‘You got that right,’ the boy said. ‘What happened to your face?’
‘Bear attack,’ Harry said, not a hint of humour in his voice. ‘Ripped it off in one swipe.’
A splutter of nervous giggles bounced around the group.
‘Best you jog on then, before I make it even worse,’ the boy said, displaying surprisingly more bravado and balls than Harry would have given him credit for, seeing as he was about as physically threatening as a streak of piss.
The other two boys high-fived each other, also very impressed.
Harry stared at the boy who was now clearly not only sporting a spliff, but also an attitude, and pulled something from his pocket to show him.
‘What’s that?’
‘Look closely.’
The boy did exactly that.
‘You’re police?’
‘Give the lad a coconut.’
‘What?’
‘A coconut. A prize, son.’
The lad took another fat drag from the spliff, then flicked it over his head and into the beck, before shoving his hands in his pockets.
‘Nowt to see here, is there?’ he said. ‘And I’m not your son.’
Harry watched the now dead spliff drift off down the beck towards the bridge just off in the distance. ‘Can you tell me where you live?’
‘Yes I can,’ the boy said. ‘But I’m not going to.’
‘I think perhaps that you should.’
‘And I think perhaps that you should piss off.’
Harry stuffed his ID back in his pocket and rubbed his chin, as the boy spent a few moments soaking up the misdirected praise and adoration of his friends.
‘Look,’ Harry said, ‘I just came down here to have a quiet word, okay? I could smell you up there, so you’re not exactly being discrete, are you? I’m not here to make an arrest. Just want to ask you a few questions. How does that sound?’
The boy looked thoughtful, rubbing his chin in mock of Harry’s own body language. Then he held out his right fist, middle finger pointing to the ground. ‘How does it sound?’ he said. ‘What, you want me to turn it up for you?’ The boy swivelled his fist so that it was palm up, the middle finger raised good and proud. ‘That loud enough?’
More squawking and laughing from the rest of the gang. God, Harry thought, these kids hadn’t the faintest sodding clue, had they?
‘So what was it?’ Harry asked. ‘Resin? Bud? Skunk? No, I doubt it was skunk, didn’t reek like that stuff does. And you couldn’t handle it anyway. Not someone like you. But you enjoyed it, right? Made you feel on top of the world, am I right? Relaxed? Because that’s how it starts, yeah? It’s why it’s called a gateway drug. And that doesn’t just mean a gateway to other drugs, like this time next week I’ll find you dead in a barn, having shot yourself up with some badly cut heroine, bleeding from your eyes and your arse, vomit all over your shirt, your parents screaming at your pale, cold body, wondering just where the hell they went wrong to have you go and do something so bloody selfish and stupid.’
Harry paused briefly. He had them now. The laughter was gone. They were staring.
‘The fuck are you on about, old man?’ the boy said. ‘It was just a joint, that’s all. I’m not dealing.’
‘Not yet you’re not,’ Harry said. ‘Gateway, remember? Who did you buy it from, then? That’s what I want to know. Was this a first time? I don’t think so. You seem to know what you’re doing. You’re showing off with it, like you’re king of the hill. So you have a relationship with whoever it is, right? Think you’re almost mates, probably have some shitty little special way of greeting each other, don’t you? Handshakes and fist bumps and a manly hug? They asked if you want to sell a bit yourself?’
The boy went to nod, then shook his head. ‘Yeah, I mean, no, not really. None of your business anyway. Why haven’t you fucked off yet?’
‘So you’ll sell a bit, you’ll become the easy way to get product around, a nice in. And you’ll get a taste for it, the money as well as the drugs. More will be offered, more will come. You’ll widen your distribution. Before you know it, everyone will know who you are. The flash kid with the money. The one with the good stuff. You’ll get noticed up the chain and they’ll call you in. Then what, kid? What do you think?’
Harry stared hard, knowing full well that the look on his face right there and then was all dark threat and horror.
‘You’ll get the car, the house, the girls. Move onto dealing other drugs. But that’s when things get a bit more sketchy, because this isn’t just business, it’s war. You’ll get threats, you’ll want protection. For all we know, it could go well for you, make it big, yeah? The big man who started off with a spliff on the banks of a river in the dales! What a story! Until that day something goes wrong, and it always does. Bad stuff happens in a very bad way in this particular world, you know? Very bad indeed.’
