Crack Down

Chapter 6

I walked into the office to find my partner Bill looming over Shelley like a scene from The Jungle Book. Bill is big, blond and shaggy, the antithesis of Shelley, petite, black and immaculately groomed right down to the tips of her perfectly plaited hair. He looked up and stopped speaking in midsentence, finger pointing at something on Shelley’s screen.

‘Kate, Kate, Kate,’ he boomed, moving across the room to envelop me in the kind of hug that makes me feel like a little girl. Usually I fight my way out, but this morning it was good to feel safe for a moment, even if it was only an illusion. With one hand, Bill patted my back, with the other he rumpled my hair. Eventually, he released me. ‘Shelley filled me in. I was just going to phone you,’ he said, walking over to the coffee machine and busying himself making me a cappuccino. ‘This business with Richard. What do you want me to do?’

On paper, Bill might be the senior partner of Mortensen and Brannigan. In practice, when either of us is involved in a major case and needs help from the other, there’s never any question of the gopher role going to me just because I’m the junior. Whoever started the ball rolling stays the boss. And in this instance, since it was my lover who was in the shit, it was my case.

I took the frothy coffee he handed me and slumped into one of the clients’ chairs. ‘I don’t know what you can do,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to find out who stole the car, who the drugs belong to and to make out a strong enough case against them for the police to realize they’ve made a cock-up. Otherwise Richard stays in the nick and we sit back and wait for the slaughter of the innocents.’

Bill sat down opposite me. ‘Shelley,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘stick the answering machine on, grab yourself an espresso and come and give us the benefit of your thoughts. We need every brain we’ve got working on this one.’

Shelley didn’t need telling twice. She sat down, the inevitable notepad on her knee. Bill leaned back and linked his hands behind his head. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘First question. Accident or intent?’

‘Accident,’ I said instantly.

‘Why are you so sure?’ Bill asked.

I took a sip of coffee while I worked out the reasons I’d been so certain. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘First, there are too many imponderables for it to be intentional. If someone was deliberately trying to set up Richard, or me, they wouldn’t have bothered with the trade plates. They’d just have left it sitting there with its own plates, so obvious that he couldn’t have missed it. Why bother with all of that when they could have planted the drugs in either of our cars at any time?’

Shelley nodded and said, ‘The thing that strikes me is that it’s an awful lot of drugs to plant. Surely they could have achieved the same result with a lot less crack than two kilos. I don’t know much about big-time drug dealers, but I can’t believe they’d waste drugs they could make money out of just to set somebody up.’

‘Besides,’ I added, ‘why in God’s name would anyone want to frame Richard? I know I sometimes feel like murdering him, but I’m a special case. Not even his ex-wife would want him to spend the next twenty years inside, never mind be willing to splash out — what, two hundred grand?’

Bill nodded. ‘Near enough,’ he said.

‘Well, even she wouldn’t spend that kind of dosh just to get her own back on him, always supposing he paid her enough maintenance for her to afford it. It’s not as if he’s an investigative journalist. The only people who take offence at what he writes are record company executives, and if any of them got their hands on two kilos of crack it would be up their noses, not in the boot of Richard’s car.’ My voice wobbled and I ran out of steam suddenly. I kept coming up against the horrible realization that this wasn’t just another case. My life was going to be irrevocably affected by whatever I did over the next few days.

Thankfully, Bill didn’t notice. I don’t think I could have handled any more sympathy right then. ‘OK. Accident. Synchronicity. What are the leads?’

‘Why does somebody always have to ask the one question you don’t have the answer to?’ I said shakily.

‘Has his solicitor got anything from the police yet?’ Bill asked. ‘Who’s looking after him, by the way?’

‘He’s got Ruth. If the cops have got anything themselves yet, they’ve not passed it on. But she asked me to call her this afternoon.’ I stirred the froth into the remains of my coffee and watched it change colour.

‘So what have we got to go at?’

‘Not a lot,’ I admitted. ‘Frankly, Bill, there aren’t enough leads on this to keep one person busy, never mind the two of us.’

‘What were you planning on doing?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know anybody on the Drugs Squad well enough to pick their brains. So that leaves Della.’

Bill nodded. ‘She’ll be as keen to help as me and Shelley.’

‘She should be,’ I agreed. Not only did Detective Chief Inspector Della Prentice owe me a substantial professional favour in return for criminals translated into prisoners. Over the past few months, she’d also moved into that small group of women I count as friends. If I couldn’t rely on her support, I’d better send my judgment back to the manufacturer for a major service. ‘The only other thing I can think of is cruising the city centre tonight looking for another serious motor with trade plates on it.’

