Crack Down

Chapter 19

Q: What’s the difference between a schneid watch and a policeman? A: Schneid watches keep good time. By the time DCI Geoff Turnbull deigned to fit me into his busy schedule, I’d worn a furrow in the floor tiles of the front office. I was getting more wound up than an eight-day clock.

When he finally appeared, it took all my self-control not to bite his head off. Instead, I smiled sweetly and meekly followed him through the pass door into the real world of the city centre nick. We stopped outside a door that said DRUGS SQUAD — PRIVATE. I thought at first that was a joke, till I saw Turnbull pull out a key to unlock the door. He noticed me noticing and said, ‘You can’t be too careful, the stuff we have in here. These days, we’ve got more civilian support staff than we have coppers, and some of them have got more loyalty to their bank balances than they have to The Job.’

How to win friends and influence people, I thought as I smiled what I hoped would pass for agreement and approval. I followed him into an overcrowded office, crammed with desks, VDUs, bulging files, and not an officer in sight. The walls were lavishly adorned with colour photographs of villains. By the look of the pics, most of them were snatched, like mine. If anything, mine were sharper. Maybe Turnbull would be so impressed with my work that he’d offer me a job as a police photographer.

Turnbull’s personal office was partitioned off in one corner. He’d managed to bag the only window, not much of a deal since it looked out on a brick wall all of five feet away. He squeezed his rugby player’s frame behind the loaded desk and gave me the hard stare with small sharp blue eyes. He couldn’t have looked less like my idea of a Drugs Squad officer. I’d expected an emaciated hippy lookalike with a distressed leather jacket and a pair of jeans. Either that or a flash bastard dripping with personal jewellery who could pass for a major dealer. But Turnbull looked like the only drug you’d suspect him of using was anabolic steroids. He lived up to his name: short curly hair with a forelock like a Charolais, the no-neck and shoulders to match, with the gut of a man whose stomach muscles have given up the unequal struggle with Boddingtons Bitter. I put him in his late thirties, well along the road to the coronary unit.

He rubbed a beefy hand over his jaw, massaging plump flesh. ‘So, you’re Miss Kate Brannigan,’ he said consideringly. He managed to make the ‘Miss’ sound like an obscenity. ‘Not much of you, is there?’

I shrugged. ‘Enough to do the job. I don’t get many complaints.’

He leered automatically. ‘I bet you don’t.’

I raised my eyebrows and gave him the bored look. ‘DCI Prentice told me you were the person to talk to. I’ve got some information for you on one of your cases. Richard Barclay?’

‘Oh aye,’ he said, his Yorkshire accent deliberately exaggerated. ‘The boyfriend.’ He picked up his phone and dialled an internal number. ‘Tommo? Any time you like.’ He replaced the receiver and shook his head. ‘I suppose you expect me to believe your fella’s been fitted up? Well, you’re in for a disappointment. It wasn’t Drugs Squad officers that picked him up, it was Traffic, and even if they wanted to plant drugs on him, they wouldn’t have access to anything like those amounts. So you’re barking up the wrong tree there.’

‘I don’t think he’s been fitted up,’ I said patiently. ‘But the drugs in the car were nothing to do with Richard, and the sooner you realize that, the lower the compo’s going to be for the wrongful arrest.’

Turnbull guffawed. ‘Was that a threat creeping out of the woodwork? By heck, Miss Brannigan, you like living dangerously.’

Before I could reply, a doorbell sounded. Turnbull leaned back and pressed a button on the wall behind him. I heard the door of the main room open behind me. I resisted the temptation to turn around and see who owned the heavy feet crossing the floor towards me.

Somehow, I wasn’t too surprised when the custody sergeant from Longsight walked into Turnbull’s office. ‘That her?’ Turnbull asked.

The sergeant nodded. ‘No question about it, sir. That’s the woman who purported to be Miss Hunter’s assistant the other night. She claimed her name was Kate Robinson.’

‘Thank you, Sergeant. I’ll talk to you later.’

‘Sir,’ the sergeant said.

We both held our peace as the feet retreated back across the Drugs Squad office. Turnbull stared at me, a triumphant little smile on his cupid’s-bow lips. I kept my eyes on his, determined not to show any weakness. As the door closed behind the custody sergeant, Turnbull said scathingly, ‘It’s not just you amateurs that can make deductions. I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Miss Brannigan. DCI Prentice’s phone call just made it a bit easier for me to get you in here without a brief hanging on our every word. Especially since your brief’s left herself wide open to charges of unprofessional conduct. I’m sure the Law Society would be fascinated to hear about her interpretation of professional ethics. And now we both know there’s at least one offence I can hang on to you for, mebbe we can cut the crap and get down to the business.’

