split ways. The drive back to Hewford gave me plenty of time to turn over the conversation I had with my mum over in my head and, whilst the guilt remained, I felt a tentative excitement too. I was really set on going to this Scottish fight, and this Scottish friend of my dad’s might be the key to help me track the fight location down if I could only find their name in my dad’s address book.
On Friday night, I sat at home with my phone pressed to my ear and my dad’s dusty address book in my lap. I’d dug it out of one of the boxes from Phil after seeing my mum and found only one address in there from Scotland. A bit of digging, some calls, and a search on Google Maps told me what I’d suspected, that my dad didn’t have a mate up in Inverness at all. The address listed here was for a large farm in the middle of nowhere. Finally feeling like we were getting somewhere, I’d told Phil the address, and he’d managed to come through, contacting the organisers and arranging for us to be there.
How he’d done it or what he’d promised them, I didn’t want or need to know.
“It’s invite-only,” Phil’s voice came through the phone, tense with repressed excitement. “But I’ve got us one. I waved your dad’s name around, and they snapped you up, man. Y’know what a privilege it is to go to an event like this? And ‘specially when you’ve only ever been to one fight!” He chuckled. “I’m jealous, mate.”
“Hey, I’m taking you with me, aren’t I?” I said, forcing my voice to stay light and teasing even as I wanted to grit my teeth.
I was hugely pleased about getting to go to the fight, of course, I was, but being told by Phil that it was a huge honour to be invited to a place where they forced dogs to tear each other to bloody pieces made me want to shake some sense into him, or at least slam the phone.
I did neither, pulling my lips into a smile as I talked because even though Phil couldn’t see me, I knew you could hear a smile in someone’s voice down the phone.
“We’ll head up together then, yeah?” he asked.
His impatience and enthusiasm to get up there were exhausting, and I could see why he’d been left out of the loop by the other dogfighters until now. Phil didn’t inspire trust in me and, if it was me with a dirty, illegal secret, I wouldn’t trust him with it.
“Aye, of course. I wouldn’t want to go up with anyone other than my best mate, would I?” I said, trying to flatter him and succeeding, judging by the fondness in his tone as we continued to talk.
I let him ramble on for a while, chipping in to agree with him when it was necessary and making the appropriate noises to let him know I was listening, though I wasn’t.
This was it. If everything went to plan up in Scotland, I’d finally be free of this whole difficult case and of my inherited guilt. The dogs would be rescued, and the young people who I’d suspected were trafficking victims would get the care they needed if my suspicions were correct. I would no longer have to lie to my mum, nor clench my jaw through conversations with Phil, nor hear my dad’s name brought up every half-hour. I’d moved on from his death, and I wanted to put it in the past and focus on the present, with my wonderful girl, my job and my friends. And once this was done, I’d be able to do that.
I finally got off the phone with Phil, and even though it was eight o’clock and pitch dark outside, I set off on a long run. Sam had ordered me a head torch online when she’d heard about me running alone in the dark and wet, concerned that a car wouldn’t see me. I didn’t usually wear it, trusting to my bright-blue running jacket and the fairly well-lit York streets, but it was gloomy enough tonight that I strapped it on before I headed out. The last thing I needed was to get rammed by a car and end up in hospital when I was so damn close to wrapping this case up for good.
The run unlocked some of the tension from my chest, and I came back to my flat out of breath but feeling like a weight had been lifted off me, at least for a short while. The stress would return soon enough, but I fetched myself a glass of wine and texted Sam for a while whilst I cleared up the kitchen. She didn’t have enough time free for a video call, but maybe that was for the best, now that we were getting close to the date of the fight. I knew that she and Stephen were worried, but I didn’t need others’ anxieties resting on me.
I already had enough of my own.
I knew that if she had any genuine, actionable concerns, she’d text them to me, and that was enough to keep my mind at rest. The run had tired out my overactive mind enough to fall asleep, and that was what I needed most right now. Everything else could be dealt with in the morning.
