Val Mcdermid - Blue Genes

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There was one salt-and-pepper chicken wing left. My heart said yes, my head said no. It would be a lot easier to enlist Richard’s help if he wasn’t harbouring a grudge. ‘There you go,’ I said, shoving the foil container towards him. There was none of that false politesse about Richard. No, ‘Oh no, I couldn’t possibly.’ I filled my bowl with spicy vermicelli and added a crab cake wrapped in sesame seeds and a couple of Szechuan king prawns. ‘I was at Garibaldi’s earlier on,’ I said casually.

Richard’s teeth stopped their efficient stripping job. ‘For fun?’ he asked incredulously.

‘What do you think?’

‘Not,’ he said with a grin.

‘You’d be right. You know Denzel Williams?’

He went back to his chicken wing, sucking it noisily as he nodded. ‘I know the Weasel,’ he said eventually. ‘So called because of his ability to worm his way out of any deal going. Doesn’t matter how tight you think you’ve got him tied up. Doesn’t even matter if you’ve got your lawyer to draw up the paperwork. If Weasel Williams wants out, he’ll get out.’

‘Does he do the business for his bands?’

Richard shrugged noncommittally, filling his bowl again. ‘I’ve not heard many complaints. He seems to have a deal going with Devlin — he does the flyposting for all of the man’s venues, and he has a ticket agency going on the side as well. He bought a jobbing printer’s last year, so now he prints all his own posters and a lot of the band merchandising as well. T-shirts, posters, programmes, flyers. And, of course, he manages bands as well. He’s one of the serious players.’

‘He’s been having a taste of the same agg as Dan and the boys.’

Richard looked surprised. ‘Weasel has? You must be looking at some operator, then. With Devlin’s muscle to call on, I can’t see the Weasel taking it from some street punk.’

‘That’s what I figured. I need to find out who is behind it, and I don’t think Denzel Williams knows. But somebody must.’ There was a short silence while we ate and digested what we’d been saying. ‘I need your help, Richard,’ I said.

He stopped eating. He actually stopped eating to look at me and consider what I’d just said. When Richard and I first got together, we’d both been wary, like experimental mice who have learned that certain activities result in pain and damage. Somehow, we’d managed to build a relationship that felt equal. We gave each other space, neither preventing the other from doing the things we felt were important. It had taken real strength from both of us not to interfere with the other’s life when we felt we knew better, but mostly we’d managed it. Then a year before, I’d had to call in every favour anybody ever owed me to get him out of jail. He’d been stripped of power, reliant on me, my skills and my contacts. Since then, our relationship had been off balance. His last attempt to square things between us had nearly cost us the relationship and driven me into someone else’s arms. Maybe I finally had a real opportunity to let him take the first step towards evening the scores. ‘What is it you think I can do for you?’ he asked, his voice giving nothing away.

‘You know every body in the rock business in this town. Half of them must owe you. I need you to call in a couple of favours and get me some kind of a lead into who’s pulling the strings here.’

He shrugged and started eating again. ‘If the Weasel doesn’t know, I don’t know who will. He’s got the best grapevine in town.’

‘I can’t believe it’s better than yours,’ I said, meaning it. ‘Besides, there must be people who wouldn’t lose any sleep at the thought of Devlin and the Weasel getting a hard time. They might be keeping their mouths shut out of pure Schadenfreude .’

‘Or fear,’ Richard pointed out.

‘Or fear. But they’re not necessarily going to be afraid of talking to you off the record, are they? If they trust you as much as you seem to think, they’ll have slipped you unattributable stuff before without any comebacks. So they know in advance that you’re not going to drop them in the shit with the Weasel or with Devlin himself.’

Richard ran a hand along his jaw and I heard the faint rasp of the day’s stubble. Normally, it’s a sound I find irresistibly erotic, but for once it had no effect. There was too much going on under the surface of this conversation.

‘Sure, I’ve covered their backs before. But I’ve never asked questions like this before. It’s a bit different from getting the latest goss on who’s signing deals with whom. Nosing into stuff like this is your business, not mine. If I put the word around that I’m looking for info on the cowboy fly posters, I’m the one the finger will point at when you clear up the shit. I need to keep people’s confidence or I don’t get the exclusive stories and if I don’t get the stories, I don’t eat.’

‘You think I don’t understand about keeping contacts cultivated? Look, based on what I’ve dug up so far, I’ve drawn up a list of places and people who have been hit. You must know somebody on the list who trusts you enough to tell you what they know about who’s behind this business.’ I took the paper out of my pocket, unfolded it and proffered it across the table. It was so tense between us that if a car had backfired outside, we’d both have hit the deck.

Without taking it from me, Richard read the list. He tapped one name with a chopstick. ‘Manassas. I’ve known the manager there for years. We were muckers in London together before we both came up here. Yeah, I could talk to him. He knows I won’t drop him in it.’ He took a deep breath and let it out in a slow sigh. ‘OK, Brannigan, I’ll talk to him tomorrow.’

‘I’ll come along.’

He scowled. ‘Don’t you trust me? He’s not going to open up if I’ve got company, you know.’

‘Of course I trust you. But I need to hear what he’s got to say for myself. Like you said, these are my kind of questions, not yours. Treat me like a bimbo all you want, but you have to take me with you.’

Richard looked at me for a long minute, then he nodded gravely. ‘OK. I’ll be happy to help.’ He grinned and the tension dissipated so suddenly it was hard to believe how wound up we’d both been moments earlier.

‘I appreciate it.’ I put down my bowl and chopsticks and leaned forward to kiss him deeply, running my hands up the insides of his thighs. For an unheard of second time in the same Chinese meal, Richard lost interest in food. This time, for rather longer.

Later, we lay, too comfortable to move from the sofa. I reached over and pulled the throw over our sweaty bodies so we wouldn’t get chilled too soon. My head in the crook between Richard’s strong shoulder and his jaw, I told him about my decision to hire Don and claw back enough process-serving business to keep him busy. I didn’t mention the Charlie’s Angels ploy; the moment was too sweet for that, and besides, one lecture a day is more than enough for me.

‘Will that be enough?’ Richard asked dubiously.

‘No,’ I said. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have such a strong streak of realism. There are times when it would be a blessing to be afflicted with blind optimism.

‘So what are you going to do?’ he asked, gently stroking my back to show there was nothing aggressive in the question.

‘I’m not entirely sure yet,’ I admitted. ‘Hiring Don is just a starting point. What I’m really worried about is if Bill goes we’re going to lose a lot of the computer-security business. He’s spent a lot of time and energy playing games with the big boys to establish his credentials in the field of computer security. Now, when it comes to making your system secure in the first place, or tracking down the creeps who are trying to steal your secrets or your money via your computer, Mortensen and Brannigan is right up there alongside some of the really big companies,’ I said proudly.