Bad Boy

7

JAFF?”

“Yeah, babe, what is it?”

“What exactly is going on?” Tracy asked. “I mean, why are we doing this? Why are we on the run? Why do you want to go to London and get across the Channel so badly?”

“It’s better you don’t know too much,” Jaff said. “Like I said, it’s my problem, not yours. I’m only grateful you’ve found me a place to lie low for a few days while I get things in motion down there.”

“But it’s my problem, too, now,” said Tracy. “Besides, I won’t say anything to anyone. I won’t talk. We’re in it together now, aren’t we? I’ve helped you so far, but I’m still in the dark. Sometimes you make me feel like a prisoner. Maybe I can do more to help.”

“You’re not a prisoner. We just have to be extra careful, that’s all, and I know how to do it. It’s better if you listen to me. You’ve already been a great help, Fran. Don’t think I’m not grateful. That’s why I don’t want to burden you with too much knowledge. You know what curiosity did, don’t you? Just believe me. It’s safer this way. Okay? Now come on, babe…”

“Oh, Jaff, no, not now, Jaff. Not again. We just-”

But before Tracy could say another word, Jaff had pulled her toward him and clamped his lips firmly on hers. She offered only token resistance. He was a good kisser; she had to admit that. And the rest of their lovemaking was pretty spectacular, too.

When they had finished, Jaff seemed to drift off to sleep again, and Tracy found herself returning to her growing concerns. This was the start of their second day in her father’s house, and she was beginning to feel a little uneasy about being there. She was hoping that Jaff would get bored with being in the country and decide they should leave for London soon. He had already made a number of long phone calls and seemed to sound pleased with the way things were going down there. Whatever those “things” were.

It had been okay at first, just a bit of harmless fun and a chance to vent her spleen against her absentee father, but now every moment longer they stayed, the more uncomfortable she began to feel. What had yesterday seemed like a mildly exciting lark was now turning out to be something more serious, and Tracy wasn’t sure if she could get out of it. Jaff needed her to get rid of any unwelcome callers, for one thing, though he said she wasn’t a prisoner. She could just walk away, she supposed, and leave Jaff to his fate, but for some reason she didn’t want to do that. It wasn’t only the thought of leaving him in her father’s house alone, she really wanted to be with him, wanted the adventure, so see it through, whatever it was. She did care about him. She just hated being kept in the dark. She wanted a bigger part in his plans. And she felt cut off from the world without her mobile. It scared her.

The cottage was also a total mess already, with empty wine bottles all over the place, stains on the carpets and furniture, and those CDs and DVDs scattered all over the entertainment room floor. Tracy wasn’t by nature a vandal, or even a messy person, and this chaos disturbed her. She had tried to clean up a bit last night, but had been too stoned to make much of a dent.

She was probably a fugitive, too, now. Or at least people might start to think so. Rose, for example. The police knew all about Erin and the gun, certainly, though there had been nothing on the news yet to indicate that they had found out it belonged to Jaff, or that they were even aware of his existence. But Tracy knew from her dad’s work that they often kept things back from the public. It doesn’t always do to put your sirens on at full volume when you want to sneak up on someone and catch them unawares.

They could be closing the net at this very moment, Tracy thought; the cottage might already be surrounded. Then she admonished herself for being paranoid. Most likely, Erin had gone into one of her long silences, and the police couldn’t be too hard on her because they’d just killed her father, which had been on the news late yesterday.

That had knocked Tracy for a six. Mr. Doyle was a nice man, she remembered. He always gave her and Erin money for ice cream when they were kids playing in the street and the Mr. Whippy van came around. He’d taken them both to the Easter Fair in Helmthorpe once, Tracy remembered, when her dad had to work, as usual, and Mr. Doyle had let Tracy and Erin go on rides like the waltzers, the dodgems and the speedway. Her dad would never have let her go on them at her age then, just the boring swings or the merry-go-round with all the little kids.

Jaff stirred, threw the sheets back and got out of bed. It was almost midday, but then it had been another late night of wine, joints and movies. And sex. “I’m hungry,” he announced. “Why don’t you go down and make us some breakfast while I have a shower?”

“What did your last servant die of?” Tracy muttered as she dragged herself out of bed.

“What?” said Jaff. “What was that you said?”

“Nothing,” Tracy replied.

“Yes, it was.” Jaff held her chin. “You made some remark about servants. You think I should be a servant or something? Is that what you mean? Because my mother’s from Bangladesh? Because of the color of my skin?”

Tracy shook herself free. “Jaff, that wasn’t what I meant at all, and you know it wasn’t! It’s just a saying we have here when people ask you to do things they could easily do for themselves. For crying out loud, get a grip.”

