Tooth and Claw

by Oliver Davies

  “I didn’t see it brought in, honestly. Probably belongs to some posh tit, more money than sense.” He snorted, and I was quick to agree.

  I didn’t push my luck with any more questions after that, letting Martin direct the conversation. The rain outside lightened up, and I used it as my cue to leave, downing the dregs of my tea.

  “Let Phil know I dropped by, will you?” I said. I didn’t really want Phil to know, but now that Martin had seen me poking around, it would’ve been stranger if I didn’t say anything. Phil was meant to be my friend, and supposedly it was him I’d been here to see.

  “Good to meet you.”

  “And you,” Martin said gruffly. “I’d shake your hand, but-” He held up his oil-caked hands with a crooked grin, and I chuckled.

  “Yeah, no, I’m good. See you around.”

  I headed out into the light rain, forcing myself to walk across the garage’s car park but unable to stop myself from breaking into a jog once I was out of sight. The whole thing couldn’t have come off any better, and yet the jitters from the leftover adrenaline had me feeling antsy. I wanted nothing more than to go for a good, hard run to burn it off.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have that luxury right now, so I climbed into the car to head straight back to Hewford. My head was busy with replaying what had happened at the garage, so I remembered only at the last moment that I’d promised Stephen a drink from the local Costa drive-thru.

  Cursing quietly, I made a sharp turn and rolled up to the back of the queue. It was smack bang in the middle of lunch now, so the drive-thru was busy with the lunchtime rush, and it took me a good ten minutes to get to the front window.

  I texted Stephen in the meantime, letting him know that it went smoothly and that I was still all in one piece. I didn’t tell him the good news about finding the car just yet, because I wanted to break that in person and see his face when I did. At the drive-thru window, I ordered an americano and an espresso for myself and a milky latte and a blueberry muffin for Stephen.

  “Do you have any pastries?” I asked as an afterthought.

  “We have almond croissants and cinnamon swirls,” the polite young lady told me.

  “I’ll take a cinnamon swirl, too, then.”

  I felt like I deserved a treat after the small success at the garage, gratefully accepting the paper bag I was handed after I’d paid. I resisted trying out my pastry for now and got back on the road to Hewford, already looking forward to telling Stephen about finding the four-by-four.

  After a few minutes, though, the glow began to wear off as I considered the implications of my find. The car being at Phil’s garage really did mean that my old schoolmate was involved with dogfighters, the sort of people who’d execute a hit-and-run attack and not care if they ended up killing their victim. That world was brutal, and I wondered whether Phil really knew what was being done with the vehicles he was fixing up and lending out to these people.

  Part of me really hoped that he didn’t have any idea, but that was my sentimental side. The more practical part of my brain told me that Phil wasn’t the twenty-year-old kid I’d once known, and cheerful and trusting as he was, he was probably under no illusions as to what kind of people he was dealing with. The thought made my stomach flip over uneasily at the same time as my hands clenched on the steering wheel. I knew I needed to be professional about all of this, but damn, it was hard when I’d been good friends with the guy once upon a time.

  I did my best to shake off my darker thoughts and focus on the positives. Getting a solid lead on whoever had attacked Freddie was absolutely a cause for celebration, and I fixed that thought firmly in mind as I pulled up at Hewford and headed inside. The coffees I’d ordered had cooled off during the drive, so I stuck them in the staff microwave before bringing them and the baked goods over to Stephen.

  “You remembered my muffin?” Stephen said, sounding delighted when I handed it over. He eagerly peered into the bag and grinned. “Damn, Darren, you’re my favourite person.”

  “I’ll remember to tell Annie that,” I chuckled.

  “Don’t you dare,” he mumbled around a mouthful of cake, and I shook my head at his terrible manners.

  The cinnamon swirl was as good as I’d hoped, and Stephen and I sat and munched for a few peaceful moments. It was a testament to how much he must’ve been enjoying his muffin that it took even that long for him to demand to know how the scouting had gone.