‘The logic presumably being that if they’ve lost the car they were counting on, they’ll need another one?’ Bill asked. ‘Even though the drugs have gone?’

‘It’s all I’ve got. I’m hoping that our man will be out and about, trying to find out who’s got a parcel of crack they shouldn’t have. But that’s a one-person job, Bill. Look, leave me numbers where I can reach you, day or night. I promise, if I get anywhere and I need an extra pair of hands, I’ll call you right away.’

‘That’s truly the only lead you’ve got? You’re not holding out on me?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘Believe me, Bill, if I thought there was anything for you to do, I’d be on my hands and knees begging,’ I said, only half joking.

‘Well, let’s see what Della has to say. Right, team, let’s get some work done!’ He strolled back over to Shelley’s desk. ‘This bit here, Shelley. Can we shift it further up the report, so all the frightening stuff hits them right at the beginning?’

Shelley rolled her eyes upwards and got to her feet, squeezing my arm supportively as she passed me on the way to her desk. ‘Let me have a look, Bill,’ she said, settling into her chair.

As I headed for my own office, Bill looked up and smiled. I think it was meant to reassure me. It didn’t. I closed my door and dropped into my chair like a stone. I put a hand out to switch on my computer, but there didn’t seem a lot of point. I swivelled round and looked out of the window at the city skyline. The lemon geranium on the sill was drooping. Knowing my track record with plants, my best friend Alexis had given me the geranium, confidently predicting it was indestructible. I tried not to see its impending death as an omen and turned away. Time was slipping past, and I didn’t seem to be able to take any decisive action to relieve the sense of frustration that was burning inside me like indigestion.

‘Come on, Brannigan,’ I urged myself, picking up the phone. At least I could get the worst job over with. When the phone was answered, I said, ‘Andrew Broderick, please.’

Moments later, a familiar voice said, ‘Broderick.’

‘Andrew, it’s Kate Brannigan. I have good news and bad news,’ I said. ‘The good news is that we’ve found the car, undamaged.’

‘That’s tremendous,’ he said, his astonishment obvious. ‘How did you manage that?’

‘Pure chance, unfortunately,’ I said. ‘The bad news, however, is that the police have impounded it.’

‘The police? But why?’

I sighed. ‘It’s a bit complicated, Andrew,’ I said. Brannigan’s entry for the understatement of the year contest. When I’d finished explaining, I had an extremely unhappy client.

‘This is simply not on,’ he growled. ‘What right have they got to hang on to a car that belongs to my company?’

‘It’s evidence in a major drugs case.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ he exploded. ‘If I don’t get that car back, this operation is going to cost me about as much as the scam. How the hell am I going to lose that in the books?’

I didn’t have the answer. I made some placatory noises, and got off the line as fast as I could. Staring at the wall, I remembered a loose end that was hanging around from Broderick’s job, so I rang my local friendly finance broker.

Josh Gilbert and I have an arrangement: he runs credit checks on dodgy punters for me and I buy him dinner a lot. Anything else he can help us with we pay through the nose for.

It turned out that Josh was out of town, but his assistant Julia was around. I explained what I wanted from her and she said, ‘No problem. I can’t promise I’ll get to it today, but I’ll definitely fax it to you by Tuesday lunch time. Is that OK?’

It would have to be. The one free favour Josh had ever done me was introducing me to Detective Chief Inspector Della Prentice. My next call was to her direct line. She answered on the second ring. ‘DCI Prentice,’ she said crisply.

‘Della, it’s Kate,’ I said. Even to me, my voice sounded weary.

‘Kate! Thanks for getting back to me,’ she said.

‘Sorry? I didn’t know you’d been trying to get hold of me,’ I replied, shuffling the papers on my desk in case I’d missed a message.

‘I spoke to your machine an hour or so ago. When I heard what had happened to Richard,’ Della said. ‘I just wanted you to know that I don’t believe a word of it.’

I felt a lump in my throat, so I swallowed hard and concentrated very hard on the jar of pencils by my phone. ‘Me neither,’ I said. ‘Del, I know it’s not your manor, but I need all the help I can get on this one.’

‘Goes without saying, Kate. Look, it’s not going to be easy for me to get access to the case information or any forensic evidence, but I’ll do what I can,’ she promised.

‘I appreciate that. But don’t put your own head in the noose in the process,’ I added. No matter how much they spend on advertising to tell us different, anyone who has any contact with real live police officers know that The Job is still a white, patriarchal, rigidly hierarchical organization. That makes life especially hard for women who refuse to be shunted into the ghetto of community liaison and get stuck in at the sharp end of crime fighting.

‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll find out who’s on the team and see who I know. Meanwhile, is there anything specific I can help you with?’

‘I need a general backgrounder on crack. How much there is of it around, where it’s turning up, who they think is pushing the stuff, how it’s being distributed. Anything there is, including gossip. Off the record, of course. Any chance?’ I asked.

‘Give me a few hours. Can you meet me around seven?’

I pulled a face. ‘Only if you can get to the airport,’ I said. ‘I have a plane to meet.’

‘No problem.’

‘Oh yes it is. Richard’s son’s going to be on it. And the one thing he mustn’t find out is that his dad’s in the nick on drugs charges.’

‘Ah,’ Della said. It was a short, clipped exclamation.

‘I take it that response means you don’t want to share the child-minding?’

‘Correct. Count me out. Look, I’ll dig up all I can and meet you at Domestic Arrivals in Terminal I, at the coffee counter, just as you come in. Around quarter to seven, OK?’

I didn’t want to wait that long, but Della wasn’t the sort to hang around either. If quarter to seven was when she wanted to meet, then quarter to seven was the soonest she could see me with the information I needed. ‘I’ll see you then. Oh, one other thing. I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the drugs, but there was a Polaroid picture of a young kid in handcuffs, you know, bondage-style, in the car. Probably just dropped by one of the villains. But maybe you could ask around and see if there’s anybody that Vice have in the frame for paedophilia who’s also got form for drugs.’

‘Can do.’

‘And Della?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Thanks.’

‘You know what they say. A friend in need…’

‘Is a pain in the ass,’ I finished. ‘See you.’ I put the phone down. At last I felt things were starting to move.

The conversation with Della had reminded me of the part of the problem I’d deliberately been ignoring. Davy. Not that he was in himself a problem. It’s just that I wasn’t very good at keeping eight-year-old boys happy when I was eight myself, and I haven’t improved with age. According to Richard, Davy was the only good thing to come out of his three-year marriage, and his ex-wife Angie seemed more determined with each passing year to reduce his contact with the only child he was likely to have if he stayed with me. So it was imperative that Davy didn’t go back from his half-term holiday with lurid tales of Daddy in the nick.

Which sounded simple if you said it very fast. Unless we could spring Richard in the next day or two, however, it was going to be extremely complicated. Richard and I had agreed an initial lie, which should hold the fort for a day or two. After that, it was going to get complicated. While Davy might just believe his dad had had to dash abroad on an urgent, chance-in-a-lifetime job, it wasn’t going to be easy to explain why Richard couldn’t get home again. There may be parts of the world where the transport isn’t too reliable on account of wars and famine, but unfortunately most of them don’t run to major rock venues. Either way, whether it took hours or days, I was going to need some assistant minders, if only to baby-sit while I rambled the city centre streets looking for fast cars with trade plates. And there aren’t very many people I’d trust to do that.

I picked up the phone again and tapped in Alexis Lee’s office number. ‘Chronicle crime desk,’ a young man’s voice informed me.

‘Alexis, please.’

‘Sh’not’ere,’ came the snippy reply.

‘I need to speak to her in a hurry. You wouldn’t happen to know where I can get hold of her?’ I asked, clinging to my manners by my fingernails. My Granny Brannigan always said politeness cost nothing. But then, she never had to face the humiliation of dealing with lads who still think a yuppie is something to aspire to.

‘’Zit’bout’story?’ he demanded. ‘You c’n tell me if it is.’

‘Not as such,’ I said through clenched teeth. I could hear my Oxford accent becoming more Gown than Town by the second. ‘Not yet, anyway. Look, I know you’re a very busy person, and I don’t want to waste any of your precious time, but it’s awfully important that I speak to Alexis. Do you know where she is?’

There’s a whole generation of young lads who are either so badly educated or so thick skinned they don’t even notice when they’re being patronized. The guy on the phone could have featured in a sociology lecture as an exemplar of the type. ‘Sh’s a’ lunch,’ he gabbled.

‘And do we know where?’

‘Gone f’r a curry.’

That was all I needed to know. There might be three dozen curry restaurants strung out along the mile-long stretch of Wilmslow Road in Rusholme, but everybody has their favourite. Alexis’s current choice was only too familiar. ‘Thanks, sonny,’ I said. ‘I’ll remember you in my letter to Santa.’

I was out of my seat before I’d put the phone back. I crossed my office in five strides and walked into the main office. ‘Shelley, I’m off to the Golden Ganges. And before you ask how I can eat at a time like this, don’t. Just don’t.’