Harry stepped forwards and the boys friends parted to allow him through. And now he was face to face with the teenager. Couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Same age his own brother was when it started to wrong for him.
‘I remember this dealer,’ Harry said. ‘Few years older than you. Doing well. Clever lad he was. Never could get much to stick. Always clean. Then we got news something had gone wrong. The details don’t matter, but what we found does, so I hope you’re listening.’
The boy stepped back, but had nowhere to go, the beck directly behind him, Harry directly in front.
‘I found him,’ Harry said. ‘What was left, that is. It was a room on the top floor of a deserted tower block, which was why no one had heard the screams.’ Harry paused for effect. It worked. ‘He had been tied to a chair with wire so tight it had cut into his wrists, his ankles.’ Harry drew an invisible line around his wrist with a finger. ‘Nails had been driven into his knees. They’d gone at him with a welding torch, and you could smell it in the air, the skin they’d burned off. Poor kid.’
Harry held the boy’s eyes with his own. ‘That what you want, son? Well, is it?’
The boy said nothing, his mouth opening and shutting like a fish gasping for air.
‘I’m not arresting you,’ Harry said. ‘But here’s what’s going to happen instead. One, you’re going to tell me who sold it to you. Two, you’re going to tell me where you live. Three, you’re going to never, ever do this again, you hear me? Because I do not want to be the one responsible for turning up at your parents’ door to deliver the news that somewhere their son has just got slammed into the freezer drawer at the mortuary!’
Harry didn’t move as he waited for the boy to speak.
‘It was Nick,’ the boy said. ‘He gave it me! Got it off Reedy, he said!’
‘Nick? Nick who?’
Harry guessed it was the same Nick, but always best to be sure.
‘Little Nick,’ the boy said. ‘Gets us beer, too, if we want. Cigarettes. Anything.’
Harry jumped at this. ‘When did you last see him?’
‘Who?’
‘Nick!’
The boy scratched his head and Harry thought how funny it was that people really did actually do that when they were thinking.
‘Earlier,’ the boy said. ‘He was late. We was supposed to meet at twelve, like, but he was late. Three? Yeah, three.’
‘Where?’
‘Here.’
‘But isn’t it school?’
The boy shook his head. ‘Summer holidays.’
‘Do you know where he went?’
The boy shook his head once again.
‘You sure?’
‘’course I’m sure! Probably to see Reedy, though. Get some more. I’ve not done it much, none of us have. It was Nick and Reedy!’
‘And who’s this Reedy, then?’ Harry asked, pulling out his own little notebook.
‘Lives over in Swaledale, near Reeth,’ the boy said, his words starting to tumble into each other a little. ‘Drives a Subaru Imprezza. Red one. Well posh. Goes like stink.’
‘Lucky
fella,’ Harry said, then offered the boy his notebook. ‘You got Nick’s number?’
The boy jotted a mobile number down on the open page.
‘And what about Reedy’s?’
The boy shook his head.
‘Don’t know it or don’t want to give it to me?’
‘Yes, I mean, no, I don’t know it,’ the boy said. ‘He doesn’t give his number out. It’s all in person, or he calls you, or uses someone else, like Nick, but the number doesn’t show.’
Harry slipped his notebook away again. A red Subaru Imprezza, eh? Nice wheels. Probably very easy to spot as well. So he’d be taking a trip out there later, that was for sure, even though the evening was drawing on. Wasn’t like he had much else to do. And Nick was certainly becoming more interesting the more he heard about him.
‘And now for your address. Don’t think I’ll need to write it down, seeing as I’ll be accompanying you, if it’s all the same with you.’
‘What? You’re taking me home? My parents will kill me!
‘They won’t,’ Harry said. ‘But I’m hoping it’ll be just close enough to make sure you adhere to point number three.’
The boy visibly shrunk in front of Harry, and the rest of his pals upped and left.
‘Well, come on then,’ Harry said. ‘Let’s get you home, shall we?’