  “Was your buddy Phil there? I’m guessing it can’t have gone too bad considering you’re not scowling like a grizzly bear.”

  “Wow, thanks, Steph. No, it went alright, and Phil wasn’t there. And don’t call him my buddy, will you?” I added, pulling a slight face.

  Phil had been my friend once, I didn’t deny that for a moment, but this ‘friendship’ we’d stuck up since was built on lies. If it hadn’t been for work, I would’ve avoided seeing him again, and so hearing Stephen call him my buddy made my skin itch.

  “Right, sorry,” he said, and I waved off the apology.

  “I had a thorough look around the back of the garage, but the car wasn’t out in the yard.”

  “Oh damn,” Stephen said, looking disappointed. I couldn’t help but grin, knowing what I did, and Stephen shot me a confused look. “Why do you look like a Cheshire cat right now? What’re you not telling me?” he demanded.

  “Phil wasn’t there, but I bumped into one of his employees, a nice bloke called Martin.”

  “Yeah and…?” Stephen was frowning at me like I was short of a few marbles.

  “The car wasn’t outside in the yard, Steph, but it was inside the garage.”

  “No way!” Stephen grinned widely.

  “Yep. So my long-shot guess paid off, huh?”

  “Guess it did. That’s why you got the pastry then, a little celebration?” he teased.

  “Am I really so predictable?” I groused.

  “Mitch, you usually eat like an athlete for the damn Olympics.”

  I snorted at that. “You don’t know what you’re on about.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” he agreed good naturedly before stuffing the remainder of the muffin in his mouth.

  I polished off the last of my coffee and pastry, savouring the bitter and sweet tastes together. Sam had said before that she thought I could stand to eat a little more cake, and as I ate the cinnamon whirl, I thought she might be right. The woman was as fit and toned as an actual athlete, too, so she knew what she was talking about. Maybe she and I could do some baking together over video call sometime this weekend if she wasn’t too busy.

  “You know how else you’re predictable?” Stephen said, jolting me out of my thoughts.

  “How?”

  “You get this dopey look on your face every time you think about Sam, which is at least a dozen times an hour, by the way.”

  “Didn’t know you were keeping count,” I said even as my cheeks flushed. I didn’t usually let my emotions show so clearly on my face, but I tended to relax around Stephen, and he also knew me far too well.

  “It’s adorable,” he assured me. “How’s she been doing recently?”

  “Ah, busy, I think.” My mouth twisted unhappily.

  “You’re missing her,” Stephen said, looking sympathetic.

  “Aye, that, but she also just seems really tired. If she was busy but happy, that’d be fine, y’know?”

  “I hear you. Maybe they’re overworking her a bit.”

  “I don’t know, she always worked long hours when she was here, but she slept like a log, too.” I leaned my head on my hand and frowned. “But she told me on our last call that she’s not been sleeping well and she looks worn out, too. I don’t know whether it’s anxiety or what’s going on with her.”

  “It’s hard long-distance, but she knows you’re there to support her and have her back. Encourage her to talk to you about it,” he said.

  “I do,” I said, gesturing in frustration. “She brushes me off by saying it’s been a heav
y week, but it’s been months now and every week seems to be bad.”

  “I’m sorry.” Stephen gave me a look with such concern in it that it totally took the wind out of my sails.

  “Aye,” I sighed. “We’ll figure it out, I hope. I could deal with her being away no problem if she seemed to be thriving, but it doesn’t seem like it. I want to be there with her to find out what’s wrong, y’know?”

  “Maybe you should take a trip down there?”

  “I’ve suggested it to her, but she keeps saying she’s too busy,” I said.

  We fell into a brief silence, with me frowning down at the table as I thought about what I could do to fix this and Stephen sitting by my side in silent support. I shrugged a minute later and forced a tight smile.

  “Okay, that’s my quota of self-pitying filled for the day. Let’s see if we can find out anything more about that car at Phil’s.”

