Fiddle City

by Dan Kavanagh

  Casey frowned. He appeared to be thinking for a very long time. Then he said, in a tone of extreme confidentiality, ‘Like the way you call ’er cun’. Herher.’

  Duffy felt almost moved. Casey was, he guessed, expressing a sort of affection for him. What a pity it had taken so long. What a pity they would only be lunching together for another week or so. What a pity Duffy might have to dump Casey in the shit.

  After work he rolled along to Terminal One again, to the Apple Tree Buffet. The same air of mass panic reigned, as ever, only transferred to a new set of damp-palmed passengers.

  ‘A couple of factual points,’ he said to Willett, ‘and a quiz.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘Factual point one. You find a bag of heroin. Doesn’t matter where, Chinaman’s bum or wherever. What happens?’

  ‘Well I guess we’d pull it out first.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We do a field test on it. We’ve got a little kit. Just to make sure it isn’t contraband salt or something they’re trying to smuggle in.’

  ‘And that tells you what it is.’

  ‘More or less, yes. Then we send it to the Government Chemist. Under seal, of course, so that the courier doesn’t get too merry. They analyse it for us and report back.’

  ‘And what can they tell?’

  ‘Well, they tell you what it is. They tell you how old it is. They tell you where it comes from. That’s one of the more satisfactory sides of it all: the analysis is incredibly precise. It’s helped, of course, by the fact that no two batches will ever be the same – unless they’re made at the same time in the same factory, of course. And as so much of it is cottage-industry work, well, that’s a help. I mean, you wouldn’t get two batches of heroin the same any more than you’d get a pair of salt-glaze plates coming out the same.’

  Duffy didn’t need the comparison. For a start, he didn’t understand it.

  ‘And if … supposing, say, the courier had a bag – say there were two bags, and they got split up, on the plane or wherever, and they were found some distance apart: would the Chemist be able to prove that they were part of the same batch?’

  ‘Oh yes. No problem. It’s often the only evidence we’ve got that, say, a couple of dealers are connected. But it’s very strong evidence.’

  ‘Hmmm. Good. End of part one. Ready for the quiz?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are a smuggler.’ It seemed only tit for tat: Willett had made him play a customs officer. ‘You have a certain amount of heroin.’

  ‘What form?’

  ‘What do you mean, what form?’

  ‘Well, it’s not just powder necessarily. It can be dissolved into a solution, made into paste. Can I do what I like with it?’

  ‘You can do what you like with it. All you have to do is get it through customs – through me. I’m a keen but relatively new assistant officer.’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘No, you have to do it in one of six ways. You’re freighting in six sorts of cargo, and it has to go in one – or perhaps more than one – of them. Ready?’

  ‘Ready.’

  ‘O.K., here’s your starter for ten. Pistachio nuts.’

  ‘Are those those little green buggers?’

  ‘Yuh.’

  ‘Sort of half-open but you still break your fingernails on them? Some of them are open and you break your fingernails; some of them are closed and you break your teeth?’

  ‘Yuh.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be too difficult.’ Willett thought for a minute or so. ‘Powder form. Break out some of the half-open ones, fill the shell with stuff, glue the two halves shut.’

  ‘What, individually?’

  ‘Sure. You get enough in each to buy a car with. Once it’s cut for street selling. And they’re sort of dusted over with salt or something, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’ll help. No trouble. We’ve got them through. Next?’

  ‘Joss-sticks.’

  ‘Hmmm. How do they come?’

  ‘Oh, not sure. Let’s say, packets of, what, twenty, thirty? Few dozen packets to the case.’

  ‘What sort of packet? Paper?’

  ‘Yeah, O.K. Well, cardboard box, say, and a paper label.’

  ‘That’s trickier. Couldn’t exactly drill the sticks. Making it into sticks and painting it? No. No – it’ll have to be the packaging. Not too difficult, but long and messy as the boxes aren’t that big, but O.K. Soak the labels off, make the heroin up into paste, and paste them back on. That should get through you.’

  ‘Tinned lychees.’

