Bad Blood (7 page)

There were dozens. Operational, technical, legal, Hardin dealing with each in turn in his methodical manner. An hour later and he wrapped the meeting up with a final pep talk.

‘The objective is to shut down the city’s drug supply network and catch Fallon red-handed. Once we have Fallon we will be able to round up everyone from him down. It’s been tried before and we’ve always made a hash of the endgame; Fallon has always evaded us.’ Hardin paused, looking gloomy, before smiling and adding with a whisper: ‘Until now.’

Riley glanced across at his fellow officers. Garrett wore a serious expression whereas Davies grinned, eager to be up and at them, kicking down doors and smashing heads. DI Savage smiled at him again.

Afterwards, as they left the room, Savage came across to them.

‘If, Darius – God forbid – this all goes wrong, you’ll be glad to be on a beach four thousand miles from here.’

‘If this goes wrong, ma’am,’ Riley said, ‘I think a million miles might be a safer distance.’

Alec Jackman lay back on the bed in a state of post-orgasmic exhaustion. The girl beside him slept, almost silent, the only noise the faint sound of her shallow breathing. Jackman traced the line of the sheet as the material rose along her legs to her hips and fell down to her waist. She had pushed the sheet down from the top half of her body and Jackman let his eyes rest on her breasts. Round, but small and pert. Tiny goosebumps marked the mesmerising curves and her nipples stood erect.

As Jackman pulled the sheet up to cover her, the girl stirred and yawned, but she didn’t wake. She would be tired. Worn out. Sometimes the young ones were shocked at what he could do. What he could
still
do. Most men of his age weren’t as fit as him, most were heading downhill toward a six-foot hole in the ground and oblivion. At times like this Jackman almost believed he would live forever. Rubbish, of course, but there was no reason he shouldn’t go on enjoying himself as long as possible. And he usually went on a long while. The coke helped, although he hadn’t done much. The drug was mostly for the girl’s benefit. A little inducement to keep her sweet.

Jackman glanced at the bedside clock. He ought to be out of here, he had an important meeting to get to and then home to his wife, Gill. He had promised he wouldn’t be too late and he didn’t want to push things, even though he realised she probably had an inkling of what was going on. She knew the score. Understood the price to pay. All those shoes, handbags, the hired help, the nice house. The goodies cost money and the girl was payback. One squeak from Gill and she could say goodbye to the little treats and the lifestyle as well. Glamour, parties, trips abroad, local recognition. Without him she had nothing.

Then there was his brother-in-law, Gavin Redmond. Gill owed Jackman for him too. The idiot should have been rolling in dough with the yacht business he ran, but he seemed to piss away the stuff. A few years back Jackman had helped him get the company back on a sound footing by finding a new investor and an extra revenue stream. The sideline was far from legal, but nobody got rich keeping to the rules. The bankers proved that.

He sighed and got out of the bed, found his jacket and rummaged in a pocket for his pack of cigarettes. Like the cocaine, he knew he shouldn’t, but this would be the first of the day. Self-control. Like with the girl. He’d come as the gasp from her own orgasm spread a smile across her face. Now Jackman smiled too. A real cutie, this one.

The lighter flared and he drew on the cigarette. Redmond was pissed off about the girl. As he would be, the girl being his own daughter, Jackman’s niece. Not blood related of course, but still, the frisson was there. Something to do with some of his wife’s genes being in the girl, Jackman suspected. He thought about Redmond again. In truth the idiot worried him. Lately he’d looked tired and nervous. Jackman had told him to get a grip. He only had to hold himself together for a few days and then they’d be quids in. All of them. On the other hand, one wrong move and everybody was going to get screwed.

Unless …

The meeting could change things and swing the possibility of success their way. Jackman went to the bathroom and then quickly got dressed.

Thirty minutes later he pulled into the car park at Jennycliff, a parkland area to the south of the city which sat above cliffs on the eastern edge of Plymouth Sound. Over the sea the light had long gone from the sky. The daylight, anyway; a swathe of orange off to his right painted the underside of the clouds and below, the city glowed.

Jackman sat in his car, tapped his watch, waited. He shivered as the air in the car cooled. Early evening dog-walkers returned from the park and loaded their charges into the back of cars. A couple of hardy runners headed home.

