Crack Down

Chapter 7

If the gods had struck me blind the moment I entered the Golden Ganges, I’d still have had no problem finding Alexis. That unmistakable Liverpudlian voice, a monument to Scotch and nicotine, almost drowned out the twanging sitar that was feebly trickling out of the restaurant’s speakers, even though she was seated a long way from the door. The volume told me she wasn’t working, just routinely showing off to her companion. When she’s doing the business with one of her contacts, the sound level drops so low that even MI5 would have a job picking it up. I walked towards the table.

Alexis spotted me two steps into the room, though there was no pause in the flow of her narrative to indicate it. As I approached, she held up one finger to stop me in my tracks a few feet away, interrupting her story to say, ‘Just a sec, Kate, crucial point in the anecdote.’ She turned back to her companion and said, ‘Thomas Wynn Ellis, a good Welsh name, you’d think you’d cracked it, yeah? I mean, she’s not crazy about the Welsh, but at least you’ve got a fair chance that he’s going to speak English, yeah? So she fills in all the forms to be taken on as a patient, then makes an appointment to see him about her back problem. She walks into the surgery, and what does she find? Straight from Karachi, Dr Thomas Wynn Ellis, product of the Christian orphanage, colour of a bottle of HP sauce! She was sick as a parrot!’

Alexis’s companion giggled. I couldn’t find a laugh, not just because I’d heard her ridicule the casual racism of her colleagues before. I sat down at the table. Luckily they’d progressed to the coffee. I don’t think I could have sat at the same table as a curry, never mind eaten one. I didn’t recognize the young woman sharing the table, but Alexis didn’t leave me in the dark too long. ‘Kate, this is Polly Patrick, she’s about to take up a post at the university, doing research into psychological profiling of serial offenders. Polly, this is my best mate, Kate Brannigan, PI.’

Polly looked interested. I winced. I knew what was coming. ‘You’re a private investigator?’ Polly asked.

‘No,’ Alexis butted in, unable to resist her joke of the month. ‘She’s Politically Incorrect!’ She hooted in mirth. In anyone else, it would wind me up to some tune, but Alexis’s humour is so innocently juvenile she somehow manages to be endearing, not infuriating.

This time, I managed to dredge up a smile. ‘Actually, I am a private investigator. And I’d be fascinated to have a chat with you some time about what you do.’

‘Ditto,’ said Polly. Unusually for a psychologist, she had some people skills, for she took the barely indicated hint. ‘But it’ll have to be another time. I’ve got to dash. Perhaps the three of us could do lunch some time soon?’

We all made the appropriate farewell and let’s-get-together-soon noises, and a few minutes later, Polly was just a memory. Alexis had ordered more coffee somewhere during the goodbyes, and I sat staring at the froth on mine as she lit a cigarette and settled into her seat. ‘So, Sherlock,’ she said. ‘What’s the problem?’

I reckoned I was about to ask her something that would test our friendship to the limits. But then, the last time she’d asked me a major favour, it had nearly got me killed, so I figured I didn’t need to beat myself up about it too much. I took a deep breath and said, ‘I need to talk to you about something important. It’s personal, it’s big and it’s got to be off the record. Can you live with that?’

‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’

‘Yeah, and one good turn deserves the lion’s share of the duvet.’

‘Go on, girl, spill it,’ Alexis said. She opened a shoulder bag only marginally smaller than mine and ostentatiously pressed the button that switched off her microcassette recorder. ‘Your secret is safe with me.’

‘Why d’you suppose that line terrifies me?’ I said, in a weak attempt at our usual friendly banter.

Alexis ran a hand through her wild black hair. Coupled with her pale skin and the dark smudges under her eyes, I sometimes think she looks worryingly like one of Dracula’s victims in the Francis Ford Coppola version. Luckily, her linguistic vigour usually dispels such ethereal notions pretty damn quick. ‘Shit, KB, if that’s the best you can do, there’s clearly something serious going down here,’ she said. ‘C’mon, girl, spit it out.’

‘Richard’s been arrested,’ I said. ‘He was technically driving a stolen car that not-so-technically had two kilos of crack in the boot.’

Alexis just stared at me. She even ignored her burning cigarette. The woman who had heard it all could be shaken after all. ‘You’re at the wind-up,’ she finally said.

I shook my head. ‘I wish I was.’ I gave her the full story. It didn’t take long. Throughout, she kept shaking her head in disbelief, smoking so intensely it seemed to be all that was keeping her in one piece. When I’d brought her up to speed, she carried on smoking, head weaving like a Wimbledon spectator.

‘It could only happen to Richard,’ she finally said in tones of wonder. ‘How does he do it? The poor sod!’ Alexis and Richard play this game of cordially disliking each other. I’m not supposed to know it’s a game; things must be bad if Alexis was letting me see she actually cared about the guy. ‘I take it you want me to dig around, see what the goss is out on the streets?’

‘I don’t want you to take any chances,’ I said, meaning it. ‘You know as well as I do that most of the drug warlords in this city would blow you away at the slightest provocation. Don’t tread on anybody’s toes, please. I don’t want you on my conscience as well as Richard. What I’m after is more practical.’ I broke the news about Davy’s imminent arrival.