I said nothing. When his bluster ran out, he was going to have to charge me or let me go. Either way he was going to have to listen to what I had to tell him. And I felt sure that his threats against Ruth were emptier than a dosser’s bottle. The last thing coppers like him want to do is to antagonize the tightly knit club of criminal solicitors. Turnbull carried on staring at me and started drumming his fingers on the desk. Then he opened his desk drawer and took out a packet of cigars. When I rule the world, the European Court of Human Rights is going to outlaw the obtaining of confessions under cigar-and pipe-smoke torture.

He lit his panatella, the only slim thing about him, and said, ‘Soon as I heard the story behind this car, soon as I heard that technically it was your responsibility, I wanted to talk to you. I mean, what better cover for a drug dealer’s wheels than supposedly investigating some daft car-finance scam? Count yourself lucky you didn’t spend the weekend in the CDC like your boyfriend.’

I shook my head. Clearly, I wasn’t going to get anywhere being sweetness and light. Time for no more Ms Nice Guy. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this,’ I snarled. ‘I come along here with enough information to close down a major drug ring and hand you a bloody great score sheet of arrests, and you treat me like I’m the criminal? Jesus, it’s no wonder you lot are always whingeing you don’t get support from the public. If you threaten to arrest everybody that tries to give you a tip-off, it’s a bloody miracle anybody tells you what day it is.’

He leaned forward and sneered. I bet he wouldn’t have if he could have seen how badly his teeth needed a scale and polish. I was surprised his breath didn’t strip them down to the bare enamel on a daily basis. ‘You were supposed to be the bloody lawyer the other night. I shouldn’t have to tell you that it’s an offence to withhold information about a criminal offence. So cough, Miss Brannigan, or I’ll have you banged up so fast your head’ll spin.’

I stood up and leaned on Turnbull’s desk. I was getting good and tired of being jerked around by the legal system. ‘Listen, Turnbull,’ I said coldly. ‘You threaten me once more and I walk out that door and you don’t get another word out of me till you’ve formally arrested me, cautioned me and allowed me to talk to my solicitor. I might not be a qualified lawyer, but I’d be willing to bet I’d score more points than you on a PACE quiz. Now, are we going to talk like grown-ups, or are we going to carry on playing silly boys’ games?’

‘Let’s be clear about one thing,’ he said, still not willing to let the macho bravado slip. ‘I’m not doing any deals with you. None of this “I show you mine and you let my boyfriend go” routine. As far as I’m concerned, Mr Richard Barclay’s in this up to his fancy tortoiseshell specs.’

I raised my eyes to the ceiling and sighed. ‘I just love a man with an open mind. Mr Turnbull, by the time you’ve heard me out, you’ll be dying to release Richard, because if you don’t, you’re going to look like dickhead of the year after the papers have finished with you. And that’s not a threat, it’s my considered opinion.’

‘Sit down,’ he growled. ‘Let’s hear what you’ve got to say.’

Ignoring his order, I leaned against the wall. I took my miniature tape recorder out of my bag and pressed the ‘record’ button. ‘Since you don’t seem inclined to tape our little chat, I’ll do it for you,’ I said. ‘It’ll save me having to come back later and make a statement. I know all your instincts tell you not to believe a word that anybody in custody says, but in this instance, you really should have listened. That’s all I did. The only clue in Richard’s story, as far as I could see, was the business with the trade plates. So I did what any good copper should do: I followed my instincts.’ Turnbull looked like he wanted to throttle me, but the part of him that had taken him to the rank of DCI was obviously dying to know what I’d dug up, and right now his curiosity was stronger than his belligerence.

I took him through it from start to finish, omitting only the details of how I came by the photographs of the inside of Jammy James’s kitchen. ‘Careless of them, leaving the door unlocked, but then, you just can’t get the help these days,’ I finished up, taking the pics out of my bag and spreading them in a fan across Turnbull’s desk.

He poked at the pics with the end of a Biro, as if they’d soil his fingers. Then he shook his head. ‘You expect me to believe this taradiddle?’ he asked scornfully. ‘Eliot James? As in, Eliot James who plays golf with the Chief Constable? Eliot James who runs charity schemes for underprivileged kids at his leisure centres? That Eliot James?’

‘The same,’ I said. ‘Having friends in high places doesn’t stop you being a crook. Look at the Guinness trails. And if doing charity work was a guarantee of staying out of jail, the Krays would still be running London. Look, James is hanging on to his business empire by his fingernails. Check it out. Go down Ice World, The Dinosaur Adventure, Laser Land, or any of his leisure complexes. They’re all empty. His cash flow doesn’t. The only reason DCI Prentice isn’t running a full-scale fraud inquiry into the sleazeball is that she thinks the drugs angle deserves the first bite of the cherry. But if you’re not interested, I know she’ll be after James like a greyhound out of a trap.’

