by Val McDermid
‘Andrew, it’s Kate Brannigan. I have good news and bad news,’ I said. ‘The good news is that we’ve found the car, undamaged.’
‘That’s tremendous,’ he said, his astonishment obvious. ‘How did you manage that?’
‘Pure chance, unfortunately,’ I said. ‘The bad news, however, is that the police have impounded it.’
‘The police? But why?’
I sighed. ‘It’s a bit complicated, Andrew,’ I said. Brannigan’s entry for the understatement of the year contest. When I’d finished explaining, I had an extremely unhappy client.
‘This is simply not on,’ he growled. ‘What right have they got to hang on to a car that belongs to my company?’
‘It’s evidence in a major drugs case.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ he exploded. ‘If I don’t get that car back, this operation is going to cost me about as much as the scam. How the hell am I going to lose that in the books?’
I didn’t have the answer. I made some placatory noises, and got off the line as fast as I could. Staring at the wall, I remembered a loose end that was hanging around from Broderick’s job, so I rang my local friendly finance broker.
Josh Gilbert and I have an arrangement: he runs credit checks on dodgy punters for me and I buy him dinner a lot. Anything else he can help us with we pay through the nose for.
It turned out that Josh was out of town, but his assistant Julia was around. I explained what I wanted from her and she said, ‘No problem. I can’t promise I’ll get to it today, but I’ll definitely fax it to you by Tuesday lunch time. Is that OK?’
It would have to be. The one free favour Josh had ever done me was introducing me to Detective Chief Inspector Della Prentice. My next call was to her direct line. She answered on the second ring. ‘DCI Prentice,’ she said crisply.
‘Della, it’s Kate,’ I said. Even to me, my voice sounded weary.
‘Kate! Thanks for getting back to me,’ she said.
‘Sorry? I didn’t know you’d been trying to get hold of me,’ I replied, shuffling the papers on my desk in case I’d missed a message.
‘I spoke to your machine an hour or so ago. When I heard what had happened to Richard,’ Della said. ‘I just wanted you to know that I don’t believe a word of it.’
I felt a lump in my throat, so I swallowed hard and concentrated very hard on the jar of pencils by my phone. ‘Me neither,’ I said. ‘Del, I know it’s not your manor, but I need all the help I can get on this one.’
‘Goes without saying, Kate. Look, it’s not going to be easy for me to get access to the case information or any forensic evidence, but I’ll do what I can,’ she promised.
‘I appreciate that. But don’t put your own head in the noose in the process,’ I added. No matter how much they spend on advertising to tell us different, anyone who has any contact with real live police officers know that The Job is still a white, patriarchal, rigidly hierarchical organization. That makes life especially hard for women who refuse to be shunted into the ghetto of community liaison and get stuck in at the sharp end of crime fighting.
‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll find out who’s on the team and see who I know. Meanwhile, is there anything specific I can help you with?’
‘I need a general backgrounder on crack. How much there is of it around, where it’s turning up, who they think is pushing the stuff, how it’s being distributed. Anything there is, including gossip. Off the record, of course. Any chance?’ I asked.
‘Give me a few hours. Can you meet me around seven?’
I pulled a face. ‘Only if you can get to the airport,’ I said. ‘I have a plane to meet.’
‘No problem.’
‘Oh yes it is. Richard’s son’s going to be on it. And the one thing he mustn’t find out is that his dad’s in the nick on drugs charges.’
‘Ah,’ Della said. It was a short, clipped exclamation.
‘I take it that response means you don’t want to share the child-minding?’
‘Correct. Count me out. Look, I’ll dig up all I can and meet you at Domestic Arrivals in Terminal I, at the coffee counter, just as you come in. Around quarter to seven, OK?’
I didn’t want to wait that long, but Della wasn’t the sort to hang around either. If quarter to seven was when she wanted to meet, then quarter to seven was the soonest she could see me with the information I needed. ‘I’ll see you then. Oh, one other thing. I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the drugs, but there was a Polaroid picture of a young kid in handcuffs, you know, bondage-style, in the car. Probably just dropped by one of the villains. But maybe you could ask around and see if there’s anybody that Vice have in the frame for paedophilia who’s also got form for drugs.’
