by Declan Burke
Doyle
'It doesn't look good, Steph.' Ted paced as far as the window, twitched the blind, glanced out into the parking lot, then came back across the office and slipped in behind his desk, pointed at his left ear. 'How's the hearing coming on?'
'What?'
'I said, How's your – oh.'
'Sorry.'
'This is serious, Steph.'
'I know. Go on.'
'Want a smoke? A coffee or anything?'
'I'm fine, Ted. Really.'
'Okay.' Ted scratched his stubble glancing down at the prelim report laid out in front of him. Doyle wishing she had her gun, could toss it on Ted's desk. Be Clint, be gone. 'So you're saying here,' he said, 'you didn't see who shot Frank.'
'I closed my eyes after I got shot at,' Doyle said. 'Forgot to open them again.'
'And this tinnitus you got probably means you didn't, uh, hear anything that might, y'know …'
Doyle shook her head.
'And I'm guessing you didn't smell anything. How's your sixth sense, that female intuition?'
'That went on the fritz the first night I slept with you.'
'That happens a lot.'
Doyle felt bad stringing him along. Ted was one of the few good guys, solid. None of the smarmy crap about Doyle being some kind of affirmative action experiment, let's make a college girl detective, see how badly she and her shiny degree in psychology can fuck it all up …
Except Doyle, okay, it had taken a while, but she'd fucked up. Nine years of clean nose and regular collars, slow promotion, all screwed in ten minutes flat. Christ, Rossi'd even taken the keys to her cuffs, they'd had to saw them off at the hospital. The boys in the bullpen were going to love that, a Pamplona charge to see who'd get to drop the juicy dime first.
Ted riffled through the report once more, cleared his throat. 'So we have Frank Dolan,' he said, 'a plastic surgeon. Except he's running a kidnap scam, juicing insurance companies. What's wrong with this picture?'
'The guy's under investigation, some surgery went wrong. So he's branching out.'
'Okay. But he sets up his wife to be snatched?'
'They were separated. She'll be his ex-wife by Friday.'
'Right. So Frank has this guy Ray kidnap his ex-wife-to-be. Then, he's already insured her against kidnap for half a mill, he stings Trust Direct. Except then this Ray guy comes to you looking to double-cross Frank, hang him out to dry.'
'That's about the height of it, yeah.'
'So how come you know this Ray?'
Doyle'd been waiting for it. 'He made himself known.'
'Just dropped into your lap.'
'Not literally, if that's what you're asking.'
'I'm not. What's Ray gain by blowing the whistle?'
'He was looking to get out, go straight. Reckoned he'd pull a couple of years, he was just the sidekick.'
'You believe him?'
'I did, yeah.'
'And now?'
'I don't know.'
'Okay. So this Karen, who's she?'
'She's with Ray.'
'But she's the ex-wife's friend too.'
'That's right.'
'And she's also Frank's secretary.'
'Yep.'
'So this Ray, he's grifting everyone.'
'Maybe. I don't know. He took a bullet up at the lake when it looked like Madge was in trouble.'
Ted glanced down at the report. 'Taking one from this guy Rossi, right?' Doyle nodded. 'Where's he come in?'
'Karen's ex. Three-time loser, he's only out a week after a five-year jolt.'
'Not exactly rehabilitated, is he?'
'The way he told it, he just wanted his shit back from Karen. His Ducati bike, his .44. Except she wouldn't play ball.'
'And now he's gone with the two hundred thou. Leaving you cuffed to Frank.'
'I was the one cuffed myself to Frank, Ted. As per your orders. Rossi just took the key.'
'And you've no idea where Ray and Karen are gone?'
'Nope.'
'But they took the ex-wife with them.'
'Yep.'
'Leaving you to take the rap.'
'Looks like it.'
Ted sucked on his teeth. 'Trust Direct are screaming blue murder,' he said.
'Don't, Ted. I'll cry.'
'You hear what I'm saying, though. They'll be up our crevices on the investigation. I mean, some surgeon gets shot in the woods and his kidnapped wife, a charity-hound socialite, goes missing?' Ted rolled his eyes. 'Christ, it'll be front page.' He reached for the pack of Players Blue and sparked a smoke, this contrary to station regs, while he flicked idly through the report.
'What's the latest on Frank?' Karen said.