‘Sure, we’ll help out. I like Davy. He’s good fun. Besides, it gives me and Chris a great excuse to bunk off a weekend’s labouring and have a giggle instead.’ Alexis and her architect girlfriend Chris are members of a self-build scheme, which means they spend most of their spare daylight hours pushing wheelbarrows full of cement along precarious wooden planks. A dozen of them bought a piece of land, and Chris designed the houses in exchange for other people’s skills in exotic areas like plumbing, wiring, bricklaying and roofing. It’s my idea of hell, but they love it, though not so much that they’re not glad of an excuse to give it the body swerve from time to time. I knew taking care of Davy fitted the bill perfectly; it had a high enough Goody Two Shoes element to assuage any guilt at skiving off the building site.

Hearing Alexis confirm my hopes almost brought a genuine smile to my lips. ‘So can you be at the house tonight about eight?’

Alexis frowned. ‘Not tonight I can’t. I’m having dinner with a contact.’

‘No chance you can rearrange it?’

‘Sorry. The guy’s only in town for a few days.’ She stubbed out her cigarette and washed the taste away with a swig of coffee. She must have felt the need to justify herself, for when I didn’t respond, she carried on, ‘I was at college with him, and we stayed in touch. He’s one of your high-flyers, a whiz-kid with the Customs and Excise, if that’s not a contradiction in terms. Anyway, he’s in Manchester for a briefing session with the Vice Squad. Apparently, there’s been a new range of kiddie porn mags and vids hitting the market, real hard-core stuff, and they think the source is somewhere in the North West. Can you believe it, girl? We’re actually exporting this shit to Amsterdam and Denmark, that’s how heavy it is. So my mate Barney’s up here to tell the blue boys what they should be looking for, and I’ve pitched him into letting me buy him dinner. Sorry, Kate, but I’ve already promised the editor a splash and a feature launching a campaign for Monday’s paper.’

I shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll get someone else lined up for tonight, and you can weigh in when you’re clear.’

‘Don’t do that. Chris’ll see you right tonight, I’m sure she will. All she’s got planned is a night in front of the soaps and a bottle of Muscadet in the bath. You got the talking brick with you?’ Alexis held out her hand, and I passed her my mobile phone. I couldn’t help thinking I’d be less than thrilled if Richard had offered me up for a night’s baby-sitting when I’d got my heart set on a night in with Coronation Street and a Body Shop selection box.

‘All right, darling?’ Alexis began the conversation. ‘Listen, Kate needs your body tonight…Girl, you should be so lucky. No, it’s a bit of a crisis, you know? I’ll fill you in later. She needs somebody she can trust to mind Davy round at Richard’s…Eight, she said, is that OK?…Darlin’, you’ll get your reward in heaven. See you at home about six. Love you too.’ Alexis pressed the ‘end’ button with a flourish. ‘Sorted. I’ll give her my keys for your house so she can let herself in.’ She folded the phone closed and handed it back to me.

‘I appreciate it,’ I said. I meant it too. I hoped I wasn’t going to run out of favours and friends before I managed to get Richard out of jail. ‘One more thing — when you’re chatting up your porn expert, can you ask him if there’s any suggestion of a tie-in with drugs?’

‘Why do you ask?’ Alexis demanded, her brown eyes suddenly alert.

I groaned. ‘It’s not a story, trust me. It’s just that there’s an outside chance one of the people involved in this business of Richard’s might be into paedophilia.’

‘What makes you think that?’ she asked, suspicious that she might be missing out on something that would plaster her by-line across the front pages of the Chronicle.

‘It’d be cruel to tell you,’ I said. ‘You’d only be upset because you couldn’t use it.’

Alexis shook her head, a rueful smile twitching the corners of her mouth. ‘You know me too well, girl.’

I stood on the pavement outside the Golden Ganges, watching Alexis’s car pull away from the kerb into a death-defying U-turn. The air was heavy with the fumes of traffic and curry spices, the sky bleak and overcast, the distant sounds of police and ambulance sirens mingling with the wail of a nearby car alarm. I turned the corner of the side-street where I’d left my car, and the ululations of the alarm increased dramatically. It took me a moment or two to realize that it was my car that was the focus of attention for the two black lads with the cordless hand-drill.

‘Hey, shitheads,’ I yelled in protest, breaking into a run without even thinking about it.

They looked up, uncertainty written all over their faces. It only took them seconds to weigh up the situation and decide to leg it. If it had been after dark, they probably would have brazened it out and tried to give me a good kicking for daring to challenge their right to my stereo. Shame, really. I had so much pent-up frustration in me that I’d have relished the chance to show them my Thai boxing skills weren’t just for keeping fit.

By the time I reached the car, they were round the next corner. The mashed metal of the lock wasn’t ever going to make sweet music with a key again. I pushed the control button that stopped the alarm shrieking. Sighing, I pulled the door open and climbed in. At least having the lock replaced would kill one of the hours I couldn’t find a way to fill usefully. Before I started the engine, I called Handbrake the mechanic, checked he’d collected the Beetle without a hitch and told him I needed a new driver’s door lock. That way, I wouldn’t have to hang around answering his phone while he nipped out to collect the part.