‘Can do.’
‘And Della?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Thanks.’
‘You know what they say. A friend in need…’
‘Is a pain in the ass,’ I finished. ‘See you.’ I put the phone down. At last I felt things were starting to move.
The conversation with Della had reminded me of the part of the problem I’d deliberately been ignoring. Davy. Not that he was in himself a problem. It’s just that I wasn’t very good at keeping eight-year-old boys happy when I was eight myself, and I haven’t improved with age. According to Richard, Davy was the only good thing to come out of his three-year marriage, and his ex-wife Angie seemed more determined with each passing year to reduce his contact with the only child he was likely to have if he stayed with me. So it was imperative that Davy didn’t go back from his half-term holiday with lurid tales of Daddy in the nick.
Which sounded simple if you said it very fast. Unless we could spring Richard in the next day or two, however, it was going to be extremely complicated. Richard and I had agreed an initial lie, which should hold the fort for a day or two. After that, it was going to get complicated. While Davy might just believe his dad had had to dash abroad on an urgent, chance-in-a-lifetime job, it wasn’t going to be easy to explain why Richard couldn’t get home again. There may be parts of the world where the transport isn’t too reliable on account of wars and famine, but unfortunately most of them don’t run to major rock venues. Either way, whether it took hours or days, I was going to need some assistant minders, if only to baby-sit while I rambled the city centre streets looking for fast cars with trade plates. And there aren’t very many people I’d trust to do that.
I picked up the phone again and tapped in Alexis Lee’s office number. ‘Chronicle crime desk,’ a young man’s voice informed me.
‘Alexis, please.’
‘Sh’not’ere,’ came the snippy reply.
‘I need to speak to her in a hurry. You wouldn’t happen to know where I can get hold of her?’ I asked, clinging to my manners by my fingernails. My Granny Brannigan always said politeness cost nothing. But then, she never had to face the humiliation of dealing with lads who still think a yuppie is something to aspire to.
‘’Zit’bout’story?’ he demanded. ‘You c’n tell me if it is.’
‘Not as such,’ I said through clenched teeth. I could hear my Oxford accent becoming more Gown than Town by the second. ‘Not yet, anyway. Look, I know you’re a very busy person, and I don’t want to waste any of your precious time, but it’s awfully important that I speak to Alexis. Do you know where she is?’
There’s a whole generation of young lads who are either so badly educated or so thick skinned they don’t even notice when they’re being patronized. The guy on the phone could have featured in a sociology lecture as an exemplar of the type. ‘Sh’s a’ lunch,’ he gabbled.
‘And do we know where?’
‘Gone f’r a curry.’
That was all I needed to know. There might be three dozen curry restaurants strung out along the mile-long stretch of Wilmslow Road in Rusholme, but everybody has their favourite. Alexis’s current choice was only too familiar. ‘Thanks, sonny,’ I said. ‘I’ll remember you in my letter to Santa.’
I was out of my sea
t before I’d put the phone back. I crossed my office in five strides and walked into the main office. ‘Shelley, I’m off to the Golden Ganges. And before you ask how I can eat at a time like this, don’t. Just don’t.’
7
If the gods had struck me blind the moment I entered the Golden Ganges, I’d still have had no problem finding Alexis. That unmistakable Liverpudlian voice, a monument to Scotch and nicotine, almost drowned out the twanging sitar that was feebly trickling out of the restaurant’s speakers, even though she was seated a long way from the door. The volume told me she wasn’t working, just routinely showing off to her companion. When she’s doing the business with one of her contacts, the sound level drops so low that even MI5 would have a job picking it up. I walked towards the table.
Alexis spotted me two steps into the room, though there was no pause in the flow of her narrative to indicate it. As I approached, she held up one finger to stop me in my tracks a few feet away, interrupting her story to say, ‘Just a sec, Kate, crucial point in the anecdote.’ She turned back to her companion and said, ‘Thomas Wynn Ellis, a good Welsh name, you’d think you’d cracked it, yeah? I mean, she’s not crazy about the Welsh, but at least you’ve got a fair chance that he’s going to speak English, yeah? So she fills in all the forms to be taken on as a patient, then makes an appointment to see him about her back problem. She walks into the surgery, and what does she find? Straight from Karachi, Dr Thomas Wynn Ellis, product of the Christian orphanage, colour of a bottle of HP sauce! She was sick as a parrot!’