'He's stable.' He gestured at her bloody clothes. 'By the way, in case no one else says it, you did a good job up there.'
Doyle, abandoned by Karen and Ray in the little clearing up at the lakeshore, had set fire to the Forestry Commission cottage. This because Rossi, taking the handcuff keys, had done the rounds, swiped everyone's cell phone too, chucked them in the lake. Frank had bawled like a wind-trapped calf when she'd dragged him up onto the rickety wooden porch. Doyle couldn't really blame him, Frank with his shin blown out. Tying a tourniquet above his knee, Doyle had wanted to puke every time she caught a glimpse of the white shards showing through the ragged hole in his pants.
When he'd started shivering Doyle couldn't tell if it was septicemia or hypothermia or the guy just realising how close he'd come. So she'd dragged him in beside the cottage's glowing embers, cuddled him close.
For nearly five hours.
By the time the first fireman came trudging out of the trees into the clearing, the guy tall and bulky in his uniform, just the way she liked them, Doyle was so pissed she forgot to flirt.
'The guy's so grateful,' Ted said, 'he's suing your ass for negligence.'
'He'll hardly get fat suing this ass.' Karen cocked a hip. Ted grinned. She said, 'This investigation. I'm suspended for the duration, right?'
'Don't take it personal. It's for your own good.'
'With pay.'
'Innocent until proven, sure.'
'Meanwhile, you still have Frank.'
'Who's claiming he was railroaded by this guy Ray.'
'Except I have Frank's laptop, the guy kept records he shouldn't have.'
'Writing up scrips,' Ted said, riffling back through the pages again, 'for Nervocaine. Black market.'
'What's important there is, one of his customers, a guy called Doug, was his insurance broker with Trust Direct. Doug also being a golf partner of Frank's.'
Ted, seeing it, nodded along. 'Trust Direct squawk too loud, we whisper inside job. I'm liking it so far. Go on.'
'You put me front and centre, I'm suspended pending blah-dee-blah. Nothing's more important than transparency, the force being accountable. Meanwhile I'm packed off to Elba with Napoleon.'
'You think this Ray likes the sound of Elba in autumn?'
'Fuck Ray. Rossi's the one has the money.'
'You know I can't sanction that, Steph.'
Doyle cupped a hand around her right ear. 'Sanction what, Ted?'
Ted parked his smoke in the ashtray, dry-washed his face, had a good long stare at the ceiling. Then, without looking at her, 'Okay. Just don't send me any postcards from Elba.' He closed the file, stood up and moved around the desk. 'C'mere.'
Doyle accepted the peck on the cheek, the comforting squeeze, then shouldered her bag. 'How d'you want to do this?' she said.
'Just slam the door open, leave the rest to me.'
Doyle stalked away from Ted's office with her chin up, his threats booming down the corridor behind her. Ignoring the smirks, the meaningful glances the boys threw one another.
Suspended with pay, indefinitely. The world her oyster with Guinness chasers.
Sleeps
'He buys a gun,' Sleeps said, 'steals a car.'
'What now?'
Rossi, staking out the cop shop buzzed on horse tranks a
nd a tetanus shot and crooning some croaky Elvis, had Sleeps on edge.
'What you're singing,' Sleeps said, 'is the guy steals a gun and buys a car.'
'Sure. He tries to run but he don't get far, so he steals a gun and buys a car.'
'It's the other way round, man.'
'Your way,' Rossi said, 'their way, that's just propaganda. Like, the guy's a no-hoper, a clown. My way, the guy's running, okay? I mean actually running. But then he goes, "Hey, the fuck am I running when I could be driving?" Except he's skint, yeah? So he steals a gun, heists a place, I dunno, maybe a bank, a bookies, and gets himself a poke. Then buys a car. You see what I'm saying.'
'What you said was, you didn't want to hang around outside the cop shop.' Sleeps aiming for reasonable. 'This on the off-chance the guy we stole the car off picks this shop to report it, sees us on his way in.'
'Where's the last place,' Rossi said, 'the cops'll be looking for us?'
'Outside a cop shop, yeah, you already said. But --'
'She's in there now, Sleeps, getting hell from the commissioner. She's a disgrace, the whole nine yards. But he's giving her one more chance and she better not blow it.'