I turned left on to Oxford Road and headed away from the city centre. I was clear of the curry zone in a few minutes, and straight into the heart of university residences and student bedsits. I pushed the eject button on the stereo. Goodbye Julia Fordham. Plangent and poignant was just what I didn’t need right now. I raked through my cassettes and smacked the Pet Shop Boys’ Discography into the slot. Perfect. A thrusting beat to drive me onwards and upwards, an emotional content somewhere below zero. At the Wilbraham Road lights, I cut across to Kingsway and over to Heaton Mersey where Handbrake operates out of a pair of lock-ups behind a down-at-heel block of flats. Handbrake is a mate of Dennis’s who’s been team mechanic to Mortensen and Brannigan for a few years now. And, for his sins, he also gets to play with Richard’s Beetle. He’s called Handbrake because he used to be a getaway driver for armed robbers, and he specialized in 180-degree handbrake turns when the pursuit got a bit too close for comfort. He did a six-stretch back in the early eighties, and he’s gone straight ever since. Well, only a bit wobbly. Only now and again.

There was a Volkswagen Golf in one of Handbrake’s two garages. As I pulled up, Handbrake emerged from under the bonnet. Anyone less likely to adopt the anonymous role of a getaway driver it would be hard to imagine. He’s got flaming red curls as tight as a pensioner’s perm and a face like a sad clown. He’d have no chance in an identity parade unless the cops brought in a busload of Ronald McDonalds. Handbrake wiped his hands on his overalls and gave me a smile that made him look like he was about to burst into tears.

‘Gobshites get you?’ he greeted me.

‘Caught them in time to save the stereo,’ I told him, leaving the door open behind me.

‘That’s saved you a few bob, then. The lad’ll be back with the locks any minute,’ Handbrake said, giving the door the judicious once-over. ‘Nice clean job, really.’

‘No problem with the Beetle?’

He shook his head. ‘Nah. Piece of piss. I left it outside your house, stuck the keys back through the letter box. Mr Music out of town, is he?’ I was saved from lying by the arrival of a young black kid on a mountain bike. ‘All right, Dobbo?’ Handbrake called out.

The lad hauled back on his handlebars to pull up in midwheelie. ‘My man,’ he affirmed. He shrugged out of a smart leather backpack and took a new set of locks for my Peugeot out of it. He handed it to Handbrake, quoted what seemed to be an interestingly low price and added on a tenner for delivery. Handbrake pulled a wad out of his back pocket and counted out the cash. The lad zipped it into his leather bum bag and cycled off. At the corner, he stopped and took out what looked like a mobile phone. He hadn’t looked a day over fourteen.

‘Don’t take offence, Handbrake, but these parts aren’t a little bit moody, are they?’ I hate having to be such a prissy little madam, but I can’t afford to be caught out with a car built from stolen spares.

Handbrake shook his head. ‘Nah. Him and his mates have got a deal going with half the scrap yards in Manchester. Product of the recession. Not so much drugs around, not so much dosh to be made ferrying them round the town, so Dobbo and a couple of his mates spent some of their ill-gotten gains on a computer. One of them checks with the scrap yards every morning to see what new stock they’ve got in. Then when punters like me want a part, we ring in and the dispatcher works out where they can get it from and sends one of the bike boys off for it. Good game, huh?’

‘You’re not kidding.’ I watched Handbrake pop the remains of the lock out of my car door. ‘Handbrake? You know anybody on the drugs scene that moves their merchandise in stolen motors?’

Handbrake snorted. ‘Ask me another. I try not to know anything about drugs in this town. Like the man said, a little learning is a dangerous thing.’ Handbrake did A Level English while he was inside. Who says prison doesn’t change a man?

‘OK. How would someone get hold of a set of trade plates?’

‘You mean if you’re not a legitimate person?’

‘Why would I be asking you about legitimate people?’

He snorted again. ‘Well, you can’t just cobble them together in a backstreet workshop. It’s only the Department of Transport that makes them, and the numbers are die-stamped into the metal, not like your regular licence plates. You’d have to beg, borrow or steal. There’s enough of them around. You could nick them off a garage or a motor in transit, though that way they’d be reported stolen and you wouldn’t get a lot of mileage out of them. Beg or buy a loan of a set off a delivery driver. Best way is to borrow them off a slightly dodgy garage. Why, you need some?’

Handbrake likes to wind me up by pretending he’s the innocent abroad and I’m the villain. But I wasn’t in the mood for it right then. ‘No,’ I snarled. ‘But I think I might be about to deprive someone of some.’

‘Better be careful where you use them, then.’

‘Why?’

‘Cos you’ll get a tug is why. The traffic cops always pull you if you’re using trade plates. Not so much on the motorway, but defo if you’re cruising round. If they so much as think you’re using them for anything except demos, tuition or delivery, you’ve had it. So you better have a good cover story.’

I was glad of the tip. I didn’t think this was the right weekend for a roadside chat with the traffic division.