Alexis’s companion giggled. I couldn’t find a laugh, not just because I’d heard her ridicule the casual racism of her colleagues before. I sat down at the table. Luckily they’d progressed to the coffee. I don’t think I could have sat at the same table as a curry, never mind eaten one. I didn’t recognize the young woman sharing the table, but Alexis didn’t leave me in the dark too long. ‘Kate, this is Polly Patrick, she’s about to take up a post at the university, doing research into psychological profiling of serial offenders. Polly, this is my best mate, Kate Brannigan, PI.’
Polly looked interested. I winced. I knew what was coming. ‘You’re a private investigator?’ Polly asked.
‘No,’ Alexis butted in, unable to resist her joke of the month. ‘She’s Politically Incorrect!’ She hooted in mirth. In anyone else, it would wind me up to some tune, but Alexis’s humour is so innocently juvenile she somehow manages to be endearing, not infuriating.
This time, I managed to dredge up a smile. ‘Actually, I am a private investigator. And I’d be fascinated to have a chat with you some time about what you do.’
‘Ditto,’ said Polly. Unusually for a psychologist, she had some people skills, for she took the barely indicated hint. ‘But it’ll have to be another time. I’ve got to dash. Perhaps the three of us could do lunch some time soon?’
We all made the appropriate farewell and let’s-get-together-soon noises, and a few minutes later, Polly was just a memory. Alexis had ordered more coffee somewhere during the goodbyes, and I sat staring at the froth on mine as she lit a cigarette and settled into her seat. ‘So, Sherlock,’ she said. ‘What’s the problem?’
I reckoned I was about to ask her something that would test our friendship to the limits. But then, the last time she’d asked me a major favour, it had nearly got me killed, so I figured I didn’t need to beat myself up about it too much. I took a deep breath and said, ‘I need to talk to you about something important. It’s personal, it’s big and it’s got to be off the record. Can you live with that?’
‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’
‘Yeah, and one good turn deserves the lion’s share of the duvet.’
‘Go on, girl, spill it,’ Alexis said. She opened a shoulder bag only marginally smaller than mine and ostentatiously pressed the button that switched off her microcassette recorder. ‘Your secret is safe with me.’
‘Why d’you suppose that line terrifies me?’ I said, in a weak attempt at our usual friendly banter.
Alexis ran a hand through her wild black hair. Coupled with her pale skin and the dark smudges under her eyes, I sometimes think she looks worryingly like one of Dracula’s victims in the Francis Ford Coppola version. Luckily, her linguistic vigour usually dispels such ethereal notions pretty damn quick. ‘Shit, KB, if that’s the best you can do, there’s clearly something serious going down here,’ she said. ‘C’mon, girl, spit it out.’
‘Richard’s been arrested,’ I said. ‘He was technically driving a stolen car that not-so-technically had two kilos of crack in the boot.’
Alexis just stared at me. She even ignored her burning cigarette. The woman who had heard it all could be shaken after all. ‘You’re at the wind-up,’ she finally said.
I shook my head. ‘I wish I was.’ I gave her the full story. It didn’t take long. Throughout, she kept shaking her head in disbelief, smoking so intensely it seemed to be all that was keeping her in one piece. When I’d brought her up to speed, she carried on smoking, head weaving like a Wimbledon spectator.
‘It could only happen to Richard,’ she finally said in tones of wonder. ‘How does he do it? The poor sod!’ Alexis and Richard play this game of cordially disliking each other. I’m not supposed to know it’s a game; things must be bad if Alexis was letting me see she actually cared about the guy. ‘I take it you want me to dig around, see what the goss is out on the streets?’
‘I don’t want you to take any chances,’ I said, meaning it. ‘You know as well as I do that most of the drug warlords in this city would blow you away at the slightest provocation. Don’t tread on anybody’s toes, please. I don’t want you on my conscience as well as Richard. What I’m after is more practical.’ I broke the news about Davy’s imminent arrival.