Turnbull leaned back in his chair. The legs sounded like an avant-garde string quartet. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it, how you’ve managed to find all this out so easily when we’ve been trying to get something on this mob for ages?’ he speculated. ‘If I was a suspicious man, I might think it was because you and your boyfriend were in it up to your eyeballs, and you decided to shop the rest of the team to try and get him off the hook. You wouldn’t be the first private dick caught out by the recession who decided to turn their limited knowledge of crime on its head.’

The only thing that stopped me being arrested for assaulting a police officer was the realization that I’d be as much use to Richard as a chocolate fireguard if I ended up behind bars too. So I smiled sweetly at the insult. ‘If I was going to turn to crime, Mr Turnbull, I wouldn’t have to leave the house. Computer crime. That’s where the real, no-risk money is these days. And I’ve forgotten more about computers than you’ll ever know. Look, I’m not asking you for a major favour. I haven’t once said, I’ll tell you what I know in return for you letting Richard walk away from all of this. I’m handing you all this on a plate, and all I’m asking is that you don’t oppose Ruth Hunter’s request for a short remand so you can start to test the value of what I’ve given you.’

‘And that’s all, is it?’ he asked, utter disbelief riddling his voice like a virus in a computer.

‘Pretty much, yeah. You see, Mr Turnbull, in spite of your performance this morning, I happen to think you’re an honest copper. I don’t think you want innocent men put away just to make your clean-up rate look better. And I know the strength of what I’ve given you. I think after forty-eight hours you’ll have the same gut feeling I’ve got about Richard’s innocence, and I don’t think you’ll be opposing bail then. But I’m not asking for any promises.’

‘Just as bloody well,’ he grumbled, ‘for you’d not be getting any.’ He stared down at the photographs on his desk, slowly sifting through them, assessing what he was seeing with the eyes of an expert. Turnbull eventually looked up. ‘So, what has Ruth Hunter told you to ask for?’

‘I want you to call the Crown Prosecution solicitor and ask that they don’t oppose Ruth’s request for a short remand.’

‘That it?’

‘That’s it. Now, are you going to give me something back, or am I going to develop profound amnesia about the events of the last three days?’

He grinned. ‘You know, for a girl, you’re not short on bottle. OK, I’ll do it. I can’t say fairer than that, now can I?’

‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘You won’t mind if I hang on while you make the call?’

This time he laughed delightedly, his hand making a half-hearted gesture that, if I’d been a bloke, would have turned into a clout on the back that would have brought my breakfast back. ‘You’re not a Yorkshire lass by any chance, are you? No? Pity.’

I waited while he did as I’d demanded. He was no more charming to the Crown Prosecution Service’s solicitor than he’d been to me, but he seemed to achieve the right result. On my way out of the door, I said, ‘By the way — Mr Broderick wants to know when you’re going to release his very expensive motor from your compound.’

Turnbull snorted. I almost expected him to paw the ground. ‘He’s been on to you as well, has he? You tell your Mr Broderick that he can have his poncey set of wheels back when I’m good and satisfied that it’s going to yield up no more clues to me. And that could be after your boyfriend’s trial. Now, bugger off and let me get on. Oh, and leave me that tape, will you? Like you said, it’ll save me having to keep you here all day making a statement.’

I handed the tape over with a grim little smile. ‘One other thing,’ I said. ‘Nothing to do with Richard. You know those transfers that kids use — temporary tattoos, that sort of thing?’

Turnbull nodded. ‘I’ve got a seven-year-old that gets in the bath looking like a merchant seaman. What about them?’

‘Ever heard of them being impregnated with drugs and used to get kids high?’

Turnbull pulled a face. ‘I’ve heard rumours, but I’ve never actually come across a case. It’s one of them urban legends, isn’t it? It always happens to a friend of a friend’s cousin’s dog. Crap, as far as I’m concerned. If I was wanting to get kids stoned, I’d just stick something in sweets or fizzy drinks. Helluva lot easier. Why d’you ask?’

‘Like you said, urban legend. A friend of a friend’s cousin’s dog asked a doctor I know about it. She said the same as you.’ I got to my feet. ‘Sorry to have troubled you. Thanks. For phoning.’ And I was gone, quitting while I was still ahead. Let’s face it. Telling Geoff Turnbull about Davy’s brush with the hallucinogens wasn’t the way to get his daddy out of jail.