'It was me? I'd be on the blower to my brief, crying post-traumatic stress disorder. Perforated eardrums, the works.'
Rossi shook his head. 'This one's tough, Sleeps. You see the way she faced me down up at the lake? I mean, with no rod, nothing. Just stepped up, gave me the eyeball.'
Sleeps, who'd been half a mile away at the time, snoozing at the bottom of a gully in a Beamer that'd slipped sideways off the muddy track, said, 'Rossi?'
'What?'
'It ever occur to you, with all these movies you're always bigging up, how the cops generally win in the end? You never noticed that?'
Rossi sniffed. 'More propaganda.' Then he stiffened. 'Shit, here she comes.'
Sleeps heaved his huge bulk forward, reaching for the keys in the ignition. 'Annnnnd there she goes,' he said, slumping back in his seat as the cop turned a sharp right into the coffee shop two doors down. 'With,' he added, 'another cop in tow. Christ, it's the Fear and Loathing convention over there.'
Karen
Terry Swipes rattled off the numbers like a bingo caller speaking in tongues. 'We'll say ten for Karen's passport. And Terry Junior gets his five points finders-fee off the gross for setting up the snatch. And that's five points from both of us.'
Ray, counting bills onto Terry's desk, nodded.
'So that's what,' Terry went on, 'thirty in total? Including the van.' Ray nodded again. 'Okay,' Terry said, 'we'll call it thirty flat. I'll waive my cut.'
Ray stopped counting. 'You'll what?'
'Waive.' Terry grinned across at Madge. 'What, I'm not entitled to waive?'
'Yeah, but --'
'Call it a good luck gift. From me to the happy couple.'
Karen, sitting beside Madge on the dimpled leather couch, nudged Madge's knee. Madge wiggled an elbow into Karen's ribs, sipped on her brandy and gave Karen a deadpan stare over the rim of the glass. Madge looking a little bright-eyed to Karen, flushed on something more than brandy.
'Fifty grand's a lot of good luck,' Ray said. 'You think we need that much good luck?'
'You're driving across Europe,' Terry swiveled in his leather chair, hands joined on his ample belly, 'with a busted arm and a wolf in the back. You packing?'
'Not yet,' Ray said. 'I'll grab the Sig from the lock-up.'
'An automatic with a busted arm? What if it jams?'
'It's never jammed before.'
'Famous last words. What about reloads?'
'I'm only ever reloading in a fire-fight,' Ray said. 'On my own? No way I'm getting in any fire-fights.'
'Okay. But you're better going with, say, a .38 Special. Never jams, manual load. Hold it between your knees, pop 'em in one at a time.'
Karen cleared her throat. 'Try this,' she said, 'just for the sake of argument. How about we bring no gun at all?'
Terry pursed his lips, glanced from Ray to Karen, then back to Ray. Ray didn't look at Karen at all.
'Uh, Karen?' Terry said. 'No disrespect. But if Ray tells me he's schlepping off across Europe with a case of cash and no heat? I'll bust his other fucking arm here and now.'
'But what if --'
'The what-ifs,' Terry said, 'is why you need the .38.'
Doyle
'Suspended with pay,' Sparks said reverently.
Doyle, still feeling her way into it, just shrugged. 'Them's the rules.'
'So what's the skinny?'
'Mainly they're wondering how come Ray just fell into my lap.'
'You wish.' Sparks, the desk sergeant, tucked a wayward strand of frizzy red hair behind her ear. 'That'll be Ted, the jealous prick.'
Doyle, sipping her latte, was surprised to realise part of her wanted to believe it. Except Ted had hooked up three or four months after he and Doyle split, got himself engaged, some tax analyst he'd met on the dry ski-slope out in Wicklow, Ted getting in some slaloms before heading away for a stag do in the French Alps.
'Ted's cool, Sparks. The shit's coming down from upstairs.'
'Because the boys can't find Madge.'
Doyle remarked on how the boys, her illustrious peers, wouldn't find a priest in Rome.
'Unless they bumped into one down the brothel,' Sparks said. 'I mean, it'd be alright, the ransom going west, the surgeon getting his knee blown out, if they at least had the rescued lunching lady to parade around. But she's nowhere. The boys're in a sweaty fret.' She forked up a generous chunk of triple-tier Death by Chocolate. 'You're not worried about her?'