‘Sure, we’ll help out. I like Davy. He’s good fun. Besides, it gives me and Chris a great excuse to bunk off a weekend’s labouring and have a giggle instead.’ Alexis and her architect girlfriend Chris are members of a self-build scheme, which means they spend most of their spare daylight hours pushing wheelbarrows full of cement along precarious wooden planks. A dozen of them bought a piece of land, and Chris designed the houses in exchange for other people’s skills in exotic areas like plumbing, wiring, bricklaying and roofing. It’s my idea of hell, but they love it, though not so much that they’re not glad of an excuse to give it the body swerve from time to time. I knew taking care of Davy fitted the bill perfectly; it had a high enough Goody Two Shoes element to assuage any guilt at skiving off the building site.
Hearing Alexis confirm my hopes almost brought a genuine smile to my lips. ‘So can you be at the house tonight about eight?’
Alexis frowned. ‘Not tonight I can’t. I’m having dinner with a contact.’
‘No chance you can rearrange it?’
‘Sorry. The guy’s only in town for a few days.’ She stubbed out her cigarette and washed the taste away with a swig of coffee. She must have felt the need to justify herself, for when I didn’t respond, she carried on, ‘I was at college with him, and we stayed in touch. He’s one of your high-flyers, a whiz-kid with the Customs and Excise, if that’s not a contradiction in terms. Anyway, he’s in Manchester for a briefing session with the Vice Squad. Apparently, there’s been a new range of kiddie porn mags and vids hitting the market, real hard-core stuff, and they think the source is somewhere in the North West. Can you believe it, girl? We’re actually exporting this shit to Amsterdam and Denmark, that’s how heavy it is. So my mate Barney’s up here to tell the blue boys what they should be looking for, and I’ve pitched him into letting me buy him dinner. Sorry, Kate, but I’ve already promised the editor a splash and a feature launching a campaign for Monday’s paper.’
I shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll get someone else lined up for tonight, and you can weigh in when you’re clear.’
‘Don’t do that. Chris’ll see you right tonight, I’m sure she will. All she’s got planned is a night in front of the soaps and a bottle
of Muscadet in the bath. You got the talking brick with you?’ Alexis held out her hand, and I passed her my mobile phone. I couldn’t help thinking I’d be less than thrilled if Richard had offered me up for a night’s baby-sitting when I’d got my heart set on a night in with Coronation Street and a Body Shop selection box.
‘All right, darling?’ Alexis began the conversation. ‘Listen, Kate needs your body tonight…Girl, you should be so lucky. No, it’s a bit of a crisis, you know? I’ll fill you in later. She needs somebody she can trust to mind Davy round at Richard’s…Eight, she said, is that OK?…Darlin’, you’ll get your reward in heaven. See you at home about six. Love you too.’ Alexis pressed the ‘end’ button with a flourish. ‘Sorted. I’ll give her my keys for your house so she can let herself in.’ She folded the phone closed and handed it back to me.
‘I appreciate it,’ I said. I meant it too. I hoped I wasn’t going to run out of favours and friends before I managed to get Richard out of jail. ‘One more thing – when you’re chatting up your porn expert, can you ask him if there’s any suggestion of a tie-in with drugs?’
‘Why do you ask?’ Alexis demanded, her brown eyes suddenly alert.
I groaned. ‘It’s not a story, trust me. It’s just that there’s an outside chance one of the people involved in this business of Richard’s might be into paedophilia.’
‘What makes you think that?’ she asked, suspicious that she might be missing out on something that would plaster her by-line across the front pages of the Chronicle.
‘It’d be cruel to tell you,’ I said. ‘You’d only be upset because you couldn’t use it.’
Alexis shook her head, a rueful smile twitching the corners of her mouth. ‘You know me too well, girl.’
I stood on the pavement outside the Golden Ganges, watching Alexis’s car pull away from the kerb into a death-defying U-turn. The air was heavy with the fumes of traffic and curry spices, the sky bleak and overcast, the distant sounds of police and ambulance sirens mingling with the wail of a nearby car alarm. I turned the corner of the side-street where I’d left my car, and the ululations of the alarm increased dramatically. It took me a moment or two to realize that it was my car that was the focus of attention for the two black lads with the cordless hand-drill.