‘You can’t be serious!’
Harry leaned in. ‘Trust me, I’m rarely anything else.’
Chapter Fourteen
Outside the boy’s house, which was a rather grand place, with sweeping gardens and a double garage, the teenager was moving around nervously, like he either really needed to relieve himself, or his boxers were full of itching powder. Harry couldn’t blame him. Being brought home by the police was never fun, and even less so if drugs were involved. But as Harry’s sole aim here was to scare him into not being an idiot, so be it.
The front door opened and Harry was staring into a face he recognised.
‘Mr Adams,’ Harry said, and did his best to smile. The trouble was, with a face like his, a smile often made the scarring just look even worse.
Harry had met Richard Adams on his first day in Hawes. The man was a businessman who had moved to the area with, it seemed, the intent of running for mayor, even if there wasn’t one. He hadn’t exactly made friends with all the locals thanks to his plans to replace a nice bit of woodland with a building project. Harry couldn’t quite remember the details and didn’t really care. It wasn’t going anywhere fast, not least because that little bit of woodland was currently under occupation by some tent-dwelling folk who had taken it upon themselves to make sure the trees stayed exactly where they were.
‘Ah, constable,’ Mr Adams said. ‘You here about those blasted tree huggers?’
Harry let the constable thing slide and eased the boy forward. ‘This is yours I believe?’
Mr Adams stared at the boy. ‘Christian? What’s wrong? What’s happened? Are you okay?’
‘Can we go inside, please?’ Harry asked.
‘Whatever it is, you’ll tell me here and now!’ Mr Adams said, his face growing a little flush.
Harry sighed. ‘Right now, this is just a warning, okay? A friendly nod, that’s all.’
‘What is?’
‘Christian here,’ Harry explained, ‘and a few of his mates, well I found them down by the beck, smoking.’
‘Smoking? Smoking!’
Mr Adams was indignant, his flushed face growing redder by the second.
‘A spliff,’ Harry said. ‘Cannabis? I could smell it up on the path.’
‘Rubbish!’
The word blasted out from Mr Adams, not as disbelief, but absolute conviction that what he had just been told was so wrong as to be laughable.
‘He said that he got it from someone called Nick, and he mentioned someone else called Reedy. Drives a fancy red car by all accounts. It’s them I’m after. But thought it best to bring Christian home to you, so you’re aware of what’s happened.’
Mr Adams stepped forwards, pushing Christian behind him. ‘Now, you listen here,’ he said, his voice battling through his gritted teeth, ‘there is no way on earth that a son of mine would be stupid enough to take drugs, do you hear? And as for having anything to do with this Nick person? He wouldn’t be that stupid!’
‘Every parent says the same,’ Harry offered.
‘And I am not every parent!’ came the reply. ‘Where’s your evidence?’
Harry knew then that he was arguing with the deliberately deaf. ‘He threw it away. But like I said, that’s not what this is about. I’m just intervening before something worse happens.’
Mr Adams leaned in close, doing his best to intimidate Harry. It didn’t work. Then he poked Harry in the chest with a pointed finger.
‘I think you should sod off now, don’t you?’
Harry stared at the finger. ‘Please don’t do that, sir,’ he said.
The man poked Harry again and said, ‘You’re on private property. Leave immediately!’
Harry stepped back, just out of reach. ‘I’ve seen what can happen,’ he said. ‘It destroys lives. It destroyed my brother’s life. I’m just trying to help, that’s all.’
Mr Adams walked towards Harry poking him once again.
Harry held up his hands. ‘Please, Sir,’ he said. ‘Stop now. I’m going, okay? I’ve done my bit. Next time, I just hope it’s not an arrest.’
‘An arrest?’
Mr Adams’ voice was a high-pitched screech and he came at Harry with rage in his eyes.
Harry stepped to one side just enough to let the man stumble past him and onto his knees. What the hell was the idiot thinking? That he could take him on? That a fight was the best solution here?
Harry backed further away, then as he turned to go, glanced up at Christian who was still standing in the doorway.
‘Stay away from it, okay?’ Harry said.