The minutes ticked by and the legitimate visitors all left. A car cruised in, followed by another, and then another. They parked up one end, the interior light in one car flicking on, a woman and a man visible inside, while a couple of men climbed from the other cars and skirted the vehicle, cameras in hand.

Usually the proximity of sex would have aroused Jackman, but not tonight. He turned his attention away from the free show and towards the car park entrance where a pair of headlights announced a new arrival. This time the vehicle didn’t head up the slope to the top but pulled alongside Jackman’s car. Even in silhouette the pickup looked like it had seen better days. Patches of white filler adorned the dark bodywork and one wing had a large dent. When the interior light went on it illuminated a bulky man with a beard. A woolly hat perched on his head struggled to cover large ears.

The man nodded across at Jackman and then reached over and opened the passenger door. Jackman got out of his car and ducked down into the passenger seat, closing the door. The light went off and Jackman heard the man sniff and cough, a waft of bad air coming Jackman’s way a few moments later.

‘Well?’ Jackman said. ‘This isn’t the sort of place I usually come for a meeting so let’s get on with it.’

‘It?’ the man said.

‘Kenny Fallon said you had something for me. You hand it over and he lets you go about your business.’

‘Cash. Up front. He promised.’

‘Look, you’re a poacher, a petty housebreaker when you get the chance. Some pheasants, a rabbit or two, a laptop or phone if you spot an opportunity when you’re out and about. I can’t see what you can have come up with that’s got Kenny so excited, but if it’s good you’ll get your money.’

The man stirred, shifted in his seat as he retrieved something from a pocket. A little screen popped into life in the gloom.

‘A phone? I hope you’re not winding us up. Where did you nick it from?’

‘I didn’t, it’s mine.’ Fingers swept over the surface of the phone and a movie clip started to play. ‘I want five thousand for this.’

‘Five thousand? You’re crazy.’

‘When you’ve watched it, you’ll pay.’

‘Let me see then.’ Jackman leant over, trying not to inhale the mixture of bad breath and sweat.

Poor quality video played on the screen. Black and grey chunks of pixels swirling. Static on the audio track. That, and the sound of heavy breathing. Jackman was about to ask the man what the hell he was playing at when a bloom of light grew and danced in the centre of the picture as the camera zoomed and struggled to focus. Then the image steadied and Jackman was able to resolve the jumble of light and shadow. As the film ran on he realised this was dynamite, and a minute or so later when the clip finished he had to struggle to contain his excitement.

‘Good, eh?’ A finger touched the screen and the man pocketed the phone. ‘Five thousand.’

‘How the hell did you get that?’ Jackman felt his heart beating, but tried to remain calm. ‘I mean, were you waiting there or what?’

‘I was in the area on business. There’s a holiday home, couple from London. They’re down here every weekend and they’ve got careless. They started to leave a few things around the place and I spied them through the window. There’s a key under the flowerpot for the cleaner. They’ve got the brains to earn all that money but really they’re as thick as they come. I—’

‘Alright, I understand. Get on with it.’

‘I heard an almighty smash as I was going through their stuff. When I rush out I see the car upside down. I recognised her immediately. I was about to make a run back into the woods when something made me stop. I whipped out the phone and started to film. Twenty minutes later the place was crawling with police, the fire brigade, ambos, everything. That’s when I legged it.’

‘Give me the phone.’ Jackman reached into his back pocket and extracted his wallet. Pulled out all the cash he had. Two fifties and a bunch of tens. ‘Here.’

‘A couple of long’uns? You must be fucking joking.’

‘I don’t carry five K around. You’ll get the rest once Kenny’s seen it.’

‘But I need my phone. Anyway, how do I know I can trust you?’

‘It’s not me, it’s Kenny. He plays fair. And when he doesn’t play fair he sends someone round to kick your head in. You don’t have a choice. You’ll get your phone back tomorrow.’

‘Alright.’ The man grunted, retrieved his phone and dumped it in Jackman’s hand, in exchange for the money. ‘Five thousand. Remember?’

‘Sure,’ Jackman said pushing the door open and gulping fresh air. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

The engine started up as Jackman slammed the door and the car jerked forwards and then slewed out of the car park.