“I know what fucking sayings you have here,” said Jaff, pointing his thumb at his own chest. “Where the fuck do you think I come from? Straight off the boat? I fucking grew up here.”

“All right, Jaff! I didn’t mean-”

“People never do. They just assume. All my life people have assumed things about me.” He pointed at her. “Don’t assume.”

Tracy held her hands up in mock surrender. “Yes, sir,” she said. “Sorr-ee.”

“And don’t take the piss.” Jaff glared at her. Tracy could hardly believe at that moment that she had once thought his eyes gentle and beautiful. They were cold and hard now, his mouth sulky. “You’d better mean it, Francesca,” he said at last, his voice a little softer but still not without a trace of menace. “I hate people who make assumptions about me. You don’t know what I am. Who I am. You know nothing about me.”

“Fine,” said Tracy, beginning to wish she’d never brought Jaff to her father’s house, wishing she’d never met him, never fancied him, never kissed him on the dance floor, never made love with him all night. She felt like crying. “I’ll just go and make some breakfast, shall I? Bacon and eggs do you okay?”

Jaff smiled. “Fantastic. And a big pot of coffee, too, babe. Good and strong. I’m off for that shower.” Then he simply turned and walked away whistling as if nothing had just happened between them.

Tracy stood there slowly shaking her head. She would have liked to have used the bathroom to clean herself up a bit first, but it was a small cottage, and there was only one. Instead she went downstairs and washed her hands and face in the kitchen sink. She realized she was still trembling a little. Jaff could be cruel without knowing it.

Tracy could hear the shower running upstairs as she gathered together the food for breakfast. A fry-up was the easiest option, she thought, if not healthiest, so she dug out a couple of frying pans and put them on the rings, adding liberal dollops of cooking oil. Cooking wasn’t exactly one of Tracy’s fortes, but she did know how to fry eggs and bacon, and you needed plenty of hot oil to splash over the eggs to get the tops done properly. First she put the coffee on, then she got the bacon crackling and turned her attention to the eggs. But before she put them in the pan, she fed two slices of toast into the toaster, then glanced toward the breakfast nook.

Tracy bit her lower lip as she thought about what to do. Jaff’s hold-all was on the bench behind the breakfast table. If she wanted her mobile back, which she did, now was probably the best chance she was going to get. He probably wouldn’t even notice it was missing. The bacon was spitting and sizzling and the coffee pot making its usual gurgling sounds as it turned water into black gold. Tracy hoisted the hold-all onto the table and unzipped it.

What she saw inside took her breath away, but not so much that she didn’t first reach in and rescue her mobile, slipping it into a zipped pocket of her new shoulderbag. Then she went back to make sure that her eyes weren’t deceiving her. But no. There it all was, laid out for her to see. Wad after wad of twenty- and ten-pound notes, fastened with rubber bands. And mixed in with them, several brick-sized packages of white powder wrapped in plastic. She counted four altogether. Cocaine, Tracy thought. Or heroin. Four kilos, probably. She delved deeper, thrusting her hand between the wads of cash until, underneath everything, it touched something cool, hard and metallic.

It was only when she had her hand around the handle of the gun, still deep inside the hold-all, that she noticed Jaff leaning against the doorjamb, a white towel wrapped around his waist and a sheet of paper in his hand, head cocked to one side, watching her, a curious smile on his lips, but not in his eyes, she noticed, not by a long chalk. Christ, she thought, I should have trusted my instincts and run while I had the chance.

AS ANNIE had expected, Western Area Headquarters was starting to feel like the main concourse at King’s Cross by early afternoon on Wednesday. Chambers was skulking around with his imported Mancunian sidekicks, whom Annie had christened Dumb and Dumber, and several AFOs were wandering around the corridors aimlessly, or cluttering up the small canteen, including Nerys Powell, who gave Annie a conspiratorial smile, then blushed and lowered her gaze as they passed each other on the stairs. Just what she needed.

Banks had once told Annie that Chambers reminded him of the Vincent Price character in Witchfinder General, and when Annie had watched the film with him later, she had seen what he meant. There was no great physical resemblance, of course, but he had that same air about him, the barely controlled pious zeal that hinted he was satisfying unsavory personal appetites through his work, as well as serving public morality.

Annie would catch him staring at her now and then with a strange hungry look in his eyes that was only partly sexual, and occasionally he would go into a whispered conference with Dumb and Dumber, who would scribble notes, all calculated to cause maximum anxiety and paranoia, which it did. She knew that she and Chambers had parted on bad terms after she had told him exactly what she thought of his handling of the Janet Taylor case, and now she was beginning to think that he was the sort who bore a grudge. More than that, he was the type of person in whom slights and grudges fester for years, ultimately bursting out into vengeance.

