Broken Fall: A D.I. Harland novella

by Fergus McNeill

  Harland allowed himself a thin smile.

  ‘Sometimes you get more from the monkey than you do from the organ grinder,’ he mused.

  ‘Sir?’ Linwood frowned.

  The patter of rain filled the silence, and Harland peered out through the droplets on the window to consider the old brick building.

  ‘You said there were a few people done for possession there, right?’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Make a list, and maybe check for anyone else who’s been busted in there recently. I want to know who they were buying their gear from. Keep it nice and low-key for the moment, but we need to establish if there were any other dealers operating in there.’

  Linwood stared at him blankly, then nodded.

  ‘So you’re thinking it was a hit by a rival dealer?’ he asked.

  Harland glanced at him.

  ‘What? Oh, I suppose it might be …’

  Linwood looked at him, puzzled. ‘But?’

  Harland started the car, then left it to idle for a moment as he stared out at the murals.

  ‘Pope asked about who was watching his back, right?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘OK, so what if we do some digging and we can’t find any other dealers working here? What if Durand had an exclusive?’

  ‘Sorry sir, I don’t follow …’

  Harland leaned back into his seat, ordering his thoughts.

  ‘It’s a popular club, right?’ he explained. ‘Plenty of room for more than one dealer. So if he did have the place to himself, who do you think he was paying off? Who was making it happen?’

  ‘You think he paid that bouncer to keep an eye on him?’

  ‘Perhaps. But it wasn’t the bouncer who conveniently forgot to give us the footage from that camera. Who backed up the data for you?’

  Linwood looked at him. ‘It was the manager. Jones.’

  ‘There you are.’ Harland nodded. ‘He was involved, or he was turning a blind eye. Either way, I’m sure Jones can shed some light on who might want Durand out of the way.’ He put the car in gear. ‘Find him for me.’

  4

  The rain clouds had passed and it was a bright, warm evening as Harland dashed between the tables lining the pavement outside the steakhouse. Ducking in under the shadow of the broad canopy, he could see Mendel through the window – his former sergeant would have arrived on time, of course, solid and dependable as ever.

  Once inside, he slowed his pace, getting his breath back as he walked across to where his old friend was sitting, and patting him on the back.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he apologised, sliding into his seat.

  Even hunched over the table, Mendel was a big man, with broad shoulders and tidy black hair. He sat back in his chair and made some show of consulting his watch, pointedly raising an eyebrow before his serious face split into a broad smile.

  ‘Evening, Graham,’ he said.

  ‘There was a broken-down lorry at the roundabout,’ Harland explained. ‘Traffic was backed up, right along Feeder Road.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, course it was,’ Mendel grinned. ‘’Cos you’re normally so punctual.’

  Harland chuckled to himself, glancing round the room, his eye lingering on an attractive brunette near the doorway. This place had become a regular haunt since he’d transferred out of Portishead and it had a quirky, down-to-earth atmosphere that he found pleasing. A huge porcelain bull’s head gazed out from above the service counter, and the wallpaper was a subtle pattern of butcher’s cow diagrams, endlessly repeating around the walls …

  … but the sizzle and smell from the kitchen were making him hungry. He reached for the familiar menu, then glanced up at the Specials board and quickly down at his watch.

  ‘Damn!’ It was later than he’d thought. The place did an excellent steak meal deal for fifteen pounds if you ordered before seven, but it was already ten minutes past.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Mendel looked at him.

  ‘It’s after seven,’ Harland scowled. ‘I missed the early dinner special.’

  The big man shook his head.

  ‘No you didn’t,’ he rumbled. ‘I already ordered it for you.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Harland put the menu down and sat back in his chair, relieved. ‘But how did you know what I was going to have?’

  Mendel raised an eyebrow again.

  ‘Because you always do the same thing when we come here,’ he sighed. ‘You look at the menu, then order the special.’

  Harland glanced at him, slightly aggrieved.