  ‘Tins. Can be good, can be bad. Depends entirely on the state of your ancillary technology. If you have a little canning factory on the side, of course, no problem. Three ways, I suppose. You could use the paste method on the label. Or you could use a draining method: that’s to say, you take off the label, bore a tiny hole in the can – no, I suppose you’d need two, wouldn’t you, one for the air – and pour off the liquid. Then you refill with dissolved heroin – just bung it in with a syringe. Stick the label back on and Bob’s your uncle.’

  ‘What about the lychees?’

  ‘Oh, you just leave them in. Unless, of course, heroin and lychees set up some sort of chemical reaction I don’t know about. But dissolved heroin’s very popular. You’ve no idea how many bottles of soya sauce and Chinese wine we’ve opened to no very good effect.’

  ‘And the third way?’

  ‘Well, what’s easiest for the man at the other end is if you can interfere at the canning stage – either that or have the technology to take out the can lid and then reweld it. Then you just dump the bag of heroin inside, fill up with a few lychees until you get exactly the same weight as all the other cans, and reseal it.’

  ‘How does the person at the other end recognise the can?’

  ‘No trouble. Simple code – say, a couple of tiny pinpricks in the label, in prearranged places. Unless we get tipped off – or unless we open every single can that comes through – there’s no possibility of our spotting it. And if we tried opening every can that came through whose label wasn’t in absolutely perfect nick – well, we’d have to have a whole separate department, wouldn’t we?’

  ‘Fresh flowers.’

  ‘What sort?’

  ‘Er – various.’

  ‘In that case – various possibilities. If they’re exotic, you know, big fleshy stems, you could work a thin plastic straw of stuff up the inside of the stalks. You could use the packaging in the same way as with the joss-sticks – paste form. You could – though this would depend on where they were coming from and how long they were taking – use cloth or maybe cotton wool soaked in heroin solution, to look as if they were keeping the flowers damp. It’s a bit of a long shot, but that sort of thing has been done. Oh, and there’s another clever thing with flowers I heard once. Not in this country, though. They got a local artist – must have been a very skilled fellow – to paint on to bits of paper what looked like the bottoms of the inside of flowers: you know, the sort with big bells to them. Then they stuck these inside and had what was in effect a false-bottomed flower; room for a fair amount of stuff between the two bottoms.’

  ‘Like a suitcase.’

  ‘Exactly. Bloody clever. You wouldn’t look there, would you?’

  ‘No. Fresh clams.’

  ‘I don’t really know what they look like; I’d have to have a gander at them first. If they’re closed up – or if some of them are – you can just use the pistachio nut principle. If they’re open: bit trickier, might have to use the shells in some way. Well, if that’s too hard I’d just go for the packaging.’

  ‘Uh-huh. And last of the six: Miscellaneous.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, that’s what it says on the documentation.’

  ‘Bits of everything?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Well, then it’s my birthday, isn’t it – looking at it one way. I mean, if you’
ve got a case with a dozen different things in, I’ll find you a dozen different methods, and then I’ll pick the best, and you’d never find it, except of course that you might.’

  ‘Why might I?’

  ‘Because you’d look quite closely at something coming through called Miscellaneous. It seems a bit too likely, given that you’ve got any suspicions at all. It’s just the method some not-too-professional guy might use for a big one-off shipment.’

  ‘Uh-huh. So which of the six would you use?’

  ‘Well, don’t forget I might well come up with better methods for each of them, given a bit of time. I mean, that’s what it’s all about. Those guys out there spend months, sometimes years, thinking up something which we either spot or don’t spot in seconds or minutes. It’s not very good odds. And they’re always changing. As soon as any method is busted – and often, if they’re smart, before – they move on; the clever guys never use the same system once it’s been blown, wherever in the world.’

  ‘So which would you use?’

  ‘I don’t like the clams, though I’d have to have another think about them. I don’t like the joss-sticks because that might make some keen young assistant officer start thinking of opium dens or whatever. As I said, I don’t like Miscellaneous. I’d go for the nuts, the tins, or the flowers. At that stage it depends on your personality as much as anything. Flowers if I were a bit more fanciful than I am; tins if I had the technology; nuts if I had the patience. But don’t misunderstand me – I’d get past you. I’d get past you, anyway.’