Superintendent Gervaise had sent around a memo announcing a meeting of all the senior Serious Crimes staff at three o’clock in the boardroom, when they could expect a visit from the ballistics expert who had been working on the gun. Before that, Annie thought, she would take the opportunity to slip away for a quiet lunch and a pint-knowing that it might be her last chance for some time-and she would take Winsome with her. They had a lot to talk about. Winsome had been concluding the paperwork on her investigation into the hit and run, and she needed to be brought up to speed.

The Queen’s Arms was out of the question, as was the Hare and Hounds. Superintendent Gervaise had proved to be rather adept at tracking down the various watering holes Annie and Banks had started using. But with Winsome driving-she refused to drink a drop on duty, and hardly drank much at any other time-the whole of Swainsdale was their oyster. Well, within reason, Annie thought. But at least they could get out of the town center and find a little village pub with tables outside and a nice view. So many had closed down recently, after the smoking ban, the floundering economy, cheap booze shops and easy trips to fill up the boot in Calais. Some of the best pubs in Swainsdale opened for lunch only on weekends, but there were still a few good ones left.

They found a suitable place halfway up a hillside in a tiny village off the Fortford Road. It faced a small triangular green of well-kept grass with a couple of park benches under an old elm tree. The pub had picnic tables out front, where Annie sipped her pint of Dalesman bitter and Winsome her Diet Pepsi as they waited for their food. If any of the other lunchtime customers were astonished at the sight of a six-foot black woman, long legs stretched out, encased in blue denim, they were much too polite to show it, which indicated to Annie that they must be tourists. Locals usually gawped at Winsome.

It was a fine enough day, warm and sunny again, though a few dark clouds were gathering in the west, and the only nuisances were the flies and the occasional persistent wasp. The swallows were still gathering.

Annie admired the pattern of drystone walls that straggled up the hillside to the sere reaches where the limestone outcrops began. To her right, she could see the lush green valley bottom, and the village of Fortford itself a couple of miles away, near the meandering tree-lined river. She could also see the flagstone roofs and the whitewashed facade of the Rose and Crown beside the mound of the old Roman settlement. The Roman road cut diagonally up the daleside and disappeared in the far distance. The air smelled of fresh-mown hay tinged with a hint of manure and smoke from a gardener’s fire. Despite the activity at the police station and the harbingers it brought, Annie nevertheless felt this was a good day to be alive as she breathed the late summer air. All mists and mellow fruitfulness. The kind of day that sticks in your memory. It made her think of the final lines of the Keats poem she had had to memorize at school: “Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft / The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; / And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”

“Zoo time back at the station, I see,” said Winsome.

“That’s why I wanted to get away for a while,” Annie said. “That and…”

Winsome raised a finely plucked eyebrow. “Come on. Give. I was thinking things have been dull around the place for a while now,” she said.

“Ever since you drop-kicked that drug dealer over a fourth-floor balcony?”

“It wasn’t a dropkick. And it was only the third floor.”

Annie took a sip of beer. Winsome had got quite a bit of press out of that escapade, which was probably the main reason why the locals knew who she was, and gawped at her. “There’s actually been quite a lot going on,” Annie said.

“Only I haven’t been in the loop. Doug and I have been investigating that hit-and-run on the Lyndgarth Road.”

“And?”

“Case closed. Witness got a partial number plate and it was easy sailing from there. Course, it didn’t help that our two victims weren’t talking.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Up to no good. Off their faces on drugs, weren’t they?” Winsome said with a smile.

“Well, it’s time to get you in the loop now. How’s Harry, I mean Doug, coming on?”

“All right,” said Winsome. “Yeah, he’s all right. Maybe he lacks the killer instinct and that extra edge you need if you want to be a good detective.” She shrugged and grinned. “In some ways he’s like a little brother. I try to keep him out of trouble.”

“I never took you for the maternal type, Winsome. Anyway, you can’t play nursemaid forever.”

“I know. I know. He’s a good detail man, though, memory like a steel trap. And let’s face it, how often does the job get physical around here?”

“We can’t all be fearless warriors, I suppose,” said Annie.

“It’s my heritage. My ancestors were fearless warriors. It’s in my genes. I’m thinking of investing in a spear.”

Annie laughed. “You’re scary enough without.” She drank some more beer. “Besides, I’d love to see Madame Gervaise’s face if you did walk in carrying a spear.”