  Stephen sent me an understanding smile and a nod of agreement. “Sounds like a good plan, boss.”

  Work provided a good distraction from my personal problems, and we buckled down to it. We didn’t have a great deal more to go on, but there was enough for us to begin digging around. I shot an email off to Keira Adams, our resident tech expert, in the hopes that she might have a moment to spare to look into our case. Keira and I had a brief fling soon after I started at Hewford, but it had never been anything more than a temporary thing, and I didn’t think much about it anymore. Sam had eclipsed every past romance I’d ever had, becoming more important to me than I could say. I only wanted her to be happy and content, and whilst we were still struggling with the long-distance relationship, I had confidence that we’d be able to overcome it.

  The long hours I worked at the station were nothing compared to the emotional work that needed to be put into a relationship to make it work, but Sam was worth every second of it.

  Eighteen

  Only an hour after I’d sent Rashford an email with the case’s latest updates, she called me into her office. She hadn’t invited Stephen, either, so I feared that didn’t bode well. The only reason I could think of for her not wanting him to join in was that she didn’t want to question my judgement in front of him since he was technically my junior. Of course, I considered him my equal and my partner, but that wasn’t how it was on the books. Unfortunately, my guess seemed to be not far off the mark, as I’d barely sat down opposite her desk before she got started.

  “Talk me through the decision not to have Berry’s disreputable business turned upside down, Mitchell,” she instructed. “It looks to me like you’ve found solid evidence but refuse to bring it in.”

  I winced slightly. No doubt she had already considered a number of reasons for why I was holding back but wanted to hear me tell it to her straight. Still, it stung a bit to hear the doubt in her tone after I’d become used to her trusting me. I took a breath and pulled my shoulders back slightly, fully willing to stand by my decisions unless a better option turned up.

  “That’s not the case, ma’am,” I said evenly. “While there is a piece of evidence at Phil Berry’s garage, we need to wait for the bigger prize, not just settle for nabbing Berry. He’s a two-a-penny fraud and thief and one we could bring in at any time on any number of charges. What we really want is the criminals willing to host these dogfighting rings, and we won’t get them by storming in there now.”

  “Are you sure Berry will lead you to them? As you say, he’s not an important player in their world, and there’s no guarantee that he’ll be able to introduce you,” she pointed out reasonably.

  She’d clearly looked over the case closely before talking to me and knew what we were dealing with, except, unlike me, she was erring on the cautious side.

  “There’s no guarantee,” I agreed reluctantly, “but he’s a good contact for me to have, ma’am. If we send a bunch of officers over to his to seize the car, that’ll be the end. Someone will link it back to me, and we won’t get anywhere with helping those dogs.”

  “How can you be so sure they’ll link it to you?”

  “I turned up right beforehand, showing my face around the garage. The new guy is always the first under suspicion when something goes wrong, so all fingers will point to me. Plus, the employee at Phil’s saw me looking at the car and spoke to me about it. If we go in there and seize it, an idiot could make the link between the info leak and me sticking my nose in.”

  Rashford sent me a look to say that she didn’t appreciate my tone.

  “The LACS agent deserves to have some justice for what was done to him,” she pressed, looking at me with a frown.

  I blew out a breath and gave a nod. “I know he does, ma’am, and I want that for him too, but this wouldn’t be real justice. Berry only trades the cars. He didn’t order the hit on Snell nor participate in it.” Or at least, I sure as hell hoped he didn’t. “He won’t give up who did, though. I know him, and there’s nothing he hates more than snitches.”

  He’d absolutely loathe me when this was over, I thought grimly. The sort of betrayal that I intended, even though morality and the law were on my side, would wreck Phil and incense him. But if Rashford nixed me continuing to work on this case, then Phil would never know because I’d never get to see this through. Given that option, I’d choose to stop the dogfighting and condemn Phil in a heartbeat.

