by Nicky Black
‘Undercover tonight, boss, don’t want them recognising me.’
He sensed no hint of judgement or criticism in Murphy’s voice, even though he’d royally messed up the night before. Normally there would be a raft of bitching and talking behind hands, an assignment of blame. ‘Think it might be a bit late for that,’ he said. ‘I told you to stay in the car.’
‘I saved your life, chief, you should be grateful.’
The titters of the other detectives were badly stifled, and Peach glowered at them, unsure whether they were sniggering at Murphy’s exaggerations or the fact their DCI might show gratitude.
‘Been onto the prison, though,’ said Murphy. ‘And guess what?’ He handed over a smooth white roll of fax paper, a copy of entries into the visitor’s book at Durham prison that morning – and there they were: Tommy Collins and Gerald Foster, the ink slightly smudged by Murphy’s greasy fingers.
‘The lad can visit his father,’ said Peach.
‘That’s just it, boss, he never has before.’ Shoving the last two chips into his mouth, Murphy scrunched the newspaper into a ball and lobbed it across the room into the bin, grabbing at the air with a ‘Yesss!’ as it fell neatly inside.
Peach’s eyes scoured the list where another name caught his eye, but the fax machine had cut off the name of the visitee. It piqued his interest. ‘Find out who Trevor Logan was visiting,’ he said, handing the fax paper back to Murphy and heading for the door. ‘And see who else has visited Collins Senior recently.’
Murphy saluted with two fingers to the temple before picking up the receiver of his desk phone. ‘Oh, and chief,’ he said, before dialling.
Peach stopped at the door but didn’t turn back.
‘I had another look at the building society. It’s on your desk.’
***
In his office, Peach tried to focus on his plan of action for the rave on Saturday night. With Collins still free, the party would go ahead. But the lad’s time was limited. Just another twenty-four hours and Peach could have him just where he wanted him. And he wasn’t going to mess up this time.
He ran down his list: road blocks, police dogs, riot vans, and protective gear, it all needed to be confirmed, but there was nothing else he could do until he knew the venue, and there weren’t many options open to him on that score. He could wait until they knew the telephone number; it would be on the flyers, be broadcast on the illegal radio stations – easy enough to get hold of. But getting the number at the eleventh hour would mean joining the thousands of others and following the convoys of cars heading to the party. If he got there too late, the drugs would be divvied up between the dealers and too easily disposed of once their presence was known. If he knew in advance, he could time it to perfection with the right surveillance. Then the blockades could be put in place, the party shut down, the drugs seized, and the money and equipment confiscated.
Tommy Collins arrested.
But there were only two ways he could get intel on the rave’s whereabouts in time: he could hope that Murphy would hear it from the horse’s mouth that night when he trailed Tommy and his friends – a long shot, knowing how imperative it was to keep the venue a secret until the last minute.
Or he could do a deal with Paul Smart.
He’d never crossed that dangerous line before and he knew what it would mean for his career and his reputation should it ever come out. But maybe it was time he put his daughter first.
He opened the desk drawer and picked up the business card Paul had slid into his hand. The call lasted less than ten seconds, and the meeting was set for two hours hence. Dropping the receiver into its cradle, he breathed out his decision. Good or bad, in two hours he’d have his venue.
He rubbed at his eyes, his mind wandering in circles once more, his attention back on the imposter. He wracked his brains, back through years of raids, arrests, punch-ups, and stabbings, but he could remember no one matching the description of this liar masquerading as him and recruiting young girls to do his dealing. He tried to picture him – a dealer, working for Collins to supply drugs to his wretched parties, but he could only see Paul Smart’s face in his mind’s eye.
He turned and faced the photographs on his wall, his fingers like pincers through his moustache. In his dogged mind, Tommy’s eyes goaded him: Catch me if you can.
Striding over to the wall, he tore Tommy’s image down and crushed it in his hand, then he reached up to the others. As he did so, his hand froze, suspended mid-air as he stared at the copied newspaper clipping of Jed Foster. Jed stood next to his brother, an arm around his shoulder. Next to Barry stood the mayor, fat and red faced, and next to him stood a pint-sized man in wire-rimmed round glasses, hair mushrooming from his head in a ball of frizz. He snatched at the picture and read the italic print beneath:
From left to right: Volunteers, Jed Foster, 21, Barry Foster, 15, Mayor Springfield, Newcastle
City Council, and youth worker, Darren Adams-Deighton.