“It would certainly give her something to think about.”

A pale skinny young girl who looked as if she ought to be in school came with their food: burger and chips for Winsome and cheese and tomato sandwich for Annie.

“So what should I know?” Winsome asked after the first bite. “It’s hard to know where to begin,” Annie said.

“What does the boss think?”

“Madame Gervaise? She’s being cagey. Wants to see which way the wind’s blowing. I can’t say I blame her with Matthew Hopkins running around like a man on a divine mission.”

“Matthew who?”

“Hopkins. The witch-hunter general. Chambers. It’s a pet name.”

“I wouldn’t have him as a pet. Or even name one after him.”

“Anyway,” Annie went on, “Chambers may very well be the least of our problems. Things are complicated, and it’s going to be difficult to keep everything in its proper compartment. First off, and high priority as far as I’m concerned, is that we found a gun on our patch, as you probably know already. Rather, the parents found it and shopped their daughter.”

“I do know about that. Wouldn’t you?”

“If I had a kid and I found a gun in her room?”

“Yes.”

“Probably,” said Annie. “I don’t know. Somehow it goes against the grain. Tough one, though.”

“Not for me,” said Winsome. “I’d do it in a shot. No pun intended.”

“Your dad’s a cop, mine’s an artist.”

“What difference does that make?”

“I don’t know,” said Annie.

“But we’re both cops.”

“I just meant that I might try and deal with the situation on my own. You know, talk to her, try to understand. The way things are between mother and daughter now, any chance of anyone understanding anything has gone right out the window.”

“Sometimes it’s not the most important thing.”

“What is, then?”

“That no one gets shot.”

Annie gave a little shudder. “Fair enough. Maybe I’m overplaying the liberal mum. Maybe I’d just shop the little bastard and have done with it. That’s probably why I’m lucky I don’t have any children.”

“Yeah, I could just see you turning in your own kid. Softie.”

“Anyway,” Annie went on. “The house is still in lockdown and we’re waiting on ballistics. Should know more by this afternoon. The girl’s on bail-bed-and-breakfast arrest-and the mother’s stopping with a friend. And you know what happened to Patrick Doyle.”

“Yeah,” said Winsome. “It’s terrible.”

“Plus I had a visit last night from one of the AFOs involved. Wanted to know if I was on their side.”

“Are you?”

“I’d like to say I was on the side of truth and justice, but somehow with Chambers around, words like that turn to ashes in my mouth.”

“But you’re not going to lie for anyone, are you? You don’t even know them.”

Annie put her hand on Winsome’s forearm. “No, Winsome, I’m not going to lie for anybody. Christ knows, I wasn’t in the house, I don’t know much to start with, but when Chambers gets around to me, I’ll answer all his questions honestly to the best of my ability, and if I don’t know the answers, I’ll say so.”

“Can’t say fairer than that.”

“Who said fair had anything to do with it?”

“Cynic.”

“Yes, well…Don’t forget, I worked with Chambers once.”

Winsome gobbled up her burger and started picking at her chips. “Where do I start?” she asked, glancing up at Annie from her plate.

“You know DCI Banks’s daughter?”

“Tracy? Is that her name?”

“That’s right. Though she seems to have taken to calling herself Francesca these days.”

“That’s nothing. Kids often go through periods of dissatisfaction with the names their parents gave them,” said Winsome. “I know I did. I called myself Joan for years in school.”

“Tracy’s twenty-four. She’s not a kid.” Annie shot Winsome a glance. “You did, though? Really? Joan?”

“Yeah. I wanted an ordinary name. I hated Winsome. Didn’t you ever change your name?”

“No. Somehow or other, I’ve always been just Annie. So you know Tracy, then?”

“I’ve spoken with her at the station once or twice. Nice girl, or so she seemed. I can’t say I know her. Is there a problem?”

“Maybe. Not only has she changed her name,” Annie said, “but she’s changed her appearance, too.”

“So? People do. Look at you. You got your hair cut and highlighted. You used to dress like a hippie and-”

“All right. I get your point.” Annie touched her head self-consciously. “True enough. I’m not trying to make anything out of it in itself. You’re right. Sometimes people just like a change. It’s just that she also seems to have disappeared.”

“Seems to have?”

“Yes, well, this is where we enter the realm of total conjecture, or fantasy, as Madame Gervaise would say. Which is why I’m talking to you here and not to her at the station.”

“Because I’m more gullible?”