  Duffy pondered. Was that a quiet appeal? A don’t-do-anything-on-your-own-lad bit of advice? Possibly. If you were Willett, you wouldn’t enjoy the thought of amateurs trying to play customs men; you’d expect a tip-off, an appeal to the professionals. Fair enough – except that Duffy had no details: no shipment time, no specific goods to watch, just a hypothesis. Officer, open that hypothesis at once. Just as I thought: a false bottom.

  He decided to half-respond to Willett’s appeal.

  ‘If I got on to anything … ’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How far does your authority run?’

  ‘Everywhere.’

  ‘You mean, outside the bonded area? As far as Hendrick Freight?’

  ‘No, I mean everywhere. You don’t get an amnesty just because you’ve got something through the customs. If goods are prohibited or dutiable they stay that way. We’ll come looking you up wherever you are.’

  ‘Ah. Well, in that case I don’t think I’ll try. I’ll dump my stuff overboard from the cross-Channel ferry.’

  Willett’s creased face crinkled up a little more.

  ‘Well, watch the currents is my advice.’

  ‘ …?’

  ‘Case a few years ago. Some fellow in a private aircraft got cold feet. Flying in with a nice bale of stuff that wasn’t exactly feed for his cattle. Hay content pretty low, as you might say. Anyway, got cold feet, dumped all the stuff in the Channel. Landed, went home, felt a lot poorer but a lot more relieved. Few days went by, and the tide washes up this great bundle of dope on the Dorset coast. Somebody’s birthday, the old farmer thinks, and smokes a fair bit of it before he realises it’s that funny stuff they’re always going on about in the papers. Calls us in, we trace it, and do the pilot for illegally importing it.’

  That seemed a bit thick to Duffy. He grunted, and went on.

  ‘This is factual point number two, by the way. If I got on to anything, I could give you a call?’

  ‘You’d be mad not to.’ Willett was proud of his profession, proud of the way Heathrow had moved in recent years. It had got a lot tighter. Of course, this meant that the clever guys were trying elsewhere – Luton, for instance, and soft, package-tour airports where bandits swirl through the green channel in a bustle of tired perms and duty-free Tia Maria. But even so, that was grounds for local pride.

  ‘I could be … quite general, could I?’

  ‘Oh yes – often we just get tips along the lines of: Jamaica, sometime this month. But it gives us more of a chance.’

  ‘Or if … I was very specific?’ Duffy, as always, was keen to cover his tail.

  ‘Second locker along, top shelf. We wouldn’t object to that, mate.’

  ‘And what about my position if I rang you – or someone else if you’re not on duty?’

  ‘Well, if I’m not around, ask for Dickie Mallett: first-rate chap. As for you: I couldn’t be absolutely positive, I’m not a lawyer. But I’d say that you’d have at least as much immunity as was necessary for us to make sure we’d get the information.’

  That sounded nice and legal: in other words, muddled and incomprehensible. Duffy tried again.

  ‘If I rang you up, and didn’t say who I was, just said, “I’m an interested member of the public” – say I said exactly that, but you knew I was me, and then I tipped you off. Would you have to pass on that you knew it was me?’

  Willett realised that this wasn’t part of the quiz (not that the quiz hadn’t been for real, he reflected); he was being tested. He gave it a few moments’ thought.

  ‘I think I’d think,’ he replied eventually, ‘that if you used that formula, you’d be stating your terms, and I’d have to accept them. I’d also argue, for form’s sake, that if I didn’t guard your identity the first time round, then there wouldn’t be any hope of there being a second time round.’

  Duffy smiled. He didn’t think there was much chance of a second time – he didn’t much want to work around airports again. But he’d got his deal.