Jackman stood still for a moment. Let out a breath. Felt in his pocket for the phone. The smooth surface tingled the ends of his fingers, almost as if there was something magical about the object. He smiled, glanced up to the doggers at the top of the hill and then thought of the girl waiting for him back at his flat.

‘You lucky, lucky boy,’ he said to himself as he climbed back into his car.

Nr Bovisand, Plymouth. Tuesday 15th January. 6.45 a.m.

Tuesday morning, Savage was roused early by Jamie snuggling into the bed and wanting to know when Father Christmas was coming again. Pete muttered something along the lines of ‘never, if you don’t let him get some more shut-eye’, but by then Savage was wide awake, all chance of further sleep gone.

Down in the kitchen for breakfast Pete stifled a yawn, let it slip into a smile and then put his arm around her when she came over. He was finding it difficult, she knew. Adapting to a permanent life ashore was always going to be tricky after the routine of his previous existence. He loved Samantha and Jamie as much as she did, but often he’d only seen them at their best. Day-to-day was a totally different experience for him.

As Savage drove in to the Stonehouse area of the city to catch up with the inquiry teams, she let her thoughts mill around. Concluded that although things could be better, they could be a whole lot worse too.

By the time she arrived the sun had crawled up over the horizon into a clear sky, a smudge of cloud off to the south-west and a change in the wind direction hinting at an end to the cold conditions of the last couple of days. A call to DCI Garrett informed her that yesterday’s door-to-door trawl hadn’t produced anything fresh, so she made her way back to Owers’ flat at one twenty-one Durnford Street. John Layton’s Volvo stood alongside a resident’s parking sign, an ‘On Police Business’ sticker on the inside of the windscreen. Layton sat in the front passenger seat, spooning something from a pot into his mouth.

‘Yogurt and muesli,’ he said as the window slipped down. ‘A bit nineteen eighties but still as good for you now as it was back then.’

‘Sorry,’ said Savage. ‘I messed up. Too eager I suppose.’

‘And I apologise for getting angry,’ Layton said, finishing the last of the yogurt and stuffing the plastic pot and spoon in a paper evidence bag. He took his Tilley from the dashboard, got out of the car and plonked the hat on his head. ‘I blame it on my daughter. Ever since she was born … well, you know, don’t you?’

Savage did know. When her own daughters, the twins, Samantha and Clarissa, had been born, something had changed in the way she approached police work. Cases involving violence towards the innocent or powerless became magnified in their importance. The crimes became personal, as if they had been committed against her own family, and the anger and despair could only be ameliorated by catching the perpetrators. Or, as in the case of the man who’d tried to abduct her daughter Samantha – the serial killer Matthew Harrison – seeing that he received a fiery retribution.

‘Can I go in?’ Savage asked, swallowing a lump of emotion.

‘Yes, of course. I’ve nearly finished so there’s no need to worry about suiting up this time. Just about to check the U-bends in the bathroom and then I’m done.’

‘U-bends?’ Savage said. ‘As in plumbing?’

‘Yes. You get hair and nail clippings and all sorts in them. You should have a gander at yours sometime, you’d be surprised how much gets stuck down in amongst the sludge and gunge.’

‘Yuck,’ Savage wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t want to think about it. If I want to get them cleaned I’ll call a plumber.’

‘If you can find one.’

They went down the steps and into the basement flat where Layton disappeared to his plumbing duties. Savage went into the living room, where a set of floodlights on a stand illuminated several boxes of papers and files stacked ready for dispatch to the station.

She wandered out of the living room and down the corridor. Floorboards had been pulled up in places and a section of plasterboard cut away from a wall where a patch of paint appeared fresher than the rest of the flat. In the bathroom the white floor tiles gleamed under the glare of another set of lights. Layton’s legs sprawled across the tiles, scrabbling for purchase on the shiny surface. His body was wedged under the bath where he’d removed a panel from the side. Banging, huffing and the occasional swear word came floating out. Savage left him to it and moved onto the bedroom. The bed had been stripped of the Barbie cover and sheets and the tea chest Owers used as a linen bin contained nothing but air. Savage wasn’t sure what she was looking for; Layton and his team usually went through a crime scene like locusts through a field of crops and it was unlikely they would miss anything.