“No. Because I can’t think of anyone more level-headed. Hear me out, Winsome. You can tell me if you think I’m talking rubbish.” Annie pushed her empty plate away and drank some more beer. Her glass was close to empty, and she fancied another. Given what chaos the afternoon might bring, though, she decided to abstain and ordered a coffee and some sticky toffee pudding and custard instead. “Juliet Doyle, the mother of the girl who had the gun in her room, told me that her daughter Erin shares a house in Headingley with two other girls,” she began. “Rose Preston and Tracy Banks. The Leeds police searched the place on the afternoon of Erin’s arrest. Rose was present. Apparently, when Tracy got home from work that evening and Rose told her what happened, she went ballistic. She seemed most concerned about some bloke called Jaff, Erin’s boyfriend. Erin’s not talking, so we can’t get anything about him from her. Tracy took off almost immediately Rose gave her the news, and she hasn’t been seen or heard from since.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I paid a visit to the house yesterday evening and talked to Rose. I also called at this Jaff’s flat-nice place, down by the canal-but it was all locked up and there was nobody home. One of the neighbors told me the police had already been around asking questions. He seemed in a bit of a huff, kept his door on the chain, said he didn’t have to answer any more questions. He was right. There wasn’t a lot I could do, so I went home.”

“Some people are like that,” said Winsome.

“I rang DI Ken Blackstone in Leeds this morning, and guess what? He checked and told me they hadn’t sent anybody to Granary Wharf yesterday.”

Winsome frowned. “So what do you think’s going on?”

“I don’t know. This is where it becomes pure conjecture on my part. Rose got the impression that there was something between Jaff and Tracy, or so she told me. Tracy certainly seemed unduly concerned about this Jaff, at any rate. Whether she knew about the gun or not, I have no idea. I know this is all mere speculation, but given that both Tracy and Jaff seem to have disappeared from view, it’s my bet that they’ve gone off somewhere together, probably headed south. If the gun does belong to Jaff, then he’s obviously scared that Erin’s going to tell on him, or that the police are going to track him down through it, so it’s easy to see why he might want to make himself scarce.”

“So he’s on the run. Makes sense. You really think he’s used this gun?”

“Not recently, according to the preliminary ballistics report. The point right now is that he was probably the one who owned it, whatever the reason.”

“And Tracy’s part in all of this?”

Annie ate some more pudding, then washed it down with coffee. “Don’t know,” she said. “Either she is involved, and she’s gone with him, or she’s not involved but she’s gone with him.”

“Or she’s gone somewhere else. On her own.”

“Maybe,” said Annie. “But unlikely, don’t you think? The timing is just too coincidental.”

“Circumstantial is what it all is,” said Winsome. “But you’ve got a point. The thing is, I can’t believe Tracy’s mixed up in anything bad. Not the DCI’s daughter.”

“I agree she always seemed like a decent kid, but people change, Winsome, fall in with the wrong company, develop a chip on their shoulder, start to resent their lives or the way they perceive they’re being treated. Rebellion. It comes in many shapes and sizes, and not only when you’re a teenager. Twenty-four isn’t all that old. If she really fancies this Jaff bloke…Christ…”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just remembering my own bad boy phase.”

“Bad boy?”

“Yes. Don’t you know what bad boys are, Winsome?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever really had much experience of them.”

“A bad boy is unreliable, and sometimes he doesn’t show up at all, or if he does, he’s late and moody; he acts mean to you, and he leaves early. He always seems to have another iron in the fire, somewhere else to be. But always while you’re waiting for him you can’t really concentrate on anything else, and you have at least one eye on the door in case he’s the next one to walk in the room, even though you think he might be seeing someone else, and when you’re with him your heart starts to beat a little faster and your breath catches in your chest. You might be angry, but it won’t last, and you’re happy for a while when he gives all his attention to you, and then it starts all over again.”

“Sounds awful,” said Winsome.

“But it’s exquisite agony,” Annie said. “Sometimes he doesn’t turn up for days on end, and your heart aches for him. He goes to bed with your best friend, and still you forgive him, still you want him.”

“You had a bad-boy phase?”

“Of course. Paul Burroughs. But I was only sixteen. I got over it early.” Annie didn’t want to talk about the later bad boy who turned out to be a psychopath. She certainly didn’t have a great track record when it came to choosing the men in her life. Winsome knew about the psycho anyway, and would be far too diplomatic to say anything. It was much easier to talk about Paul Burroughs.

“Was he unfaithful?”

“Of course he was. Bad boys are always unfaithful. That’s the first rule.”

“What else did he do that was so bad?”

Annie smiled fondly as she remembered. “Paul? Oh, nothing serious, really, not at first. Just minor stuff, fun stuff, run-of-the-mill. But he was a daredevil. He couldn’t care less.”