***
It had taken forty-five minutes to drive the four miles to the youth worker’s home. The traffic through the city centre was dense, a procession of fluorescent yellow jackets cordoning off the entrance to Pilgrim Street. Two mounted police officers had cast a dark shadow over Peach’s car as he waited, lungs deflated with impatience. At the traffic lights up ahead, streams of people were marching by, banners and arms aloft, chanting. It seemed that every other day there was something to protest about: poll tax, nuclear disarmament. Gay rights.
Desperate to get moving, he’d switched on the car’s police lights, and in less than five seconds the fist of a middle-aged woman with purple dreadlocks and bad teeth was bouncing off the windscreen.
‘Fucking filth!’ she’d screeched. ‘Fucking bastard Tory cunts!’
Peach had to stop himself leaping from the car and pulling her head back by her stinking hair. Instead, as spit hit the windscreen, he’d turned his face away, the horses snorting and staggering beside the car, but maintaining more dignity than this mob ever could. His eyes were focused on the footwell, and he’d noticed the edge of a plastic carrier bag protruding from beneath the seat – the takings from Tommy’s rave. He was bending down to retrieve it when he heard the car horns blasting behind him. The traffic was on the move and he’d soon caught up with the car ahead of him, his mind back on the man who had relieved his child of her education.
Darren Adams-Deighton had been arrested only once before, back in the late seventies on a charge of possessing marijuana and LSD. Murphy had pressed a few keys on the computer which had produced as much information as Peach had needed in a matter of minutes. Maybe these machines had their uses after all. In his mug-shot, Darren was bearded and rake thin but had the same full head of spongy hair.
By two o’clock, Peach was standing outside Darren’s home. It was a typical ground-floor Tyneside flat in Jesmond, a leafy part of the city prone to invasion by university students with affluent parents. The flat wasn’t plush, but it wasn’t a hovel either. It would take more than a part-time youth worker’s salary to afford the rent in this part of town.
Peach bent down and opened the letter box, the stench of cannabis hitting his nose. Straightening up, he rapped the knocker, then grasped the door frames with his hands, ready to kick out as soon as the Yale lock sprung. It took a few hammerings, but spring it did, and Darren sprawled backwards as the door hit his face.
Without taking time to look at his assailant, the youth worker was quickly on his hands and knees, crawling down the hallway. ‘Help! Police!’ he wailed.
Stepping inside, Peach kicked out again and Darren fell forward, prostrate on the floor, his hands covering the back of his head as if he were expecting blows. Peach placed his feet either side of him, crouching down onto all fours, bending over Darren’s back as the little worm writhed, continuing to screech, ‘Police! Police!’.
He put his lips to Darren’s ear, forcing his face into the floor. ‘I am the police.’ It was a line he’d always wan
ted to use, but he took no pleasure in it now.
‘Wha …?’ Darren couldn’t get anything else out, his lips contorted as Peach pushed his face harder into the carpet.
‘Do you know who I am?’ Peach hissed. Gurgles was all he heard in response, and he turned Darren over, pinning his arms to the floor with his knees. Without his glasses, Darren’s eyes were beady and a little crossed, flickering feverishly like the wings of a moth as recognition flashed in his dilated pupils. Peach’s fingers grasped his throat. ‘Who am I?!’
‘That copper,’ Darren rasped.
His fingers tightened around Darren’s thin neck. ‘And Sally Peach’s father.’
Liquid was starting to force its way from Darren’s eyes and down his temples, and Peach thought he heard an apology, a strangled, ‘I’m sorry!’
Darren’s hands had been raking at his legs, but they started to fall away as he weakened, face crimson, teeth clenched. Lost in his need to cause maximum pain to the mongrel beneath him, Peach kept on squeezing until he felt something soft brush his hand, heard the soft purring of the ginger cat that rubbed its cheek against Darren’s face. The animal trilled gently, its face now rubbing at Peach’s fingers. He snapped his hand away from it, Darren gulping at the air before trying to speak.
‘I didn’t know,’ he coughed, terrified, wretched. ‘I didn’t know who she was!’