  As if she knew what I was thinking, Rashford lifted an eyebrow and said, “Can you assure me that your reluctance on this matter has nothing to do with Berry being an old… associate of yours?”

  “Yes. I can promise you that isn’t the reason,” I said firmly, looking her in the eyes and meaning every word.

  “Alright, good.” She seemed satisfied with that and gave a short nod. “I’m not sold on this, as you’re no doubt aware, but we’ll do as you suggest for the moment. I hope your plan works, detective.”

  As do I, I thought.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I said instead.

  I took that to be the end of the discussion and started to rise to my feet to see myself out of her office, but she put up a hand to stop me.

  “There’s been news from LACS,” she told me.

  I sat quickly back down, giving her my full attention, even as I did wish that she’d started off with this news. I understood why she hadn’t, though, because I would’ve been distracted and keen to get to work rather than focus on answering her questions.

  “I hesitate to tell you this, but Ross called shortly before you came in. She’s had a tip-off and left it up to me whether to pass it on to you.”

  She paused, seeming to be waiting for my response, and I cleared my throat. I could ask about why she’d hesitated to tell me about this, but I reckoned that I could already come up with an answer for that myself.

  “What has she heard, ma’am?” I asked.

  “I’ll forward her email over to you with the details, but the short version is that there’s been a rumour about another dog fight happening imminently.”

  “Really?” I tugged a hand through my hair as my mind started to think about how we could use this and how I could get myself in there. This was the opening I needed, but first, there had to be the opportunity for me to ingratiate myself with the fighters themselves.

  “Don’t jump ahead of yourself,” Rashford said firmly. I turned my head back towards her.

  “Ma’am?” I said cautiously, hoping to hell that she wasn’t going to ban me from trying to get myself in. She gave a long-suffering sigh.

  “No, I’m not going to forbid you from getting involved, but Ross made it very clear that she doesn’t want inexperienced personnel getting in the way.” I opened my mouth to protest against that, but she cut me off. “She asked that I only pass the information onto you if I could trust you to keep it to yourself and not make a nuisance of yourself.”

  My shoulders slumped at that. In other words, if I annoyed Ross too much, she’d complain to Rashford, and it’d be my head on the chopping block.

  “Understood, ma’am. I assum
e I can tell Ste- Huxley?”

  Rashford paused for long enough to make me bristle in indignation on Stephen’s behalf before she finally nodded.

  “Keep it between the two of you. I don’t want to cast aspersions on anyone in the office, but we don’t know if someone found out about Snell being undercover and outed him. It’s more likely that there’s a leak in LACS or that Snell did something to give himself away.”

  “So Ross hasn’t told you what exactly happened to give Snell away?” I asked, intrigued by that nugget of insight.

  Snell hadn’t mentioned it when we went to visit him, but I’d put it down to me forgetting to answer the question, not that Snell and Ross were deliberately keeping it quiet.

  “She doesn’t know, and neither does Snell,” Rashford corrected me.

  I blinked. “They have no idea at all?”

  “Theories, but nothing concrete, no.”

  “I see. Thank you for telling me, ma’am.”

  I’d need to think that over. If Snell and Ross really had no idea what had happened to ruin their operation, then I couldn’t avoid making the same mistakes, nor could we plug any leaks. It was disheartening, to say the least, and not only because Snell had barely made it out alive once he’d been rumbled.

  “They didn’t give any hint?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  It didn’t seem like Rashford, who’d always been upfront and direct to a fault with me, but perhaps she knew more than she was saying and didn’t want to tell me for the sake of saving Ross’s reputation. Still, I struggled to believe that she’d hold back crucial information over something like that.

  “I’m sure Ross will enjoy you asking her any further questions, Mitchell,” she said wryly, giving me a slight smile to soften her words. After a beat, her face grew more serious. “I do want you to succeed with this case, or I’d pull you off it right now, Mitchell. What I don’t need is an officer ending up injured or worse because he got in over his head. I hope you understand that.”