“Like what?”

“Well, one night, after midnight, for example, we broke into the local marina and borrowed a speedboat.” Annie couldn’t help but laugh at Winsome’s expression of horror. “If the harbor police hadn’t caught us, we’d have ended up in France, or more likely we’d have crashed on the rocks or something and drowned. He knew how to get it started-he could start anything with a motor-but he hadn’t a clue how to handle the wheel.”

“What did the police do?”

“Obviously not very much, or I wouldn’t be here with you today.” Annie shrugged. “A slap on the wrist, that was all, really. Or it would have been except…”

“What?”

“Well, Paul had a lot of problems with his family. His dad had gone off with another woman, and his mother was a bit of a zombie. She drank a lot and took tons of Valium. He was so mixed up and angry, you just wanted to hold him and make it all go away.”

“Did you?”

“No. Me? I’m not the type. Besides, you can’t cuddle bad boys. The problem was that he picked a fight with the biggest harbor cop when we got back on land, and he ended up in a cell for the night. That was only the beginning. After that, I didn’t see him anymore, but I heard later that he had a lot of problems with the law-stealing cars, joyriding, then muggings, assault, burglaries, stuff like that.”

“And now?”

“No idea. Prison, perhaps.”

“So he was a bad boy in the making?”

“Yeah. But bad boys aren’t always criminals. It’s more a state of mind. It never happened to you?”

“Sugar, the bad boys where I grew up were really baaad. Not just some sissy skinny-ass white boy stealing a motorboat. They carried machetes and AK47s.”

Annie laughed. “Anyway, who knows? Maybe it all goes along with this change in Tracy’s appearance, the piercings, the name. Like I said, rebellion can happen anytime, take many forms. All I know is that I’d like to find her and get things sorted, and I’d like to do it before she’s got the combined police forces of the whole bloody country on her trail. Either she’s thumbing her nose at us all, or she’s scared, but she maybe needs help, whether she knows it yet or not.”

“And Alan?”

Annie shook her head. “He won’t be back until next Monday, though I’ve got his mobile number for emergencies only. I could call him, wherever he is, as long it’s not some remote far-flung desert outpost. And that reminds me. I should drop by his cottage after work today. It’s been a while. Those poor plants of his will be fair gagging for a drink of water by now.”

“But you aren’t going to ring him?”

“I’m not sure it’s that kind of emergency yet. It’s my gut feeling that if I can get Tracy out of all this before he gets back and finds out about it, the better all around.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Walk softly and carry a big stick. Keep under the radar. Even though we’re only doing our jobs. You’re not tarnished by the firearms business, so you’re still in something of a privileged position.”

“So keep my head down and my eyes and ears open?”

“That’s about it. Once this business gets into top gear, they’ll probably be scrutinizing me as closely as a bug under a microscope. Soon I won’t be able to go to the toilet without filling in a form. First off, if you could find a way to uncover as much as you can about this Jaff, it would be a great help. You might start with Rose Preston in Headingley. She doesn’t know a lot, but I’m convinced she knows more than she was telling me.”

“I take it you’ve got their addresses?”

Annie gave her them. “As for Jaff, I’m afraid I don’t have anything except the address right now. And I don’t think there’s much point in going there again. His first name’s Jaffar, by the way. And the name next to his bell says ‘J. McCready.’ We’ll need to know a lot more than that.”

“I can always use my natural charm.”

Annie smiled. “Yeah, there’s that.” Annie wagged her finger at Winsome. “But absolutely no drop-kicking.”

“It wasn’t a dropkick!”

“I DON’T understand,” said Tracy, holding up the gun by its long barrel. “I thought Erin had taken your gun.”

“Put that away.” Jaff took the gun from her and put it back in the hold-all. “She did,” he said, sitting down at the breakfast table and placing the sheet of paper facedown beside him. “This is a different one. Another one. I got it from Vic. Those eggs will be like rubber if you don’t get a move on. I like my eggs runny.”

As if she were in a trance, Tracy served up the bacon and eggs and poured two mugs of coffee. “But why do you need another gun?” she asked.

“Ta. Dunno. Protection. I just feel safer that way.”

Tracy regarded him through narrowed eyes. She had felt scared at first, seeing him standing there in the doorway, knowing how unpredictable he was becoming, but somehow now he seemed just like a little boy, naked from the waist up, tucking into his bacon and eggs-because clearly no matter what Tracy felt, it wasn’t going to stop him from eating his breakfast, or from doing exactly what he wanted. Tracy wasn’t hungry. Her stomach was too full of butterflies, so she just munched on a slice of dry toast and sipped black coffee. She had expected an explosion of rage when he caught her going through his hold-all, maybe even Jaff hitting her or something, but nothing had happened except this. Definitely an anticlimax.