  ‘I’m not that predictable, am I?’

  Mendel stared at his beer glass, his brow furrowed in thought.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ he said, nodding. ‘But it’s my turn to pay this week, so it’s kind of a win-win situation.’

  Harland tried to find fault with this.

  ‘I could have been late,’ he pointed out.

  ‘You were.’

  ‘All right, later. Or I might have had to cancel altogether …’

  ‘Then I’d have had two steaks.’ Mendel shrugged. ‘Again, win-win.’

  Harland gave in and laughed.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he conceded. ‘I notice you didn’t order me a beer, though.’

  Mendel raised his own glass.

  ‘You CID boys don’t miss a thing, do you?’ he grinned.

  The beer was ice cold when it arrived, and Harland savoured his first sip as he gazed out of the window at a group of office workers arranging themselves round one of the pavement tables. The brunette was among them, but she was smiling and chatting with a man in a suit.

  He put his glass down and looked up to find Mendel watching him.

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I know that look,’ the big man said. ‘Something’s bothering you … something you’re working on?’

  Harland lowered his eyes. He knew better than to try to bluff his old partner.

  ‘There was a murder in Stokes Croft,’ he said slowly. ‘It was … well, it wasn’t pretty.’

  ‘It never is,’ Mendel observed. ‘But you knew there’d be more of that when you transferred to Bristol.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Harland frowned as he stared at his beer glass. He’d dealt with murders before, seen death up close. Why should this one feel any different? ‘It’s just … there was something really awful about this one.’

  Mendel gazed at him.

  ‘Stokes Croft,’ he mused, then nodded in recognition. ‘The drug dealer they found in that nightclub?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What about it?’

  Harland glanced up at his friend, then stared down at the table, picturing the unnatural expression on Durand’s face – mouth sealed, nostrils squeezed together, eyelashes crusted with a sheen of solvent tears. It wasn’t so much the murder that bothered him. It was the thought that someone could do that to another human being – do it, and pose them, and then watch them struggle.

  ‘You heard about how he was killed?’ he asked.

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Mendel gave him a grim nod. ‘I know the one you mean now.’

  Harland felt a twinge in his shoulder and raised a hand to rub some of the stiffness away.

  ‘While I was taking a look at the body …’ He broke off, shaking his head.

  Can’t see, can’t hear, can’t breathe … tearing your own skin trying to get free …

  Mendel sat quietly, giving him time.

  ‘I just … hate the thought of it,’ Harland continued. ‘What kind of sick mind does something like that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the big man replied. ‘But you’ll stop him.’

  Harland looked at him and gave a non-committal shrug.

  ‘I suppose.’ He turned to gaze out of the window again, staring up at the sunlight on the windows of the big hotel across the road. ‘Seeing someone killed like that … it really got to me, know what I mean?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ Mendel said. ‘But dwelling on i
t won’t help. Just catch the bastard – that’s the only thing that’ll make you feel better.’

  He raised his glass in grim salute.

  ‘Amen to that,’ Harland agreed, lifting his own glass. ‘Anyway, it’s not really the sort of thing I want to discuss while we’re eating. Let’s talk about something else.’

  By the time the waiter appeared with their food, he was starting to feel better. As he watched the young man setting down the white plates and deftly replacing their cutlery, Harland wondered why steak knives weren’t provided by default – he couldn’t imagine anyone coming here and ordering anything else.

  ‘So,’ he said, once he’d swallowed the first mouthful, ‘you busy at the moment?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mendel said with a nod, then shot him a warning glance. ‘And don’t sound so surprised, thank you.’

  Harland recalled how they used to joke about graffiti and missing cats – the perception of more provincial policing – but he knew from experience that very bad things could occur in out-of-the-way places.

  ‘You remember that container storage depot, up by the Oil Basin in Avonmouth?’ The big man leaned forward, speaking quietly now. ‘You know, behind the railway line?’

