by Jo Bannister
Now the car was moving. As luck would have it – and it was purely luck, she’d stopped where the car came to a halt – it was on level ground where the road took a breather between two sharp descents. Not that it mattered. The Land Rover was well capable of pushing until either it picked up speed or ran over the edge of Ship Coomb, whichever came first.
Something else came first. At first she thought it was another effect of the knockout drops: that after the rosy fog came the dazzling light. It was a couple of moments before she realised it was real, that it was headlamps. The vehicle was coming up the shoulder of the Downs from Dimmock, illuminating the drama like a stage-set.
God alone knows what the driver’ll make of it, thought Brodie desperately. But if he only stops, or gets in the way, or takes a damn good look as he drives past, maybe it’ll be enough. One fresh witness to replace three past their sell-by dates.
Or maybe all he would achieve, this innocent passer-by wanting to know why one car was pushing another towards a gorge, would be his own death. Half of Brodie was silently begging him to stop and help, the other half thought it would be the same for her and better for him if he drove on.
He didn’t drive on. He didn’t pull over and watch either, nor did he get out and remonstrate with the man in the Land Rover. Unhesitatingly he drove straight at the front of Deacon’s car.
It was a big strong car, but with one vehicle pushing from behind and another impacting in front it jerked and shuddered, and the bodywork twisted and groaned, and some of the walnut trim popped off the dashboard and landed in Brodie’s lap. And then it stopped, with the offside front wheel already over the hazard markings on the side of the road, just metres from the drop into Ship Coomb.
Kant might have gone on trying. But a moment comes when an intelligent man admits that luck is against him, and for the vet that moment came now The Land Rover crashed into reverse and shot back up Menner Down as fast as the gearbox would take it. At an open gateway its lights slewed as it threw a three-point turn, then it was gone.
At that point Brodie had no idea who her saviour was, and whether he’d give chase or stay with her. If he left now she knew she’d be unconscious in just a few more seconds, with no idea whether any of them would ever wake up.
Doors opened and slammed and someone was hurrying to her side. ‘Brodie?’ His voice soared with disbelief like a rocket.
‘Charlie Voss,’ she sighed brokenly. ‘Get me out of here. Get us all out of here.’
In the wash of headlights his freckled face was anxious. ‘I shouldn’t move you. You could be hurt.’
‘We’re gonna be dead,’ she slurred emphatically.
It was enough. He threw open the door, unfastened her seat belt and towed her out unceremoniously with his hands under her armpits. He laid her on the verge beside the road. ‘Try not to roll.’
In a few moments she was joined first by Ally, then Daniel. Both of them were deeply unconscious and Daniel was snoring. But the fresh air was replacing, one cc at a time, the chemical miasma in their lungs and in their blood. Brodie felt the life seeping back into her, and knew it was seeping back into them too.
‘Charlie,’ she whispered. He bent down to listen. ‘You want to be Chief Constable? I can fix it …’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dimmock General insisted on keeping them until the last of the drug had left their systems. By the judicious juggling of beds – old ladies going for ECGs finding themselves wheeled back to other wards – they managed to put Brodie and Alison in adjacent cubicles, but except that the thought was appreciated they needn’t have bothered. Both women slept through what was left of the night and half the next morning.
When Brodie finally surfaced it was to a face as familiar as her own mirror image, if less lovely. When scenes like this appear in romantic fiction it turns out the lover has been keeping vigil by the beloved’s side for hours if not days. But Deacon was a busy man, so two minutes after he arrived he started humming tunelessly and drumming his fingers on the table to wake her.
He knew what her first words would be, tried not to be disappointed.
‘Daniel?’
Deacon jerked his head towards the door. ‘Across the corridor, snoring his head off. He’s fine.’
‘And Alison?’
‘The same, only she’s right here. And less snoring.’
Brodie propped herself up to see but there was no reason to doubt what he was saying. The girl had a good colour and no machines recording her vital signs. She was just asleep. ‘Good.’
Deacon was watching her soberly. ‘That was a close one.’
‘Too damned close,’ she agreed. ‘We were so lucky …’
‘Luck didn’t come into it,’ he demurred. ‘After Charlie took Windham into Battle Alley he was on his way to join me at Sparrow Hill. When the switchboard took Mary Walbrook’s call Sergeant McKinney smelled a rat and diverted the nearest car to investigate, which happened to be Charlie. He didn’t know what he was going to find – possibly nothing – but when he saw a Land Rover trying to shove my car off a cliff he guessed the rest.’