“Have you ever used it?” she asked.

“Of course. Not this one, but one like it. You have to get the feel of it.”

“To shoot someone?”

“Don’t be silly. Just out in a field, like, tin cans. Target practice.”

“I don’t like guns.”

“You don’t have to. Nobody in their right mind does, but sometimes they’re useful.”

“For what?”

“I told you. Protection.”

“From whom?”

“It’s better you don’t know.”

“The person that stuff belongs to?” Tracy gestured toward the hold-all. “The heroin or coke or whatever it is? Did you steal it?”

“It’s coke,” said Jaff. He paused with a forkful of bacon and egg halfway to his mouth, the yolk dripping, wiggled his eyebrows and looked her in the eye. “Wanna try some?”

Tracy couldn’t help but laugh. “Not right now, thank you very much. I’m serious, Jaff.” She had tried coke a few times, first at university to stay awake during her exams, then later at clubs and bars. She liked it well enough, and it usually made her randy, but it soon wore off and left her feeling shitty for hours. She certainly didn’t want to feel randy again right now, and she was feeling shitty enough already.

“Look, I told you before,” Jaff went on. “You’ve no idea what’s going on. You’ve-”

“Do you think I’m stupid, Jaff? Is that what you really think? The only reason I don’t know what’s going on is that you won’t tell me. I’ve asked you. But you won’t. If we’re going to keep on being in this together I need to know more. You’d be surprised. Perhaps I can help. Just how deep are you into all this?”

“All what?”

“You know what I’m talking about. The drugs. The money. The guns. What are you? Some kind of wannabe gangster? A gun-running coke dealer? Like you just walked out of a Guy Ritchie movie or something? A rock n’rolla? Is that it?”

“I don’t-”

“Because I’m not stupid, Jaff. Maybe all I know is that I’m on the run from the police in my dad’s house with a lad I hardly know, who just happens to have a few kilos of cocaine, several thousand quid and a loaded gun-I assume it is loaded?-in his hold-all. It certainly sounds like a movie to me.”

Jaff smiled at her. It was supposed to be his charming aren’t-I-a-naughty-little-boy-but-you-can’t-help-but-love-me-anyway-can-you? smile, but it didn’t work this time. “I suppose you think I owe you an explanation?”

“Well, yeah. That would do for a start.”

“Look, I didn’t ask you to come with me, did I? It wasn’t my-”

“Don’t give me that load of bollocks, Jaff. You know damn well that if it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t be sitting here at my dad’s breakfast table, eating bloody bacon and eggs.”

“You’re beginning to sound a bit like a fishwife, you know,” Jaff said. “Why don’t you just shut it, chill out and go with the flow?”

Tracy snorted and gave him as disgusted a look as she could dredge up, then she took a deep breath. There was one thing she had to be grateful for. Jaff had been so concerned about her finding the money, the coke and the gun that the mobile seemed to have completely slipped his mind when he checked the hold-all. “You’re right,” she said. “So how do you suggest I go about doing it? Chilling? And, I mean, what exactly is the flow? What should I do to go with it?”

“Nothing, babe. That’s the beauty of it. You don’t have to do anything.”

“Because I’d just like to know what our plans are, for a start, that’s all.”

“Our plans?”

“Well, not so long ago you were going to make a few phone calls, get things organized, then we were going to hook up with some mate of yours in London who does dodgy passports and disappear over the Channel, right? Or did I get that bit wrong, too?”

“No. That’s still the general idea.”

“Then I hope you weren’t planning on carrying that hold-all with you.”

“Give me a break! I’m going to get rid of all that stuff in London. Except the money, of course.”

“Including the gun?”

“Including the gun. That’s why this takes time to organize, why we’re still here. Do you think I’d be crazy enough to try and carry a gun and four kilos of coke across the border?”

“I don’t know, Jaff. I really don’t know just how crazy you are. Right now I think maybe I don’t know you.”

“Just trust me, that’s all.” Jaff reached out his hand but Tracy didn’t take it.

“You keep on saying that,” she said, “but you don’t give me much reason to trust you, holding things back from me.”

Jaff waved his fork in the air. “It was for your own good.”

“What was? I don’t see how.”

“Let’s not fight, babe,” Jaff said, polishing off the rest of his breakfast. He tapped the sheet of paper beside him with the tip of his fork. “Besides, I was about to say something to you before I was so rudely interrupted.”