Leaning down, Peach put his face next to Darren’s burning cheek. ‘Doesn’t matter who she is,’ he said. ‘She’s sixteen years old.’
Out of nowhere, Darren began to sob like a child, the snot and tears merging into a stream of salty slime. ‘I don’t want to die!’ he cried.
If it was meant to evoke sympathy, the man had got Peach all wrong, because sympathy for criminals wasn’t something he’d ever had the misfortune of feeling.
He put his fingers around Darren’s throat once more. ‘You’ll die right now if you don’t tell me everything.’
***
None of it was his idea, Darren insisted, targeting the vulnerable ones, the ones in care, the ones from troubled families. The horrible fact that Sally fitted into any of these categories stuck like a leech to Peach’s gullet.
They sat in Darren’s living room, their backsides perched on the edge of a sofa laden with cat hair, another black and white moggy curled up on an armchair, probably stoned off its furry head. Darren wrung his hands, the embodiment of a blubbering coward.
‘The drugs,’ said Peach. ‘Where are they going tomorrow night?’
Darren looked back at him as if he was unsure what he should and shouldn’t say. ‘I don’t know, Mr Peach,’ he said. ‘Honest. I just do what I’m told.’
‘Liar,’ Peach snarled.
The youth worker was shaking. ‘I don’t!’ he insisted. ‘He doesn’t tell me anything, I promise.’ His face took on an expression of extreme alarm. ‘You’re not going to torture me, are you?’ He gulped at the end of the sentence, his hand shooting to his bruised throat.
‘Don’t be so bloody stupid,’ said Peach.
Darren breathed a sigh of relief, his eyes closing.
‘But you are going to tell me everything you know,’ said Peach. ‘Where he stores the drugs, where the money’s come from, where the rave is.’
Darren’s face puckered as he swallowed. He didn’t know, he stammered. He didn’t know anything about the rave’s whereabouts.
Peach had expected someone bullish, a shrewd operator with attitude and cheek, but instead, the man sitting next to him was a great yellow chicken who was ripe for a roasting.
He pushed out his lips in a thoughtful pout. ‘Do you know what happens to rapists and perverts in prison?’
Darren shook his head. ‘I didn’t … I wouldn’t …’
‘That’s not what my daughter tells me,’ Peach lied. ‘And there are others. Other girls who’ll corroborate her story.’
‘They’re lying!’ shrieked Darren. ‘I didn’t do anything like that!’
‘Your word against theirs. Nice middle-class girls from good families. Police families.’
Darren’s lips quivered. He wiped at his mouth, then sat up straight, eyes wide with fright. ‘I want witness protection,’ he demanded.
‘Witness to what, exactly?’ Peach waited; he had one hour to wait for Darren to grass on Tommy and give him the venue of the rave. Then there would be no need to compromise himself with Paul Smart.
‘Jesus Christ!’ It came out of Darren’s mouth like a mosquito’s whine.
‘Tell me what you know, then we’ll talk about protection.’
Darren looked down at his hands, gritted his teeth. ‘Fucking Tommy …’ he said.
Peach felt his muscles ease as Darren took a deep breath, then began to talk.
Paul Smart was trying to build up a new enterprise, Darren said. Paul had wanted to start small, test the market, so he’d put some of his men into Tommy’s raves to sell ecstasy and coke. But the men couldn’t get past Tommy’s bouncers, so he’d had to think of a new approach, and the only way they could get the drugs in the door was to recruit the ravers themselves. Most of them refused, but there were some that were up for making a few extra quid.
Peach listened, feeling his insides start to roll. Smart?
Then an offer came along Paul couldn’t refuse, Darren said, and he’d sunk everything he had into a consignment of ecstasy.
Peach held up his hands. ‘Wait. You work for Smart?’
Darren’s eyes darted around him. ‘Yes,’ he said, as if stating the obvious.
Peach found his eyes closing, and the story went from bad to worse. Smart had given Tommy a loan, Darren said, but when Tommy needed more, he gave him drugs instead of cash. Darren’s voice had begun to turn bitter. It was profit that would normally have been his, by rights. He’d worked for Paul for years on the hush-hush; Paul trusted him, and he deserved some loyalty, right?