Then he was gone, and the bellowing threats of Mr Richard Adams chased him further down the street than he had expected. Which was why he pulled his phone out and punched in a call to Matt, if only to drown the man out.
‘Boss?’
‘I’ve got a sighting on Nick,’ Harry explained. ‘You know anything about someone called Reedy? Just wondering if that’s where he’s gone.’
‘Reedy?’ Matt replied. ‘Lives over in Swaledale. You want to head over now?’
‘You busy?’
‘Nope.’
‘Good,’ Harry said. ‘What say we go and pay him a surprise visit?’
Swaledale, from what Harry could see in the fading light of the late summer evening, was as beautiful as was Wensleydale, but in a way all of its own. He wasn’t exactly sure what the difference was, whether it was a little more wild, perhaps, or was it just that it somehow seemed even older than its sister valley over the hill, but he found himself almost forgetting Matt’s mad driving as they sped over the moors, which lay between Askrigg and their destination.
‘Crackpot?’ Harry asked, spying the odd name on a signpost as they swept down into the bottom of the valley and through a small clump of houses.
‘Great name, isn’t it?’ Matt said.
‘What does it mean?’
‘No idea,’ Matt said. ‘Probably something to do with all the caves and what not. And all the lead mines in the area.’
‘Can’t say I’ve ever fancied caving,’ Harry said. ‘Not a fan of enclosed spaces. I’m more your staying up top in the open air kind of person.’
‘Ah, Crackpot’s fine,’ Matt said. ‘I’ll take you down there if you want?’
Harry laughed. ‘What? You’re a caver?’
‘I am that,’ Matt said. ‘Member of the Cave and Rescue Team as well. Multi-talented!’ He nodded ahead. ‘Here’s Reeth. Pity we’re on duty. The Black Bull is a fantastic little pub. Mind you, they all are. Love it here. Might move over one day, you never know.’
Matt pulled the Land Rover up in the middle of the village, which was a huge expanse of
green surrounded by stern looking buildings, each one staring down at him ominously.
‘So where are we likely to find this Reedy, then?’ Harry asked, meeting Matt around at the front of the vehicle.
‘The King’s Arms,’ Matt replied, and headed off. ‘Come on.’
Entering the pub, Harry immediately wanted to just sit down and stop. The place was old fashioned but not dated, if such a thing was possible. It was homely and warm and smelled of comfort food and good conversation, with the faintest hint of dog.
Matt walked up to the bar and waved at the barman, a man who seemed far too tall to be working behind it, as he stooped down to see who had called to him. He rather reminded Harry of Lurch from The Addams Family, only not as smiley.
‘Now then, Brian!’
‘’Ow do, Matt,’ the barman said. ‘What can I do you for, then?’
Matt held up a hand and said, ‘Sorry, on duty tonight.’
‘Pity,’ the barman said. ‘Got some new pickled eggs out. Your lot been out on the fells at all?’
Matt shook his head.
‘Rescue team’s been pretty quiet to be honest. Folk must be taking care of themselves for a change! And I’ll still be having a pickled egg, that’s for sure.’
‘It’s that caving I don’t get,’ the barman said. ‘Why the hell anyone wants to do that is beyond me.’
‘Couldn’t agree more,’ Harry said, approaching the bar.
‘This is DCI Grimm,’ Matt said, introducing him to the barman. ‘Boss, this is Brian.’
Harry gave a nod, then said, ‘Couple of cokes and some crisps, please. Cheese and onion.’
‘I’m more of a peanuts man,’ Matt said. ‘And that pickled egg, Brian, thanks.’
As the barman made off to fetch Harry’s order, including Matt’s peanut preference and pickled egg, Harry asked Matt if Reedy was in.
‘Sure is,’ Matt said, then gave a faint nod behind him.
Harry turned just enough to have a look without it being obvious. In a far-off corner he saw three men talking around a small table, on top of which were a number of empty pint glasses, and three which were not so empty, but probably soon would be. One of the men stuck out enough for Harry to guess which one was Reedy, thanks not only to the glint of light shining off the bad taste chains around his wrists, but also the sunglasses slapped across his face.
Best Served Cold: A DCI Harry Grimm Novel Page 9