Twenty-Six
As Phil and I drove up towards Scotland on Saturday morning, the difference between this time and the last was palpable. There were only the two of us in the car, and Phil was keyed up fit to burst, thrumming with anticipation. I imagined that there was a similarly intense energy around me, though for an entirely different reason. I, too, couldn’t wait to arrive at the event and watch the fights, but only so that the camera hidden in my coat popper would catch them, and I’d never have to do this again.
After the close call last time with the microphone and camera, Keira had found me a better replacement. The microphone was much stronger and had been sewn into the lining of my coat so that it was completely hidden. The camera was miniscule, and Keira had needed tweezers to fit it into a bit of metal that looked exactly like the poppers that fastened my coat. I felt far more confident wearing the devices now than I had the last time, giving me one less thing to worry about, and I made sure not to fidget with them as we drove.
We took turns driving. I was tempted to offer to drive more than my fair share since Phil was the kind of driver who made me want to tighten my seatbelt, but I didn’t want to be too tired to focus by the time we got to Scotland. So I just clenched my jaw and put up with Phil slamming his foot on the brake and forgetting to indicate. I made a private promise to Stephen to never complain about his driving again, and the thought made me smile slightly.
Phil glanced sideways and caught my expression, his thin lips splitting into a wide grin.
“You excited, mate?”
“You could say that.” I forced a broader smile, and Phil matched it.
He was clearly buzzing, and every time I thought about what he was so excited about going to see, I had a strong urge to smack him across the jaw. It was a good job that undercover work wasn’t my full-time job, I thought grimly. I was determined to see this thing through to the end since I was the only option we had available right now, but I knew that I wouldn’t want to do more of this for LACS or anyone else in the future. I couldn’t summon the right level of detachment from my emotions that seemed like a crucial part of being able to handle staying undercover amidst criminals for prolonged periods of time.
The weather deteriorated as we drove, and I took over when it started snowing. There was no point in me being fresh and awake if we never goddamned arrived because Phil had tipped us off the side of the road with his too-tight turns. The snow finally eased as we got close to Inverness, the traffic getting worse on the main roads as everyone crawled through the slush left behind on the gritted roads.
“Come on, come on,” Phil muttered from beside me.
His leg had been jigg
ling up and down for a half-hour now, and if he’d been Stephen, I would’ve told him to quit already. We were still making good time in order to arrive in time for the fight, though we had a while yet to go, and it was fully dark outside. We’d stopped briefly at the services halfway along, near Glasgow, for a coffee and a loo break, but otherwise, we’d driven nonstop, and I was more than ready to arrive.
I’d suggested to Phil that we get the train up, but he’d refused, telling me that it would leave a paper trail that the police could follow if they got suspicious. The irony of that aside, I’d tried to convince him that we’d be leaving some kind of trail either way since we’d have to stop for petrol at some point. Phil remained stubborn, and I had to relent, resigning myself to a twelve-hour round trip.
When I’d been considering this journey, I’d mulled over the idea of faking an emergency once the fights were over and driving all the way home to York again in the early hours of the morning. I hadn’t wanted to spend a second longer than I had to in Phil’s company, pretending to be someone I wasn’t and forced to be constantly on alert, and I still didn’t.
But I’d mostly given the idea up as foolish already, and reaching Inverness after six hours in the car cemented that idea. I’d only done half of the driving, though part of it had been in snow, and I was tired out. Driving for six hours straight when I was tired out from the fights was a no-go.
“How much further?” Phil demanded to know. He was fidgeting in his seat incessantly.
“Not long. A half-hour, if it doesn’t start snowing again or we hit traffic.”
“We won’t,” he said confidently without even glancing at the SatNav. I turned my head away to roll my eyes.
We did arrive almost exactly half an hour later, pulling up near a village pub. I’d given us an hour or so leeway so that we wouldn’t be late, so we were too early to go to the venue itself.
“Christ, I’m starving,” Phil complained as he got out of the car. My stomach was tight and grumbling for lack of food, but I still struggled to eat the pub dinner I’d ordered.
Moving Target (A DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crimes Book 6) Page 29
