Peter Robinson - Blood At The Root

“Impressive,” said Banks. “But surely Motcombe must have suspected he’d react that way? Why did he even tell Jason in the first place?”

“I think Nev really did miscalculate the intensity of Jason’s reaction. It would also have been pretty hard to keep anything like that from him. Nev fell in love with what he thought was his impeccable rhetoric, and he figured the best thing was to bring Jason in right from the start. No way, he thought, could anyone not see the absolute perfection of his logic and irony. At that point also, remember, he’d no idea how violently anti-drugs Jason was. It had simply never come up before.” Craig shook his head. “I was there. Nev was absolutely stunned at Jason’s negative reaction.”

“What happened next?”

“They argued. Nev couldn’t convince him. In the end he said he’d abandon the idea.”

“But he didn’t?”

“No way. Too much money in it. He just cut Jason out.”

“But Jason knew?”

“I think by then he was pretty certain Nev wouldn’t give up potential profits that easily.”

“So Jason knew about the proposed drug deal and Motcombe was worried he’d go to the police.”

“That was always a possibility, yes. But even more of a threat was that he’d talk to other ranking neo-Nazis. Nev’s peers and colleagues. Some of whom felt exactly the way Jason did about drugs. Think about it. If Jason could convince them Nev was nothing but a petty thief and a drug dealer, then Nev would never be able to hold his head up in the movement again. He’d be ostracized. Hypocrisy reigns in the far right every bit as much as it does in most other places. There’s another thing, too.”

“What’s that?”

“Jason had charisma. He was popular. Nev was coming to see him as a rival for power – and power meant money for Nev. So Nev was getting paranoid about Jason. It was Jason who made first contact with most of our members. It was Jason they went to when they had problems with the ideology of beating the crap out of some poor black or Asian kid. Jason who set them straight.”

“So Jason was making inroads on Motcombe’s position?”

“Exactly.”

Banks nodded. He found a rubbish bin and dropped his empty chip packet in it. They were near Keizersgracht now, not too far from the hotel.

“What was your role in all this?”

“Like I said, Nev wanted someone close, someone in the league to keep tabs on Mark. Obviously Jason wasn’t going to do it, so I was the next logical choice. I hadn’t been around as long as Jason, but I did have an impressive criminal record, including drugs charges.”

“So what it comes down to is that Motcombe had a pretty good motive for wanting Jason out of the way.”

Craig nodded. “Exactly. That’s why I needed to talk to you. To fill you in on it all. I don’t know who killed Jason. I wasn’t privy to that. Nev likes to keep his left hand and his right hand quite independent from one another. But I do know the background.”

They paused at a bridge. A young couple stood holding hands and looking into the reflections of lights in the water. “Where do you want me to go with this?” Banks asked.

“Wherever it takes you. I didn’t have you brought here to tell you to lay off, if that’s what you think. And it’s not a competition, or a race. Whatever we can get Motcombe for is fine with me. And with Superintendent Burgess. That’s why he agreed to arrange this meeting. All I’m asking is that you hold off moving against Nev until you’ve got something you’re certain will put him away for a long time.” He grinned. “Oh, and I’d appreciate it if you don’t blow my cover. I value my life, and I might need to stick around awhile longer to see what he gets up to next.”

“When is this drug deal supposed to take place?”

“The heroin’s already on its way.”

They reached the door of Banks’s hotel. He thought for a moment, then said, “All right.”

“Appreciate it, sir.”

“Coming in?”

“No. Got to go. I’m staying somewhere else.”

“Take care, then.”

“I will. Believe me.”

They shook hands, and Craig wandered off down the canal. Banks looked up at the hotel’s facade. It was still early. He wasn’t tired and didn’t fancy sitting in a cramped room watching Dutch television. He also had a lot to think about. Zipping up his jacket against the chill, he wandered off in search of a quiet bar.

Susan put her hands behind her head, rested back on the pillow and sighed.

“Was that a sigh of contentment,” Gavin asked, “or disappointment?”

She laughed and nudged him gently. “You should know. You had something to do with it.”

“ I did? Little old me?”

And to think that not more than an hour ago she’d had cold feet. When they had got back to her flat, she had asked Gavin in and one thing led to another, as she had known and hoped it would when she agreed to the second bottle of wine. But when the crucial decision came out into the open, there was an embarrassing moment when it turned out that neither of them had any protection. Well, it was good in a way, Susan realized. It meant that he wouldn’t think she was a slut, and she didn’t think he had taken her out to dinner in the expectation of ending up in her bed. But it was bloody awkward, nonetheless.

Luckily, there was an all-night chemist’s on York Road, not more than a couple of hundred yards away, and Gavin threw on his jacket and set off. While he was gone, Susan started to get nervous and have second thoughts. Instead of giving in to them, she busied herself tidying up the place, especially the bedroom, throwing clean sheets on the bed, and when he came back she found, after a little kissing and caressing, that her resolve was just as strong as before.

And now, as she basked in the afterglow, she was glad she had made the decision. One of Chopin’s piano concertos – she didn’t know which one – played softly from the living room.

“Well, I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate,” said Gavin. His hand brushed Susan’s thigh and started sliding up over her stomach.

“Mmm. Me neither.”

“And I’ll tell you something else,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ll bet we’re having a better victory celebration than anyone. Even golden boy, wherever he is.”

Something about the mention of Banks’s name gave Susan a moment of uneasiness, the way she had felt naked talking on the telephone to Banks when the Jason Fox case started. But it passed. She smiled and stretched, feeling a little sleepy from the wine and sex. “Oh, he’s probably not having such a bad time,” she said. “He does all right.”

“What makes you think that? You don’t know where he is or what he’s doing.”

“I do know where he is.”

Gavin’s hand rested on her breast. He had soft hands, like silk brushing her warm skin. She felt her nipple harden. “You know?” His hand moved again, downward.

Susan gave a little gasp. “Yes. Amsterdam. He’s gone to Amsterdam.”

“Lucky devil,” said Gavin. Then he did something with his hand that made Susan realize she wasn’t all that sleepy after all.

Finding Jimmy Riddle wearing out the carpet back at Eastvale Divisional HQ had about the same effect on Banks’s stomach as the dodgy landing.

The plane had banked sharply and plunged into thick cloud. By the time Banks had seen the runway, they were practically on it, still at an awkward angle, and for one stomach-lurching moment he had been certain the pilot was coming in too steeply and would crash the plane, wing first. But it leveled out in time, and apart from a little more bouncing and swaying than usual, the landing had gone without incident.