  ‘Yeah, I remember it.’

  ‘Well, last Sunday night, someone drove a JCB down there and made themselves a new door in the side of the main warehouse.’

  Harland put his cutlery down.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really,’ Mendel said. ‘But that’s not the best bit. Whoever these jokers were, they definitely weren’t joyriders. They left the JCB and drove two articulated lorries out of there, two lorries that were fully loaded with machine parts worth … guess how much?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Harland shrugged. ‘Hundred grand?’

  Mendel sat back and smiled.

  ‘Three and a half million,’ he said softly.

  Harland whistled.

  ‘All that in two trucks?’

  ‘Two big trucks, yes.’ Mendel cut a piece of steak, then looked up again. ‘A lot of very dull, very specialised, very expensive kit.’

  ‘Insurance job, maybe?’

  ‘Perhaps. Or an insurance ransom.’

  Harland nodded as he savoured another mouthful. Sometimes the insurance companies would pay to get stolen property back, if they could do it cheaply and quietly enough. It was rare, but not as rare as it once was, and times were tough all over just now.

  ‘Any idea where they went with the trucks?’ he asked.

  ‘No sightings so far,’ the big man replied. ‘But just think how many quiet little industrial units there are between Avonmouth and the M4.’

  ‘A lot of door-to-door work for you to organise,’ Harland smiled.

  ‘I’ve got Firth on it,’ Mendel explained, taking a sip of his beer.

  Harland’s smile faltered. He glanced at his friend but, mercifully, Mendel’s eyes were on the glass, not on him. PC Sue Firth was one his biggest regrets from his time at Portishead. After Alice died, he’d lurched back and forth between feelings of lust and guilt when it came to women. Then, when he finally started to level out, he’d told himself Sue couldn’t possibly be interested. By the time he got his head together enough to see that she really had been, she was dating someone else.

  ‘Firth’s more organised than the two of us put together,’ he managed.

  She was a good police officer. It would have hurt both of their careers if they’d been caught seeing each other while working out of the same station. He didn’t much care about his own reputation, but he was glad he hadn’t messed things up for her. She deserved better than that.

  He reached for his beer, taking a deep draught. It was a sunny evening, and more people were gathering at the tables outside. Looking at them through the windows, Harland felt a sudden urge to go out and smoke. He patted his pocket to make sure he’d brought his cigarettes from the car … yes, they were there. Maybe once they’d finished eating …

  ‘And how about you?’ Mendel was asking him. ‘Big city copper now, eh?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Is Pearce keeping you busy?’

  ‘Haven’t seen much of him lately,’ Harland replied. The chief had been focused on the recent shootings in Easton. ‘He’s been keeping himself busy.’

  Eating the last of his chips, he sat back in his chair, munching silently.

  Mendel waited until he had finished, then gave him an innocent smile.

  ‘And how’s life with dear brother Pope?’ he asked.

  Harland grimaced.

  ‘Pope …’ He reached for his glass and drained it. ‘If we’re going to talk about him, I think I want another beer.’

  ‘You’re not driving?’

  ‘I’m parked round the back of the square,’ Harland said with a shrug. ‘I can walk home, pick up the car in the morning.’

  ‘OK, but I think we should sit outside.’

  ‘Sure. Why?’

  Mendel pushed his chair back from the table and stood up.

  ‘Because you’ve been sitting there, fidgeting with that damned fag packet for the last twenty minutes,’ he growled.

  Harland nodded and got slowly to his feet.

  ‘You Portishead boys don’t miss a thing, do you?’ he smiled.

  5

  Harland turned right and followed the access road until it emerged into the car park. The morning sun was already painfully bright, glaring through the windscreen as he manoeuvred into his space and killed the engine. He got out, yawning as he locked the car, then walked across the tarmac, squinting against the light until he reached the cooling shadow of the building. Even in silhouette, it was an ugly structure. The department had moved here a decade ago, abandoning the sturdy civic grandeur of the old Bridewell Station where his father had once worked. That was an arts and entertainment venue now, the fortress-thick walls slowly blossoming with graffiti, an overspill from the nearby Stokes Croft.