‘He saved our lives,’ Brodie said simply.
Deacon shrugged. ‘It’s what he’s paid for.’
She didn’t want to argue with him. ‘What about Kant? Did he slip the net again?’
‘He did. But his time’s coming. The police in four countries are watching for him. We’ll get him. It may take a little time but it’ll happen.’
‘And Mary Walbrook?’
‘At Battle Alley, saying nothing without her solicitor’s approval. But she’s going down, and between them her and Windham will tell us everything. He’ll tell us everything she did, and she’ll tell us everything he did.’
‘Daniel was right? She was the one who pushed Stanley Barker in the pond?’
Deacon nodded. ‘That’s what Windham says. Pushed him in and held him down. Of course, everything he doesn’t want to do time for himself he has to lay off on her. But actually I believe him.’
Brodie did too. ‘What a crew! Mary and Barker were partners for fifteen years. They were lovers at one time. And she killed him for money.’
‘Not exactly. She killed him to keep herself safe. But it was the money – drug money – that brought her to it.’ He leaned back in his chair, stretching out his thick legs, crossing his strong arms on his chest. ‘Brodie, we have to talk.’
‘I suppose we do. Now?’
‘If you’re up to it.’
She wasn’t looking forward to it but there was nothing to be gained by delay. ‘What are we going to do? What do you want to do?’
‘I’m not sure I can have what I want,’ said Deacon, keeping his voice low although no one was paying them any attention. ‘I want all of you. I don’t think half of you is enough any more.’
‘That isn’t fair,’ she said softly.
‘Maybe not. But that’s how it feels. Every time there’s a conflict of interests it’s Daniel’s needs that concern you. Not occasionally, not sometimes – every single time.’
‘You were gambling with his life, Jack!’ she cried. ‘You put a price on it and decided it was worth paying!’
‘I was following procedure,’ he said stiffly. A procedure that evolved because it gives everyone involved the best chance of walking away. It was a good call. It was the right call. But you thought my decision was influenced by my feelings for you and yours for Daniel. I don’t think that’s a situation we can allow to continue.’
Brodie caught her breath. ‘You want to call it a day?’
‘You said that was what you wanted.’
‘I was upset! I thought my best friend was dying!’
‘That’s kind of the point, Brodie,’ said Deacon quietly. ‘I should be your best friend. If I’m not, I’m not sure what it is we’re doing here.’
It would have been easy to take the decision out of his hands. Both of them knew she’d find another partner before he would. She thought she owed him better. S
he thought she owed it to him – to both of them, to what they’d meant to each other – to fight for it.
‘Jack, we’ve had this out before. Daniel is no threat to us. No more than if he was my brother. I care for him deeply: you know that. You knew it when you and I first got together. You knew I had other commitments. One was to Paddy, and one was to Daniel. And I didn’t, and I still don’t, feel anything for either of them that should spoil my relationship with you. It’s absurd! You might as well ask me to stop caring about my daughter!’
‘Daniel isn’t your child,’ he retorted forcefully. ‘And he’s not your brother. And the reason this has become an issue now is that things change. People’s feelings change. That may still be the way you feel about him, but it isn’t the way he feels about you. Not any more.’
She stared at him in amazement. ‘Jack — I’ve no idea what you’re talking about!’
He studied the depths of her eyes. ‘No, you haven’t, have you?’ He sounded tired, defeated. ‘Brodie, I don’t know what to tell you. I know you think I’m being unreasonable. But that’s because I know things you don’t know, or don’t want to know. Maybe before we finish this conversation you ought to talk to Daniel.’
‘Daniel?’ she exclaimed in exasperation. ‘What’s Daniel got to do with it?’
‘Everything,’ said Deacon. ‘Trust me.’
He left then. Brodie sat alone for a while, just thinking. Then she got up and pottered along the corridor looking for Daniel.
He was still asleep. She didn’t rattle around making enough noise to wake him. She pulled up the chair and sat quietly at his side for an hour until he moaned and mumbled and turned over and, already fumbling on the bedside table for his glasses, woke up.
‘Hi,’ she said softly.
‘Hello.’ A slow smile spread across his face.
‘We made it.’
‘Alison too?’
‘Alison too.’
‘What happened?’
‘Kant happened. He was at the yard when we arrived. He put something in the car that put us all to sleep. He was about to push us into Ship Coomb when Charlie Voss turned up and stopped him.’
Daniel was nodding, but Brodie had the feeling she’d have to tell him all over again when he was more fully awake. And possibly this too. ‘That’s not what I wanted to tell you.’