'She left with Karen and Ray. Wherever she is, she's okay.' Doyle thought about that. 'I was her, finding out Rossi was my son? I'd be unconscious on pills somewhere sunny.'
Sparks lowered her fork. 'The skanger's her son?'
'Long story. What's the latest on Frank?'
'They're waiting for a warrant to come through to search the house. Plus they're hoping his tart on the side, Genevieve, sobers up sometime this century so they can ask her a few questions.' Sparks shook her head in wonder. 'Seriously, though – Rossi's her son?'
'So she said. What about Karen and Ray?'
'The usual All Pointless Bullshit. Airports, ferries.'
'The boys think they're leaving the country?'
'Not dragging a wolf with them they're not. By the way, the wolf? The boys're shooting on sight. We're down one Alsatian already, out at Seagrove. I wouldn't mind but it was one of our own.'
'They're shooting at Anna? But she's a pet.'
Sparks sucked chocolate off her finger. 'The vet who called in the mauling, the possible rabies? He said the guy was a feather off having his head mushed. And that van they found in the woods, the window was busted in from hard enough to shunt the van into a gully. Inside was like a bomb in a jam factory.' She forked home more cake. 'Why didn't Karen just cross a croc with a rhino, be done with it?'
'What van is this?'
'The van in the woods.' Sparks frowned. 'They found it in the gully, beside a wrecked Beamer.'
'But no Rossi. No money.'
'No money and about two pints of, they're guessing, the elusive Rossi.'
'If it was Anna,' Doyle said, wondering why Ted hadn't mentioned the van, 'she had her reasons. Rossi, breaking her in, took her eye out with a fork.'
Sparks thought about that, then shrugged and forked home some more cake. 'So what're you doing to do with your time off? You need to stick around for the investigation?'
'Nope.'
'Then take a holiday. Pack a thong, get some sun on that lily-white ass. Where's Niko these days – Barcelona? Cannes?'
'Don't even go there,' Doyle said.
'You're the one won't go there. I was you, had a guy calling me up, "Hey, come on over to Venice for some fun, we'll party, no strings," guess where I'd be? The Tardis, seeing if I couldn't be in like five different places at the same time, getting five different tans.'
'You have no i
dea,' Doyle said, 'how bad his breath stinks.'
'So pretend you're a hooker, you don't do kissies. Listen, the main reason I brought it up? I've time coming. I'm due twelve days.'
'Oh yeah?'
'Plus I ran a check on one Madge Dolan.'
'You ever use that computer for official police work?'
'I'm police, I'm official. Anyway, the last time Madge used her credit card? Sunday, over the internet. Booking a cruise out of Athens that starts Friday night,eight o'clock.'
'It can get sunny,' Doyle said slowly, 'in Athens. She booked in on her own?'
'According to the cruise people, no.'
'They're the ones who'd know,' Doyle said. 'So who?'
'Promise to tell me about Madge and Rossi?'
'Christ, Sparks …'
'Karen King.'
'No Ray Brogan?'
'No Ray. No Raymond, Raphael, Rainier, Reynaldo, Raymundo … You find out his real name yet?'
'It's a work in progress. So she books a cruise on Sunday …'
'And gets herself snatched Monday. Maybe she's psychic, huh? Had herself a premonition.'
'Could be. When's she flying out?'
'Thursday evening, six o'clock. Except here's the thing. It's for two flights to Denver.'
'Denver?'
'Denver Colorado, via New York. Plus there's payments to a place called Piste of Mind.'
'The ski shop?'
'You know it?'
'It's where Ted picked up his stuff, gloves and shit, that time he went on the stag weekend.' Doyle cocked her head. 'What d'you think, she's laying down a false trail?'
'Looks like it. But which is which?'
'With no flight to Athens, you'd be thinking Denver.'
'She look much like a skier to you?'
'I'm thinking a cruise'd be more her style.'
'Me too.'
'Mainly,' Doyle said, 'because you want some sun on your ass.'
'True. But hey, you're there for Friday night when the cruise leaves, she's not on it? Just hop a flight for Denver.'
Doyle drank off the last of her latte, cold now, tasteless. 'You tell the boys any of this?'
Sparks shrugged. 'Since when has it been an actual crime,' she said, 'to book a cruise?'