  He’d got his deal, but Willett had also blown Plan A for him. Well, it had been naïve of him in the first place to expect that his friend would just reply, No, No, No, No, No and then Yes, it’ll be in the third clam on the right in the next delivery but one. That was stupid; but he’d gone along with half-believing it because he wasn’t too keen on Plan B. Then he touched the bit of his left ear that was allowed to protrude from the houseman’s tender swaddling, and he got a bit less unkeen on Plan B.

  Christ, he’d double-booked Carol. Should he call her, or pretend that the Dalby business had cropped up subsequently? Well, in a way it had, he supposed. Think about it later, he said to himself. There are a couple of calls to be made first, and a couple of connections. One of which meant very bad news for somebody.

  As he dialled Geoff Bell’s number, he worked at his opening gag. Bell was a friend whom Duffy used occasionally for help on the technical side of things. He could bug a phone merely by scowling at it; he could photograph through brick walls. Duffy had once foolishly bet him a fiver that he couldn’t get a photo of him, Duffy, in his underpants, within a week. Duffy went around for two days being extremely careful where he dropped his trousers. He needn’t have bothered. On the third day in the post he got a blurred, grainy but unambiguous snap of himself and a friend from the Alligator. In a very post-underpants condition. Bell’s covering note read: ‘I’ll keep trying for one with the underpants if you like.’ As there were four days to go on the bet, Duffy didn’t rate his chances and paid up.

  Bell recorded every incoming telephone call, so Duffy always began his in satirical vein:

  ‘Ah, Geoff,’ he said when he got through, ‘this is AQ35B about the Tripoli connection. If we put the plastic under the second oil-well rather than the third, then we could use the lighter detonators and run the fuse straight across the Med to Malta.’

  ‘Duffy, how are you? Haven’t heard from you for ages. Not since that wipe-job you gave me.’ Sometimes Duffy despaired of Bell. What was an introductory game to Duffy was an entirely serious test to Bell.

  ‘Got something rather tricky coming up, Geoff, wondered if you could help.’

  Duffy had something rather simple coming up, as a matter of fact; it was just that Bell didn’t get excited by simple jobs.

  ‘Are you free tomorrow night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m going to need a body-recorder sometime around six, and then a bit later, not sure when, I’m
going to need three copies done and taken to three different addresses as quickly as possible. I’ll probably be dodging bullets at the time,’ he added melodramatically.

  ‘Well don’t use a police vest, you can shoot Rice Krispies through them. If you’ve got the right weapon, of course. Like a pea-shooter.’

  ‘What about the taping?’ Trust Geoff to seize the inessential first.

  ‘Well, we’ll do it in series, so that you get the same quality on each instead of a slightly deteriorating one, and … ’ Geoff went on for some time, but Duffy didn’t listen: Bell was talking to himself really.

  The second call he made was to Christine, a nurse he’d met a few months ago. Physically, she overlapped with Carol a bit too much for Duffy to feel it was O.K. to fancy her; so he just took her out a few times, now and then, feeling a bit bad towards Carol when he did so. She, in turn, was quite pleased that Duffy wasn’t a doctor, and that gynaecological examination wasn’t going to be called for before the first half can of beer had been downed, the first packet of crisps finished. Duffy never asked for that. Indeed, this time, on the phone, it was the first time he’d asked for anything. He said he needed what he needed for some amateur dramatics; well, actually, for a comic sketch he was doing with some friends at a pub. Could she come? No, he’d be embarrassed in front of her, he’d freeze; but if he did it again, sure she could come. Could she borrow one for him? Christine said it was strictly against hospital regulations; but they were always throwing them away, and if it wasn’t for use … No, said Duffy, but it must look as if it could be used – there might be some doctors in the audience who’d complain if it didn’t have the right end on it. And he could pick it up tomorrow? Lovely.

  At 7.30 Carol arrived in her Mini.

  ‘What’s it to be tonight, Duffy? Cheese on toast, or grilled bread with a cheese topping? Christ, what have you done to your ear?’

  ‘Shaving. It’s all right, doesn’t hurt. I’m having moussaka and chips, and you can have whatever’s on the menu under four quid.’

  ‘Duffy … ’ and there was a curve of surprise and delight in her tone as she drew out the name, ‘we’re not going out, are we?’