He pushed himself up in the bed that was scaled to a much bigger man. The hospital gown made him look like a hand-puppet. ‘What did you want to tell me?’
She picked her words carefully. ‘That I heard what you were saying the other day. I’m sorry it took me till now to take it in.’
Groggy or not, he knew immediately what she meant. He wasn’t sure what she expected him to say. ‘It’s been a busy week,’ he tried lamely.
‘Not that busy.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘So – what?’
‘You mean, so what do we do about it?’
He shrugged awkwardly. ‘I suppose.’
Brodie bit her lip. ‘Daniel, I don’t want to – mislead you. You know – you must know – that I think the world of you too. But not that way. I’m sorry, I wish I could, but I don’t think I’ll ever feel that way. So I guess the answer is, there’s nothing we can do about it. But I wanted you to know that – well, that I wasn’t pretending not to understand. At first I didn’t. Now I do.’
When Daniel smiled it lit up half the ward. ‘It’s all right, Brodie. I’m not expecting a fairy-tale ending. It was just, it had been nagging at me and I was acting like an idiot round you and I thought it was time you knew why. That’s all.’
‘That’s not all,’ she said firmly. ‘Somebody says he loves you, that’s a huge big not-all. But to tell the truth it’s not something I was expecting and I don’t know quite what to do with it, where to put it. Can you be patient while I figure it out?’
Patience was his middle name – except on all those occasions when it wasn’t. But what he’d given her was a declaration, not a proposal – he wasn’t waiting for her response. ‘I’m not sure there’s anything to figure. I haven’t forgotten about Jack, you know. I never expected you to take him aside and tell him you’d got a better offer. I was just trying to be honest.’
‘I’ve told you about that, haven’t I?’ she admonished him with a kind of sombre grin. ‘And to be honest in return, I’m not sure where me and Jack are heading now. Possibly, straight up a cul-de-sac.’
Daniel frowned, instantly wary. ‘Because of me?’
Her first instinct was to lie and say no. Her second was to say yes, and that would have been a lie in its way as well. ‘Because of us. Him and me. Because I keep disappointing him. I don’t want to hurt him, Daniel – but if I’m going to, I’d rather hurt him once than again and again. I think maybe it’s time to draw a line under it and part while we’re still on speaking terms.’
For once he had nothing to say to help her. With a sad little smile and a shrug, Brodie headed back to her ward.
The doctor who’d run her tests was waiting, marking up her chart. ‘Ah, there you are. I wanted a word with you.’
‘Oh?’ She climbed onto the high bed. ‘You’re not going to keep me in, are you? I’m feeling pretty well back to normal. A touch of nausea, maybe, but that’s only to be expected, isn’t it?’
‘Oh yes,’ he agreed. ‘No, I see no need to keep you in after tonight. We’ll get you in for a few more tests as time goes on, but it’s important to be positive. What happened to you may very well have no effect whatever on the baby.’
Brodie went on looking at him way, way too long, nothing in her expression altering, waiting for him to slap his thigh and chuckle, ‘Just kidding!’ or notice that he was working with someone else’s notes. He did neither. He was waiting for some kind of a reaction – relief, perhaps, or gratitude.
Finally she crashed her brain into gear and wrestled with the controls for speech mode. ‘Baby?’ she echoed.
The author of over twenty acclaimed novels, Jo BANNISTER started her career as a journalist after leaving school at sixteen to work on a local weekly newspaper. Shortlisted for several prestigious awards, she was editor of the County Down Spectator for some years before leaving to pursue her writing full-time. She lives in Northern Ireland and is currently working on her next novel. Requiem for a Dealer is the sixth in a series featuring Brodie Farrell, Daniel Hood and Jack Deacon.
Other titles in the Brodie Farrell series
Echoes of Lies
True Witness
Reflections
The Depths of Solitude
Breaking Faith
REQUIEM FOR A DEALER. Copyright © 2006 by Jo Bannister. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby Limited
eISBN 9781466810211
First eBook Edition : December 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bannister, Jo.
Requiem for a dealer: a Brodie Farrell mystery / Jo Bannister.—1st St. Martin’s Minotaur ed.
p. cm. _
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-36211-9
ISBN-10: 0-312-36211-0
1. Farrell, Brodie (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women private investigators—England—Fiction. 3. Drug traffic—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6052.A497R47 2006
823’.914—dc22
2006046804
First St. Martin’s Minotaur Edition: December 2006
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