‘Tommy can’t sell drugs,’ he heard Darren sneer. ‘He hasn’t even got rid of them yet. Even came to me, asking if I could find him a buyer, the daft twat. And when I say Smartie sunk everything, I mean everything. If Tommy doesn’t raise that cash, there won’t be any rave.’
And without the rave, thought Peach, Paul Smart wouldn’t be able to sell his drugs.
Disgust churned like rancid milk in his stomach as he opened his eyes and focused on Darren. ‘And what will Smart do if there is no rave?’
Darren wrung his hands, but there was little sympathy in his voice. ‘Knowing Smartie, he’ll go for Tommy’s wife first. He’s a cruel bastard.’ He shook his head. ‘She’s his niece an’all. Nice lass.’
Peach held Darren’s gaze, his eyes revealing his uncertainty.
‘Smartie’s big sister is Sam’s mother,’ Darren explained. ‘Now there’s a bitch if ever there was one.’
A sharp sigh escaped Peach’s nostrils, and he thought back to Denise Morris’ face, seeing the resemblance for the first time – the eyes, cold and blue, the wide set of the mouth. ‘And Collins has nothing to do with him?’
‘Not ’till recently,’ said Darren. ‘Not ’till he got some mad idea that he could actually get out of Valley Park unscathed.’ Darren laughed to himself. ‘Always been a dreamer that one. Hates dealers though. If you knew what I had to do to get that gear past him into those raves …’ His voice trailed off, his smirk fading. Realising his mistake, he looked away, had a think, then put on his begging face and held out his wrists. ‘If I’m going into witness protection, I’d rather it looked like I was getting arrested.’
Peach stared down at the youth worker’s upturned wrists, the blue veins standing out like a river delta. But Peach remained stock still, the chill of clarity fully descended.
He’d got it wrong. He’d got it horribly wrong.
His gaze sliced through Darren’s gutless stare, and he saw panic flash in the youth worker’s eyes when the cuffs didn’t materialise.
‘There’s more,’ said Darren, inching forward. ‘Billy Logan.’ He stopped, glancing
at Peach’s coat pocket, waiting for the metal to snap around his outstretched wrists. ‘He worked for Smartie. Collected money when he was out in the fish van. Thought he’d ask for a bit extra from the customers and pocket it, but Smartie got wind of it, made an example of him.’
Peach didn’t move, and Darren’s panic was making his voice gallop.
‘Made Tommy’s dad kill him.’ Darren thrust his wrists further forward, so they touched Peach’s chest. ‘I’m the only one who knows, he trusts me, see?’
‘Why did Reggie do it?’ Peach urged him on and Darren swallowed a whimper – he’d gone too far now to stop.
‘Reggie owed Smartie ten grand, maybe more, and Smartie said he’d do the wife, and Tommy an’all, if Reggie didn’t do it. So he did. Shot Billy dead and Smartie forgot the debt.’
Peach had known it, had known there was more to it, but no one would talk, their loyalties all to pot, his own distress at Kathleen’s death six months earlier still overpowering his instinct to dig deeper.
‘It’s true. Every word,’ Darren said.
‘Where’s the rave?’ Peach asked.
‘I don’t know, I swear!’
‘Doesn’t trust you that much, then,’ said Peach.
Darren shrugged, attempting a friendly smile as he swallowed down his cowardly fear and pushed his wrists into Peach’s chest. ‘I’m ready to go when you are.’
Peach looked from one of the youth worker’s hopeful eyes to the other as he faced another decision. Protect Darren, or let him squirm? The picture of Sally that made the county listen burned into his memory, and it didn’t take him long to choose.
‘Over my dead body.’
Peach stood, walked out of the flat, and left Darren just where he was. A sitting duck.
DENISE
The hangover was proving stalwart, and she popped another Polo mint into her mouth – anything to rid her tongue of the horse shit that seemed to have taken up residence there.
Sam was at the window, biting her nails and pacing back and forth, forcing Denise’s head into a spinning mire. A night of drinking alone in the dark hadn’t been the plan, and she worried the mixture of Tia Maria and vodka might regurgitate itself onto the new sheepskin rug at any moment. She knew her daughter well enough to know that she hadn’t really left her husband; that this was just a warning shot, one Denise herself had used far too often with her own husband for it to have made any difference in the end.