Suddenly Tracy felt more nervous than angry. She fingered her necklace. “Oh? What was that?”

“This here piece of paper. I found it in a desk drawer in the front room. It-”

“You shouldn’t go rummaging through people’s drawers. It’s not-”

Jaff slammed his knife and fork down so hard he broke the plate and the cutlery clattered to the floor. “Will you just fucking shut up with your what’s right and what’s not right bullshit!”

Jaff yelled so loudly and his eyes turned so cold and hard that Tracy felt herself on the verge of crying again. She was sure that her lips were quivering, and she struggled to hold back the tears. She wasn’t going to let him see her cry, even if he could sense her fear. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

“Is it clear now?” Jaff went on. “Are we on the same page?”

Tracy nodded, chewing the edge of her thumb.

“Right,” he went on, as calmly as anything. “As I was saying. I found this letter in one of the drawers, and it turns out to be interesting, very interesting indeed.”

“What is it?” Tracy asked in a small voice. “Your name is Banks, right? Francesca Banks?”

“That’s right.”

“And your father is DCI Alan Banks of the North Yorkshire Police?”

“Yes. I mean-”

Jaff let the sheet of paper drop. “Your father’s a fucking cop, and you didn’t see fit to tell me?”

“It didn’t seem important. He’s not here, is he? What does it matter who he is, what he does?”

“What does it matter?” Jaff tapped the side of his head. “You lied to me, babe. Are you certain you’re not stupid? Because that’s not what I’m hearing from where I’m sitting.”

“There’s no need to be insulting. So, he’s a policeman. So what?”

“Not just a policeman. A DCI. That’s detective chief inspector.” He laughed. “I’ve been shagging a DCI’s daughter. I can’t believe it.”

“You don’t have to be so crude about it.”

“Make up your mind, babe. Are you an angel or a whore? On first impressions between the sheets, I’d definitely go for the latter, but you seem to talk a whole lot of rubbish about morals and duty, and me being insulting and crude. So just what exactly are you?”

“How would you notice what I do or don’t do between the sheets, as you so crudely put it? All you’re interested in is your own pleasure. I might as well be an inflatable doll for all you care.”

“You’ve got about as much enthusiasm as an inflatable doll. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Fucking? You take your pleasure where and when you can.”

“Oh, you’re a marvel, Jaff, you are. A philosopher, too.”

Jaff pointed at her. “Shut up, bitch. I’m warning you. I don’t like sarcasm.”

Tracy glared at him. “Anyway. what does it matter if my dad’s a DCI?” she repeated.

“It matters because when a copper’s involved they pull out all the stops, that’s why. They stick together. It matters because it makes everything ten times harder. You’re a copper’s daughter. There’s nothing he won’t do to get you back. Nothing. This is personal for him, and he’s got the whole bloody country’s police force on his side. Get it? We’re seriously outnumbered.”

“What do you mean, get me back? From where? From who? I can just walk out of here anytime I want, can’t I?”

“Get real. Things have changed. As you said, we’re in this together, and nobody’s going off anywhere without the other until it all gets sorted.”

Tracy felt a chill and a tightening in her chest. So it was true: in his eyes, she was a prisoner now, a hostage. Or a burden. “I told you. He’s on holiday. He won’t be back till Monday. How could he come looking for us? He’s got no idea what’s going on.”

“But he soon will have when he gets back. Or he’ll hear about what’s happened from his mates and come back early. He could be on his way now.”

“No, he won’t be. He doesn’t care about me that much.”

“Just shut up and let me think.”

“Look,” said Tracy, as calmly as she could manage. “Why don’t I just go? Really. I’ll go back to Leeds right now, as if none of this ever happened. I can get a bus to Eastvale from the village. You can drive on down to London in Vic’s car, get your passport and finances sorted and disappear. It’ll be all over and done with before my dad gets back from holiday. He needn’t know a thing.” The words sounded hollow and desperate to her even as she spoke them.

“Now it’s you who must think I’m stupid,” said Jaff. “Why?”

“Do you think I’m going to let you just walk out of here and tell the cops everything you know?”

“I won’t tell them anything. I don’t even know anything. Remember? You haven’t told me anything.”

“You know about the coke, the money and the gun. That’s enough.”

“But you’ll be even worse off with me as a traveling companion. You can hardly take me with you, can you? I’ll only slow you down. Just let me walk away now, Jaff. Please.”

Then Tracy saw the look on his face and froze.

“Well,” Jaff said. “It seems to me that gives me just two options. Either I don’t let you out of my sight for a second from now on, or…”

And Tracy went cold to the marrow of her bones when she realized exactly what the second option was.