  There was no graffiti here, though. Set a long way back from the road, fenced in and surrounded by a huge car park, CID headquarters was a lonely outpost, far from the heart of the city. Bristol had become too expensive for the police – his generation were out in the hinterland, with the builders’ merchants and the haulage depots. Sighing, he walked up the steps and pushed through the glass double doors.

  Emerging from the canteen with a coffee, he climbed the stairs, being careful not to spill his drink, then made his way along the corridor. As he passed the glass-fronted offices, he saw the familiar figure of DCI Raymond Pearce waving to him from behind a desk, beckoning him in. Curious, he opened the door and leaned inside.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Morning, Graham,’ Pearce greeted him. He was a solid-looking man in his late forties, with dark grey hair and an East End accent that sounded tough amid the voices of his West Country colleagues. His eyes often had a mischievous twinkle, but not today, and there was an old scar that ran down his left cheek, hinting at the serious streak beneath his easy-going nature. ‘How’s things with you?’

  ‘Fine thanks.’

  ‘Good. Look, I need a word.’ He inclined his head towards an empty chair in front of his desk. ‘Come in and close the door.’

  Harland stepped into the office and sat down, leaning forward to put his cup on the desk.

  ‘What are you up to at the moment?’ Pearce asked.

  ‘We’re working on that nightclub murder in Stokes Croft,’ Harland replied. ‘Arnaud Durand?’

  ‘Oh yeah, the French Connection bloke?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  Pearce sat back in his chair. There were framed photos of a police football team on top of the filing cabinet behind him, and a collection of small plastic trophies.

  ‘Well, I reckon the world can manage with one less drug dealer,’ he mused. ‘Think the others could struggle on without you for a bit?’

  ‘I suppose …’ Harland frowned. He was still finding his footing here in Bristol, but he didn’t think he�
��d done anything wrong. Why was he being taken off the investigation?

  ‘And before you start worrying, this has nothing to do with your work on that case.’ Pearce held up a warning finger, as if he’d read his thoughts. ‘It’s just that something else has come up, and I reckon we could do with having you in on it. Right?’

  Harland lowered his eyes and nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

  Pearce had always been able to see straight through him.

  ‘Good man. Now, did you hear about Laura Hirsch?’

  Harland looked up.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he replied. ‘Who is she?’

  Pearce leaned forward, his face serious.

  ‘Twenty-four-year-old school teacher from Totterdown, last seen on Friday night. Hasn’t been home, hasn’t shown up for work …’ He shook his head. ‘Neighbourhood unit made the usual enquiries, risk assessment looked bad, so the case was escalated to us. We’ve checked for activity on her bank cards and her phone, but it’s like she suddenly fell off the map.’

  ‘I see.’ Harland looked at him, unsure what to say. People went missing all the time. Sometimes they showed up alive, sometimes dead, sometimes not at all. Missing persons were a concern, naturally, but certainly not unusual. Why was Pearce telling him all this?

  ‘There’s more,’ Pearce continued. ‘When she was last seen, Laura was on her way to visit her boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, whatever the hell he is. Anyway, he says she never got there.’

  Harland caught the emphasis.

  ‘But?’ he asked.

  Pearce gave him a grim smile.

  ‘We pinged her phone,’ he explained. ‘No response, but the last place the network registered it was in his street, late on Friday night. So if something has happened to her …’

  ‘… then he’s a good bet for it,’ Harland said thoughtfully. ‘What do we know about him?’

  Pearce folded his arms. ‘That’s where you come in.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Remember when you first got here from Portishead, and you were filling in for Marley?’

  Harland remembered. Burglaries … vandalism … all sorts of daft calls. A chance to get to know your new patch, Pope had said with a smirk.